23. Silas
When I finally get free from the last seminar, I get in the car and drive home.
On the way I pick up several different brands of hot chocolate mix, and somewhere between the second and third option, I also pull a pink and blue mug off the shelf before I can talk myself out of it, because it reminds me of her.
I stand there for a second, mug in hand, and think: this is insane.
Why am I trying this hard for this woman?
I don’t have a good answer, so I buy the mug anyway.
Back at the apartment, the light is warm, the last stretch of the day painting the walls in shades of orange. Green tea made, her hot chocolate ready in the new mug, I check the clock.
Four past eight.
Four minutes, Silas. You told her after eight. That could mean eight thirty, nine, or even eleven.
Right then, there’s a knock at the door.
Something lifts in my chest when I open it and find her standing there, shy, yellow rain jacket, that disheveled bun.
I step back to let her in, and from the moment she leaves her jacket and laptop by the entrance, my body becomes hungry for contact, so I close the distance between us for a kiss.
I hear the small surprised sound she makes, and when I feel her hands at the base of my back pulling me toward her, I’m the one who can’t mask the satisfaction.
Because in the past twenty-four hours, every thought I’ve had has been hijacked by images of her in my lap, her eyes going bright when I touch her, and that damn smile of hers that seems to go straight to my limbic system like it owns the place.
“God, I missed you,” I tell her, and I’m as caught off guard by the admission as she is. I swallow against a knot in my throat as I look at her.
Her features settle, and with a smile on her lips, she whispers, “I missed you too.”
That’s all I need to hear before I kiss her again. I don’t know how long I hold her like that, only that at some point I break the kiss and guide her to the kitchen.
“I don’t know what you usually eat, but I picked up ingredients to make pasta. If you have any allergies, let me know and I’ll adjust.”
She looks at me with a surprised expression, and I’m not sure whether it’s the cooking that catches her off guard, but I find myself slightly flustered at the counter.
I set the pasta down and drag a palm slowly down my face.
“Help me out here, Amalia, because I don’t know what I’m doing either,” I say, keeping my voice low. “I don’t know how I’m supposed to act or what counts as normal, but I know I want you to feel comfortable around me.”
I feel her body press against mine, and in the same low register, she answers.
“I like pasta, I’m allergic to honey, and I don’t know what I’m supposed to do either, so let’s find the right algorithm for both of us, okay?”
I nod, and we both start working on the food. Amalia takes over chopping the vegetables; I put the water on and prep the meat.
At some point I hear her exhale, and when I see the tears running down her face from the onion she’s cutting, something tightens in my chest.
“Let me take that.”
“I can handle chopping an onion, Silas,” she tells me, sniffling, tears still rolling down her cheeks.
She doesn’t understand that her flushed, tear-streaked cheeks are producing a reaction in me that I’d very much like to stop having.
“I know you can, but it’s making you cry.”
“It’s an onion. That’s what onions do.”
“Then let them do it to me,” I tell her and take it out of her hands.
I feel my own eyes start to water immediately, but when I turn back toward her, her cheeks are already dry and she’s watching me with an amused expression. And the thing I was feeling disappears.
We cook together, and I can’t remember the last time I felt this much contentment beside another person in my own space. We anticipate each other’s next move without thinking, and it feels like having an extension of myself in the kitchen.
When we sit down and I watch her take the first bite, my chest tightens. Again.
“Ay Dios mío, this is incredible, Silas.”
I smile, and through dinner she tells me about her day and I tell her about mine.
She laughs when I mention that Rodolfo argued with me over a percentage calculation only to conclude with “mathematics is relative.” It never has been, but I let him keep that impression.
She tells me about her meteorology programming project, and I realize at some point that I’ve stopped eating and I’m just listening, completely absorbed.
She’s so lit up by what she’s working on, by every detail that has to fall into place to get the result she wants, and all I can think about is how I could make sure she always has that kind of excitement about a project.
After we clear the table, we settle in: me in the armchair, her on the couch beside me. She takes a sip of her hot chocolate and then frowns at the mug.
“Is this the same one from yesterday?” she asks, and I try to work out whether that’s irritation or not.
“No, it’s a different brand. It’s supposed to be creamier, according to the description.”
For a few seconds she just stares at me, and I try to figure out what could have possibly caused that reaction.
“You got a different brand?” she whispers, and her eyes go glassy.
Fuck. What if the one from yesterday was her favorite?
“You mentioned yesterday that it seemed too thin, so I thought I’d look for other options...”
Before I finish the sentence, she launches herself at me and kisses me.
It takes my brain approximately one millisecond to move past the fact that she’s in my lap again, and then I kiss her back without any restraint.
She tastes of chocolate and cinnamon, and as if acting entirely on their own, my hands find their way under the sweater she’s wearing, palms flat against the skin of her back, pulling her closer.
She’s so soft, so warm, that I have to remind myself not to hold on too hard.
Her hips shift down, sliding over me for the third time, and I can’t stop the sound of frustration that escapes me.
“Silas,” she murmurs while my fingers continue to trace the warmth of her skin.
“Are you uncomfortable?” I ask, because if she says yes, I know I’ll have to force myself to stop touching her.
She bites her lower lip and shakes her head.
She is so adorable like this, with that look of pure wonder on her face. Yesterday I saw that expression in her eyes and knew exactly where her mind had gone. Maybe she can’t see how incredible she is, how a room lights up when she walks in, how naturally everyone gravitates toward her.
But I see it. And I’ve never been the greedy type, but with her smiles? Her looks? I have absolutely no control.
“How many brands of hot chocolate did you get?” she asks, visibly amused.
“Five. That was everything on the hot chocolate shelf.”
“You got all of them?”
She looks at me with such open surprise that I genuinely struggle to understand what she finds so unbelievable about it.
I don’t tell her that I’d buy her an entire hot chocolate factory just to have her look at me the way she’s looking at me right now. As if I’m the only person she can see on this earth.
To avoid frightening her, I keep that particular thought to myself and give her a more reasonable answer.
“Yes. You can rate them by sugar content, creaminess, and whatever else matters to you about hot chocolate, then we take the average and see which one wins.”
Smiling, she leans toward my lips, and just before she kisses me, she whispers, “I can’t wait.”
I’m definitely buying her that factory.