Chapter 10 - Amber #2
Even as the rest of the evening blended together, her mind drifted back to that encounter at the nursery.
It had been so easy for her to march into that conversation to defend Alex and tell that woman to beat it.
She’d done it before with others, too. She’d stood up to men and women in plenty of contexts.
Even when she had been a slave, she hadn’t been afraid to fire back at Sier or his henchmen.
There had been plenty of times when she had willingly put herself in the line of fire to protect someone else.
But for whatever reason, whenever it came to Eric or Cillian, she seemed to wilt.
She couldn’t bring herself to fight back, and she couldn’t figure out why.
She had always thought she had grown strong in the years since Eric. But seeing him again seemed to have stripped her of that power. That thought wormed its way deep inside her and refused to leave.
Taking a sip of her cocktail, she focused on the taste to draw herself back to the present, back to the conversation with her friends.
She wasn’t going to let Eric or Cillian or anyone take the fun of the evening away from her.
So she shoved those dark thoughts to the back of her mind, forced a smile, and laughed with the rest of the girls at Izzie’s joke.
***
A few days later, she came home from the nursery to the aroma of warm spices, cooking meat, and tomato sauce. Her stomach rumbled. She moved to the kitchen to see Cillian standing at the stove, a wooden spoon coated in red sauce in one hand. A pan and a pot simmered on the stove.
“Hey,” she said.
He turned. “Hey. Chili all right for dinner?”
She nodded. It felt strange not having to come home and immediately begin cooking every day. Having someone who insisted on helping instead of sitting on the sofa and calling her lazy made her uneasy, as if she were waiting for something bad to happen.
After a second, she shoved those thoughts away. She didn’t want to think about Eric or the differences between him and Cillian. Letting herself drift down that road led to too many complications.
Amber walked to stand next to him, looming over and looking down at the sizzling food. The mouthwatering aromas wafted toward her again. She tried to focus on them, not on how close Cillian was to her.
“I can make cornbread, if you’d like,” she said, surprising herself. “It should be ready by the time you’re finished.”
Cillian raised an eyebrow. “I didn’t know you baked.”
She tilted her head, a smile tugging at the edges of her mouth. “There are plenty of things you don’t know about me,” she teased.
“I can see that,” he retorted. “Cornbread sounds nice. I’m not going to get in the way while I finish the chili, am I?”
“Of course not,” Amber laughed. “As long as you’re not planning on baking the bread in the chili.”
Cillian grinned. “You have a nice laugh, you know that?” he said. “It’s nice to hear.”
Heat rushed across Amber’s face. She turned away, unsure how to respond. “Um, thanks,” she said.
He raised an eyebrow. “You’re acting as if you’ve never received a compliment before.”
You’re not far off, she thought.
Instead, she shrugged. She went to the pantry and grabbed the ingredients she needed, plopping them on the counter.
“I guess I just never know how to receive them,” she said.
“It’s pretty easy,” he said. “You get a compliment, you say thanks without acting like it’s the most absurd thing you’ve ever heard, and then you bask in the praise instead of deflecting.”
She laughed again. “I think—oh no!” Her elbow slammed into the mostly full bag of flour, punching a hole into it.
Flour exploded everywhere. It shot into the air, showering white dust all over them.
It tumbled out onto the counter, gliding across the granite to spill onto the floor.
Her shirt had a starburst of white on it, and flour speckled one half of her right arm.
“Oh, God, I’m so sorry,” she groaned, looking at the mess of flour on the counter, the white powder spattered across Cillian’s shirt.
She raised her head to look at Cillian. He looked down at his shirt, at the counter, the splatters that had tumbled down the wooden cabinets to spill on the floor. It looked as though a flour bomb had gone off.
Her stomach twisted. Fear lanced through her, and her heart began jackhammering.
The last time something like this had happened, Eric had threatened to slap her for making such a mess.
She’d only managed to avoid that outcome by cleaning as fast as possible while still trying to keep an eye on dinner.
Even after that, the mistake had earned her the silent treatment for the rest of the night and barbs about being useless at cooking for the next week, despite him still expecting her to do everything.
Her entire body stiffened at the memory. Slowly, she forced herself to raise her head and look up at Cillian. He glanced down at the mess, then turned to look back at Amber. He blinked, something flickering across his face at her own expression, but he didn’t remark on it.
“I’m so sorry,” she repeated. “It was an accident. I’ll take care of it.”
He raised an eyebrow, considering her for a moment. She still felt pinned beneath that gaze. Slowly, he drew his finger through the flour, making a line of granite through the white. He stepped forward, hand outstretched, and slid his finger down her nose, smearing it with flour.
“I think that makes us even,” he said cheerfully.
Amber burst into laughter, which quickly mutated into a sneeze, and then more laughter.
“Sorry again,” she said, unable to hide her relief.
He shrugged. “It happens. I don’t think you should worry about it as much as you are.”
You’d be worried if you had been in my shoes, she thought, though she kept her mouth shut.