Chapter Forty
Over the holidays, Ophelia worked on her treatment room and spent time with her family. She was feeling more confident in her abilities and was going to pull the trigger and start treating at Prytania Botanica in the new year.
It was the first week of January, and Etienne was coming over later that night for a run and practice session.
Etienne: I’m thinking we push to six miles today.
Ophelia: And I’m thinking we don’t run at all, and you come over hungry.
Etienne: ?
Ophelia: Just don’t eat a lame cafeteria dinner, and let me do something nice as a thank you for all your help.
Ophelia: You can run six miles tomorrow.
Etienne: If you say so…
Ophelia was ready, and she knew that she couldn’t keep holding Etienne’s Wednesday nights hostage. But she didn’t want to tell him she no longer needed lessons. She wanted to lie and continue running with him every Wednesday night, but maybe they could still do that occasionally. If he wanted to.
After work, Ophelia started the gumbo. She had had every intention of starting it around noon, but work got in the way.
She could technically have a gumbo ready in three hours, but it was best if the gumbo sat for a beat to let all the flavors come together.
Nothing she could do about it now. She would feed Etienne her almost-ready gumbo and send him home with leftovers so he could have the real deal the following day.
At eight o’clock, Ophelia heard a knock on the door. The gumbo was simmering and almost complete. She just needed to chop and add the okra and finish seasoning.
“Hey, come on in,” she said, opening the door for Etienne.
“Damn. It smells good in here.” Etienne walked into her kitchen and took the lid straight off the gumbo pot. “O, you trying to make me fall in love?”
As soon as the words came out of his mouth, Ophelia could tell that he regretted them. Heat crawled up her neck.
“You should be so lucky,” joked Ophelia to smooth over the awkwardness. “I’m almost done. Why don’t you grab yourself something to drink from the bar cart?”
“The usual red for you?”
“Yes, please.”
Ophelia started chopping the okra while Etienne rummaged around the bar cart.
“The wine glasses are in the right cabinet of the cart,” called Ophelia over her shoulder.
“Got’em,” responded Etienne just as Tigger darted out from under the bar cart with a banshee scream and flew onto the kitchen counter where Ophelia was cooking.
Ophelia screamed in surprise and alarm. “Tigger!” she yelled. “Tigger, you chaotic bitch. Fuck!” Ophelia quickly grabbed the nearest dish towel to cover the tips of her left pointer and middle finger, which she had practically chopped off because of Tigger’s surprise attack.
“Shit, you okay?” Etienne rushed over to her.
“I cut the tips of my fingers.” She winced. “Because of her.” She shot Tigger a scowl. In response, Tigger figure-eighted through her legs in apology and emitted the most pathetic and sorrowful meow Ophelia had ever heard.
“Tigger, you have got to be more careful. You can’t keep surprise attacking people from the bar cart.”
“Let me see your hand,” Etienne said as he reached for her towel-wrapped hand.
“It’s fine. Just need some Band-Aids,” she responded as he lifted off the towel.
Etienne chuckled. “Did you forget that I’m a Traiteur? I’ll fix you up.” He lightly touched her hip and guided her to her kitchen island.
“Take a seat,” he said, patting the counter, and then wrapped both hands around her hips to lift her onto the counter.
That familiar ache that she had been trying to suppress for months returned with a vengeance.
It was so strong and heady, she felt like she could pass out from it.
There was no foul smell like Mateo, just the smell of Etienne’s skin, tree bark, fresh air, and soap.
Etienne grabbed some paper towels and wetted them in the sink. He held out his hands. “Let me see.”
Ophelia extended her left hand with the towel clumsily wrapped around it. When he lifted the towel off her hand, she winced as the movement disturbed the sensitive flesh.
“This isn’t too bad. You don’t need those fingertips anyway,” he said.
Ophelia leveled a stare at him. “So you go with funny for your bedside manner, huh?”
Etienne gently wiped the blood away from the pads of her fingers. “For patients, yes. But for my actual bedside manner, I think I’m more attentive, I would say.”
Ophelia’s jaw dropped. “Did you just flirt with me?” she asked incredulously.
Etienne chuckled, his dimples indenting. “Don’t act so surprised.” His rough hands cradled her injured hand, and he appeared to be centering himself. “I’m going to start, okay?”
“Okay,” she responded.
Etienne closed his eyes and leveled out his breathing, while Ophelia stared unabashedly at him.
She followed the arch of his brows down to the slope of his strong nose.
Her eyes lingered on his perfect lips framed by that beard that she wanted to feel between her legs.
Ophelia’s nervous system was starting to panic at her lustful thoughts.
This is normal, she told herself. She’d learned some self-soothing techniques from her therapist, who assured her that her sexual appetite was completely normal and healthy.
It is okay to feel attraction for someone.
This feeling is real. You trust Etienne.
Even if you don’t want to act on it or he doesn’t, it’s natural to feel attraction.
These are your own feelings. They are real.
She closed her eyes to manage her panic. Etienne tapped her hand to let her know he had finished.
“All better,” he said. Ophelia slowly opened her eyes and examined her fingertips. They were perfectly healed, and the pulling pain from the sliced skin was gone.
“Thank you,” she said as she held up her hand and wiggled her fingers.
“Like brand new.” They remained in their position, Ophelia sitting on the counter, Etienne leaning his hip against it, eye level with her.
The room crackled with tension. Ophelia’s true nature bubbled to the surface.
She was Ophelia Oubre—a strong woman, who spoke her mind, who made bold decisions, who helped others, who was learning how to trust herself again.
She leaned into the trait that felt most natural to her. Boldness.
“E, why have you always kept me at a distance until now?”
Etienne swallowed hard. “What do you mean?”
“Since I met you in that dive bar at LSU, I wanted to know you, and for the longest time, I thought that we would be friends, actual friends. Not just acquaintances through Luke and Jade. But you never seemed to be interested in that.” She paused and observed Etienne taking in the information.
“I guess you always seemed so guarded around me.” She had to actively tell herself not to backtrack on those statements and cover her insecurities with excuses like “Maybe I was imagining it.” No.
This is how I’ve always felt around him… until now.
“I…” He crossed his arms and looked off in thought. Several seconds passed while Ophelia waited in anticipation of his words. Etienne ran his hands through his wavy hair. “I was guarded around you, yes.”
Ophelia’s heart was thumping loudly in her chest.
“Ben...” He trailed off.
“Ben?” said Ophelia with defensiveness.
Etienne nodded. “Ben was so in love with you from the moment he met you.”
Ophelia’s mind flashed back to meeting Ben at that dive bar, Ben buying her a cranberry vodka, Ben chatting with her while Jade and Luke made googly eyes at each other. She remembered the night well. It was also the first time she met Etienne.
“He was not. Ben was just flirty.”
“Ophelia, the man never stopped talking about you from the moment he met you. Even when you moved to New York, he’d bring you up and wax poetically about how one day you’d fall for him.
At that point, I think he only saw you once or twice a year when you came into town to visit and went out with Jade and Luke.
And then last spring, when you two hooked up, the guy really thought that was going to be it for you two. ”
“What? How? I told him up front what my expectations were. I had no intentions of dating him.” Ophelia groaned. “That was a mistake. I should have known better than to hook up with a friend. We’re not in college anymore.”
“Did…” Etienne seemed to gather more courage to finish his question. “Did he ever tell you how he felt?”
Ophelia shook her head. “Never.”
“Well then, you can’t carry around that guilt. Besides, how he spoke to you at Red Dress Run was despicable.”
Ophelia studied Etienne. “But how does Ben correlate with you not wanting to be my friend?”
“I just felt it was best if I kept my distance.”
“But now you…don’t?”
“No.”
“I don’t understand.”
“It goes back to high school. Ben and I had a crush on the same girl, and I ended up dating her, taking her to prom, the whole thing. He always joked that I stole his girl, but he wasn’t joking. I could tell it really hurt him. I told myself I wouldn’t do that again to my best friend.”
“That doesn’t mean we couldn’t have been friends, E.”
“We would have never been just friends, O.”
“Oh,” whispered Ophelia. The air was so dense she could cut it with a knife. “But we’re just friends now.”
Silence stretched between them as a war raged across Etienne’s face. Ophelia held her breath.
“If you want…and when you’re ready, we don’t have to be just friends,” he said tentatively.
Ophelia’s world spun, and before she could stop herself, she blurted out, “But I’m not your type!”
Etienne laughed, his whole face lighting up. “What are you talking about, ‘not my type’?”
“You only date cute, petite blondes. The exact opposite of me.”
Etienne hummed. “I’m embarrassed to admit this, but my past relationships always just happened. I never pursued any of those women.”
Ophelia playfully swatted at his arm. “Poor Etienne. Hot blondes just throw themselves at you.”
Etienne groaned. “This is not coming out well.” Etienne stood in front of her and placed both hands on her waist. “You are my type, Ophelia. Like Ben, I’ve wanted you since the moment I met you, and since then, I’ve been dating aimlessly in the hopes I would forget about you.
” His hands tightened around her waist as if he were afraid she would move away.
“I haven’t, but I’ve tried to. I’ve kept my distance, but you just kept walking into my life.
And at your Passing, God, I was so nervous, O.
” His right hand moved to cup her face. “I was so scared that you would never want to talk to me again after you cried for hours on me. I know how you are, Ophelia. I know you hate to be vulnerable around those you don’t know well.
I could tell you hated that I saw you like that.
I wanted to earn your trust, whenever you were ready to give it. ”
Ophelia stared into his warm brown eyes, drinking him in. “And you have earned my trust.”
“I have? Because after I unintentionally came onto you with magic, I was so…fuck. I know we haven’t discussed it again. But I was ashamed and figured you’d never want to see me again. Then, after what happened with Mateo, I didn’t want you to think I was like him.”
“E, you aren’t even in the same universe as that disgusting human. I know for a fact that you had no idea what you were doing, and even if you had, I would have gladly let you. You have my trust. I promise.”
Etienne tucked a stray hair behind her ear. “Thank you. That means a lot to me.”
“So...” she drawled with a self-satisfied smirk. “You like me?”
“Yes.”
“Like, like me, like me?”
His lip twitched. “Yes.”
Ophelia felt like her skin was on fire, and butterflies were caged inside her stomach, and then that dreaded self-doubt and fear consumed her whole. “I don’t know if I’m ready yet. Mateo, he…”
“I know. But when you’re ready, if you’re ever ready, will you tell me?”
“Yes.”
“Come on,” he said, lifting her off the counter. “I guess we can be just friends who eat gumbo for now, right?”
They sat on opposite ends of the couch, curled up underneath blankets, and ate their giant bowls of gumbo while Etienne recounted his most hysterical patient stories.
When it was time for Etienne to go, Ophelia walked him to the door with a container of leftovers.
“Hey, E,” she said.
“Hmm?”
“I know we don’t need to do lessons anymore, but I was wondering if you still wanted to keep up our Wednesday night runs?”
“Absolutely,” he said with that smile and walked out the door.
In a burst of elation, Ophelia grabbed Tigger, kissed her cute pink nose, and let out a “Wheeeee!” ala Liesel from The Sound of Music.