24. Justin
twenty-four
Iknow she’s an early riser, and she slipped away from me once before, so I’m not making the same mistake twice.
I show up at the cottage at eight. Moose scratches the door while I knock. After a couple of minutes, the door opens, and I almost drop her Road to Heaven, my double espresso, and the bag of croissants I brought.
She’s mussed up from her night, dark hair a sexy mess, blue eyes puffy from sleep, pink lips a little swollen. She’s wearing… holy shit she’s wearing that little nothing I saw at Cassandra’s shop, and I was right. That thing looks like it was made for her. Shoulders bare except for two thin straps, legs naked up to where it’s indecent, the red thing clinging to her tanned skin, taunting me.
She looks at me with a gasp, and I don’t know if it’s me or the cool morning air, but her nipples pebble.
I shoot my gaze right back up. “Morning!” I smile, trying to sound casual.
She blinks and frowns, and her mouth does those little waking up sounds. Sounds she never got to give me in Boston. Sounds I always thought as a little gross coming from others. Don’t ask me, but coming from her, those sounds shoot straight to my dick.
Her gaze drops to Moose. “What are you doing here?” Awww, man. That just-awake, raspy voice.
“Coffee!” is all I can say.
“What time is it?” She blinks at the bright sky behind me. Then, narrowing down on the cups asks, “Is that a Road to Heaven?”
She moves from the door to let me and my dog inside and snaps her mug from the tray. Moose goes straight to the oversize bowl of water on the floor next to the refrigerator. “I see you have a regular visitor.”
She gives Moose a scratch between the ears.
Damn it’s hard to keep my eyes on her face and not let them drift to the rest of her, so I just turn away from her to look around her place. She’s slowly making it into a home, and I see a side of her I didn’t know.
Of course I didn’t.
The cottage is still a little bare, there isn’t any of the shit that people accumulate over time, but it’s comfortable and welcoming. She has a little dining set, some decoration stuff. A thick area rug with some unusual motif. Nothing pretentious. I would have taken her for a more sophisticated type. I like this side of her.
“I had a gummy… or two last night. Best sleep ever,” she confesses.
As I look at her, my gaze drops to her endless legs. My breath catches. and it becomes hard to breathe and hot in here. My eyes lock on hers. She crosses her arms for a beat and then points her thumb to the staircase. “I’m gonna take a shower. I’ll be real quick.” She grabs her to-go cup and stops on the bottom step. “We did say nine, right?”
“Yeah. Your assistant.” I know it wasn’t her answering her chat, because I was on the phone with Dad while I was on the chat, and he mentioned holding the door for Chloe who was walking out from Easy Monday with a tray of drinks.
Her eyes flash between annoyance and amusement. She purses her lips. “My sous. Corine. I don’t have an assistant.”
That’s what I thought. She wouldn’t have agreed to a meeting like that. I’ll have to thank Corine, some day.
But also, she didn’t cancel. That has to mean something, right?
The shower goes on and I can’t help but fill in the visual, so I take Moose to the porch before I completely lose it.
What am I even doing here? What am I hoping? I don’t want a relationship. I don’t want a girlfriend. I’m not going to sleep with her.
I just want to be with her.
She comes back in a baggy gray track suit, her wet hair braided tightly on her back, leaving a dark straight mark between her shoulder blades. No makeup, of course, and no jewelry, except her clover pendant. She’s trying hard not to look sexy. E for Effort.
No trace of the floral scent she wears, but the coconut note is stronger. I’m guessing it’s her shampoo for sure and maybe also her shower gel. I don’t know about that.
I’d have to taste her.
She sets a thick notebook on the table. “More coffee?” She’s already at her espresso machine, so I just nod. “I need to find out what’s in that Road to Heaven,” she mumbles. She grabs a pen from a kitchen drawer, sets it on her notebook, and returns to making coffee, all without ever making eye contact. “So I was thinking,” she says loud enough to cover the hissing and grinding of the espresso machine, “we should try and produce something that’s halfway between comfort food and sophistication.” She plops our cups on the table and brings a cute little pottery bowl for the sugar and a matching pitcher for cream. “Yeah?”
She sits at an angle from me, our knees not quite touching yet, but they could. She did it so I could follow on her notebook, which she opens. Or maybe it’s so we’re not facing each other, and she can keep looking out the window, which is a much more interesting view than me.
I’m interested in her, so that’s where I’m looking. Right at her profile. She pours sugar and cream, takes a spoon in her dainty hand, stirs, licks the spoon, sets it down, brings the cup to her lips, blows on the hot coffee, then takes a careful sip. Her eyebrow raises. “What do you think?”
What was she saying? ‘… between comfort food and sophistication’ “Absolutely. Something that expresses the identities of both our places.” I take a sip of my black coffee, the bitter taste hitting my tastebuds in a satisfying manner. “We should incorporate clovers.”
Her cup hits the table loudly, a few drops of coffee jumping out.
“Don’t, seriously,” she pleads, giving me a glimpse of something unexpected. Something that pierces through me, making me believe for a fleeting instant that given the choice, that morning, she wouldn’t have… I need to stop.
“Sorry. I mean—your uncle’s restaurant. The sign has a clover, right?”
She’s back to looking out the window. “A shamrock. We can incorporate a shamrock.”
“I dunno. The word shamrock doesn’t really—it doesn’t sound great in a dish, you know? Sham and rock. Could we…? Clover is such a better word.” I wanna add that it has the word lover in it, but I don’t want to push my luck.
“Sure! Clover. Why not?”
Well that was easy. I’m almost disappointed.
“As long as we incorporate salamanders in that dish.”
“Salamanders? No one eats salamanders.”
“Why not? A bunch of people across the globe eat insects. The French eat frogs. Why wouldn’t we create a dish with little salamanders?” Even when she says something so disgusting, she manages to make cute little gestures and faces, like that chick on the Schitt’s Creek series that Haley used to be so hooked on.
“How would we prepare salamanders?” I wonder how far she’s going to take this.
“We could try roasting them. Little baby salamanders roasted like marshmallows, on a toothpick for apps. With a clover leaf at the base. We could boil mommy salamanders and roll them in sushi rice and wrap them in clover leaves. Take big daddy salamanders and chop their heads off, filet them and eat them raw with just a little lemon and freshly chopped clovers.”
“Like an oyster,” I play along.
“Yes! So. It’s set?” She dips her head to her notepad and starts writing.
“What are you doing?”
“Starting on our recipe.”
“Chloe.”
“Mmm?”
“Salamanders are a protected species.”
“They are? Why?!”
“Because…” Hell if I know. I go for the obvious. “They’re going extinct.”
“Well, that’s because they’re lazy. Humans are never going extinct because we’re always working-working-working. Salamanders should get a hint.”
My mouth twitches, but I want to keep this going. Chloe on a black humor streak? Priceless. “Salamanders aren’t lazy. They’re… animals. They just are.”
She narrows her eyes at me. “Your sign says they’re lazy.”
I give up, bend my head, and pinch the bridge of my nose, the low chuckle inside me building up to full-blown laughter. My whole body shakes, and my eyes tear up.
“It’s not funny!” She mock-slaps my shoulder, and I throw my head back and laugh out loud. It’s not that funny. I just need the release.
My laughter shows no sign of receding, and she turns to me, her knee pressing against my thigh, and she mock-slaps me again. This time I’m prepared, and I grab her hand. My laughter dies down instantly, and I twine her fingers in mine.
Our eyes lock while my mouth dips to her hand and my knee nudges between her legs.
“You’re right, it’s not.” I run my lips on her knuckles.
Give it a little tongue.
She lets me, her knees squeezing mine for a beat.
I continue. “I bet you salamanders are bony. No flesh. Just as gross as licking your fingers.” And I let her go, but not before I see the heat of lust in her eyes before they turn murderous on me.
She whips her face from me to hide her emotion and stands. Good, because I’m getting a hard-on, and I need to hide that from her.
If she’s into me, she’s going to have to show me.
“Fine. No salamanders.”
Fuck. “What happened to me telling you your fingers are gross?” I stand and grab both our cups.
She moves to the refrigerator. “What about that?”
“Aren’t you upset?”
She’s rummaging in the fridge, her back to me. “No. My fingers aren’t gross. I know it. You know it.” She pauses to let that last bit sink. “You’re just being an asshole.”
“Good,” I say, running our cups under water.
“Why?” she asks, this time clearly annoyed.
“Just got another reason to send you flowers.”
She startles and keeps her head in the fridge. “We should really get to work. Here’s what I’m thinking. We start with the comfort foods, and we elevate them.” She takes out a long, covered dish, square containers, a block of cheese, and goes back to the fridge.
“Chloe, there’s something I need to tell you.”