CHAPTER 61
Troy
ANA’S AVOIDING ME, I think.
I should be glad that Ana’s avoiding me because I, too, am avoiding her.
Other than her very obviously relaxed and not-in-the-slightest abnormal behavior after we bumped into each other at the mall, upon my arrival back, my living room was empty and her door shut.
With my current not-trying-to-give-a-shit-about-her plan, it would seem entirely counterintuitive to ask if she’s had her dinner already, but the concern won over once I opened the fridge only to find all its items untouched.
“Hey,” I call from the other side of her door, giving it a soft knock. “I’m making dinner, you want anything?”
“Um, no, I’m good,” she says, something off about her tone. “I had some snacks. Thanks.”
Not wanting to be a dick, if she’s very well telling the truth, for the chance that she’s not and the nervous pitch of her voice is a result of her inability to lie without always giving herself away, I compromise, “Okay, I’m making gyros and a bunch of sides, so there’ll be plenty extra if you get hungry again later. ”
“Okay, thanks!” she shouts.
Turning away from the door, I pick up on the jarring sound of one of her hefty textbooks slamming shut before heading back downstairs to start the meal prep.
_________
This is the third time I’m standing in this kitchen holding the wrong flavor of yogurt.
Because this moron right here purchased vanilla flavored Greek yogurt instead of plain, which means there’s a slight change in plans from tzatziki to a Greek salad sans red onions since the root also forgot to make the cut in my last grocery run.
Once the shredded beef has simmered enough, I give a few stirs to the pan, setting the spatula down to check on the pita.
The kitchen brims with the nostalgic aroma of roasted tomato and medley of red and yellow bell peppers Mom used to always make (except, way better than this), taking the trays of bread and toppings out of the oven.
I reach for the remote on the edge of the marble counter, flicking on the TV, when Ana steps into the living room.
Her long waves are relaxed around her shoulders, a tight grey t-shirt hugging her waist, paired with unusually loose black sweatpants.
Who looks good wearing pants shaped like a balloon?
Ana Petrov does apparently.
“Food’s almost ready,” I say, swallowing the salt down my throat at the sight of her.
It was better when she was locked in her room, I think to myself when a soft smile tugs at her lips. My eyes have no business watching her mouth this closely, the same way it did earlier today—before she ran out my room that she first broke into, (uninvited), but more than welcome.
No. No, she’s not welcome in my room, or in my apartment for that matter.
God, why did I offer her to even stay here in the first place?
Because I’m a fucking moron, that was already established.
That, and a part of me couldn’t bear her staying at the solemn street I realized she’d been living on.
A loud swish ricochets from the middle of the room, clawing both our attention to the television.
It’s a fight scene from Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End.
I turn down the volume, noticing Ana move into the kitchen—closer to me—feeling my skin begin to sweat.
She casts down her face, crinkling her nostrils together to get a better whiff of the food that I start second-guessing the taste of, with all the changes made and such.
“You made this.” The words sound more like a question than praise, bringing a nervous laugh to my mouth.
“Yes,” I say.
Her face is all suspicion and conceit, eyeing me carefully as she takes a bite into a piece of pita.
She taps off the excess spices between the tips of her fingers, chewing the bread leisurely.
After a few seconds—that equate a century—she comments, “You sure it wasn’t some tiny mouse pulling strings over your head? ”
She liked it.
The tension that was running profusely across my chest settles at her approval.
“If you’re referring to Chef Ratatouille,” I brag, “no, he was busy tonight. This was all me.”
“Mm,” she chuckles out softly, “that wasn’t as clever as you thought, Larsson.”
“Yet, you still laughed, Ana.”
She tries to bite down her smile, but instead it begrudgingly curves up her whole lips, filling my fucking chest with the most aggressive butterflies.
When Ana starts placing the rest of the slices of bread onto one of the empty plates I’ve laid across the island, taking them with her back into the living room, I realize what she’s doing—joining me for dinner.
It shouldn’t come as a surprise when I’m the one who asked, yet all I feel is fucking shocked, and pumped, and warm, really warm.
Scooping up the kind of sad-looking Greek salad and rest of the entrée, I tag along behind her to the sofa.
Seems we’re going to be sitting right next to each other, for some stupid reason.
Stupid, but neither of us moves even with the jarring realization, our elbows rubbing on every dig toward the plates.
Did I mention it’s really fucking warm in here?
“I didn’t know you cooked,” Ana says a few bites into her meal.
“Yeah, neither did I.” She looks up at me, expecting a follow-up. “It’s sort of a recent hobby. I started cooking for a family member of one of my friends. His mom wanted a recipe my mom used to make.”
Though, not as recent as the word “recent” entails, exploring the hobby when Xavier’s mom was craving falafel when we were about to graduate from Faerieladle High.
Xavier and I had gone to pick his mom up from her chemotherapy appointment, her appetite hardly there during treatment, but that day, to both our surprises, she wanted Daphne Larsson’s famous falafel.
With the typical heavily fried quality of the dish, I searched through my mother’s beloved cookbooks, finding one stashed at the very end of a variety featuring healthy-alternatives to guilty pleasures, and like striking a lost treasure at the pit of the sea, I found one.
A baked version of the dish, since then dabbling in my fair share of recipes for Mrs. Herrera’s restricted diet and honestly, once I found the hobby to be a bit like therapy, extended it to family and friends, bringing dishes Mom would’ve loved to Friendsgivings and sports banquets.
If I had just learned sooner—four years to be exact—Mom would’ve loved that even more.
My eyelids droop down at Ana’s plate, tracking the puddle of olive oil shapeshifting from a heart into a shoe, or at least it looks like a shoe, heaviness diffusing at the nostalgic scowl to my left.
I chuckle to myself.
“What?” Ana says.
“You still do that thing,” I say.
“What thing?”
“With your nose, when you have something spicy.”
“No, I don’t,” she says, but then repeats her signature move.
I laugh again.
She scowls, this time at my uncontrollable reactions. And my chest finds her creased temple and rosy cheeks adorable.
“There’s a picture in one of our Wisteria yearbooks where you’re making that exact same face, Ana,” I counter.
“Yeah, sure,” she dismisses. “Like you can prove that.”
“Actually, I can.”
Her gaze clings to my face, full of challenge, as I lift from my seat with a sleek half-smirk toward my room.
Knowing exactly where the dark grey memorabilia’s stashed away, I proudly return to the staircase in under a couple minutes.
Barely a step into the living room, and Ana’s ripping the top of a bag of kettle corn, darting her gaze to my arm, blue eyes popped wide—so distracting—twisting my heart as I stroll toward the sofa, plopping myself back down beside her.
“You really weren’t joking,” she gawks out, her voice stunned, taking in the dusty book. “I can’t believe you still have our elementary school yearbooks.”
“I only kept some,” I say, my heart tripping against my chest.
I can’t tell her.
Maybe I should tell her.
I won’t tell her.
While I’m over here fighting the urge to spill beyond the words I’ve said, Ana’s already halfway shuffling through the pages, pulling the yearbook toward her chest for a closer look, her brows creased with a peculiar trace of fondness.
Tipping the side of my face to find the cause of her sudden, mysterious glow, I, a grown-ass man, find it hard to breathe with how wide I want to smile.
It’s the page.
The last day of seventh grade for me, fifth for Ana, and her summer sign-off on the back sleeve of my yearbook, on the entire back sleeve of my yearbook—because Ana felt her three sentences demanded her to take up the whole page—is still a mindfuck to read:
I’m not going to tell you to have a great summer, weasel butt, because I hope you have a terrible summer. And your vacation sucks, and it’s too hot wherever you go, and the hotel you stay at smells even worse than you do. Hope I don’t see you next year.
Love,
Ana
“You always had a way with words,” I tell her.
She snorts.
“Spilling truth since 2002,” Ana says all wise.
“Nuh-uh. You were a terrible liar, even then. I always smelled good,” I add, stretching my arms out wide around the neck of the blue furniture.
Her eyes dip to my hand above her shoulder, narrowed. “I dunno if wearing Dior Sauvage in seventh grade means you smelled ‘good,’ but m’kay.”
Now I snort.
“I can proudly say that I have never, not once, used a bottle of Sauvage.”
She slaps a hand over that confident mouth, dropping it to reveal her even cockier face. “Shit, I don’t think your sponsor will be too happy to hear you’ve been betraying them with, hm, lemme guess, Chanel no. 5?”
I throw a fistful of popcorn her way as she laughs at herself.
“Was I always this funny?” She parts those full lips, confident, popping a kernel in.
“Yeah, but you never used to flirt with me this much.”
That breaks her into a coughing fit, watching me as I happily drop a piece of sweet corn in my mouth.
“Here, you’re choking, dearest,” I point out, handing her the glass of water beside her plate, trying my absolute fucking best not to grin.