Chapter 22 #2
And here’s Nico, not judging me, not forcing advice down my throat. Just handing me understanding. I’ve always assumed I needed to settle for a guy like John because no better man would care as much about the food precision that I’m so passionate about. But Nico upends all my assumptions.
And I can’t help it; I have to kiss him.
Softly. With so much less urgency than the last few times.
I run my hand along that evening stubble and feel him exhale.
Let the hoppy taste of his beer linger. Quietly kiss his jaw and nuzzle him before pulling back.
Luce opens one eye from the movement, but he promptly rests his head and goes back to sleep.
“What was that for?” he asks.
I shrug. “For always saying the right thing.”
He reaches for my hand and intertwines our fingers. We stare at the stars, our beers warm and less frothy now, while I get to know the calluses on his hand that mirror mine.
“What about you?” I ask, the silence between us comfortable enough to have created an opening for more conversations in the dark.
“What about me?” he says, his voice a smile.
“Can you leave more?” He doesn’t say anything, so I continue. “Like if you wanted to travel more now, take more vacations, could you?”
Am I picking at him the way we’ve both lazily worked at the labels of the bottles, trying to see if the condensation has loosened the gluey grip?
Are we both grasping at whether this new thing between us can find pockets to exist in the outside world?
Or finding ways to burrow into more understanding of each other’s lives?
“I do, in the winter especially,” he answers. “I visit my mum’s family in the UK, and I go see exporters in all the places where they’re selling my oil so I can meet with restaurants and shops and let them put a face to it.”
“Ever come to New York?” I ask, so obvious.
“I usually do, yeah.” He squeezes my hand.
“Good,” I reply, not knowing how else to express the way it makes my whole body breathe deeper, the knowledge that at least our friendship isn’t rushing toward an arbitrary finish line, even if this particular version already is.
“Would you . . .” I stop, not sure if I can ask the other question that’s been on my mind almost as long as I’ve known him.
Out here, with the chorus of nature buzzing around us, it’s as though we’re in a world that doesn’t quite count.
“If your ex-wife came back, would you want to be with her again?”
He looks over at me, studying my face again with affection.
“No,” he says comfortably. “I haven’t been in love with her for a long time now.
” He makes it sound so simple—falling out of love.
“I was; I certainly was when we were younger. I wouldn’t diminish that.
But she hurt me, and we’re not the same anymore. We didn’t grow together.”
“I can see that,” I say, even though I know that the one part that separates our stories is that I’m not sure if love was something I ever really felt for John. Lust, friendship, common interests. But never really love. “Would you change any of it if you could?”
“No,” he says quietly. He pauses for a moment and then continues, taking a new tack. “So you know when you drink wine and say like, ‘Oh, there’s green apple in this,’ right?”
“Yeah, of course,” I huff. “My favorite Instagram account is a woman called Fresh Cut Garden Hose who draws cartoons of the crazy way people describe wine.”
“Well, exactly,” he says with a smile, even though I’m sure the comment is lost on him—he’s never been on Instagram in his life.
But he barrels on. “So olives are the only fruit that genetically has the polyphenol of other fruits. Like if you plant an olive near strawberries and almonds, and you get that flavor in it, it’s because it actually shares some of their DNA.
It’s got the essence of all the other plants that grow around it.
And that’s why these older trees are so amazing, because you can shift what you plant in the in-between spaces and fundamentally shift the olives. ”
“I’m so grateful you get to live in a time where you can be a technology nerd and a farmer nerd,” I joke, one food nerd to another.
“Except for Instagram,” he points out.
“That’s not technology you need,” I say with a laugh. “That’s not as interesting as the altering of olive DNA.”
“Very true,” he chuckles. But then his expression turns serious again. “But that’s why I wouldn’t change anything.”
“Because you’re like an olive, soaking up everything around you?”
He smiles softly. “I’m just saying we wouldn’t want to be divided from our past experiences, even if the new ones are what matter in the present.”
“You spend too much time with trees,” I tease. I don’t want to delve too deeply into thoughts of altering DNA.
Luckily, I get that gorgeous grin of his again. “Probably.” He nudges my shoulder. “What about you?”
“‘What about me?’” I say, mimicking his retort earlier.
“Do you look back? Consider what’s behind you.”
I shake my head. “Never.” His eyebrow raises, and I continue. “I’ve always been that way. Looking to what’s next, finding the next goal, moving forward. I can’t get stagnant.”
“Is that what happened with rowing?”
“What do you mean?”
“A while ago, you said when you stopped rowing, you went to culinary school. I’ve been wondering what that transition was like, going from rowing constantly for a decade to something completely new?”
I pause, not having really considered this story in a while, not sure how to contend with that time in my life—the only time I think my dad ever really got upset with me. “Well . . . I got asked to train to potentially join the national team . . .”
“Yeah?”
“I was invited to the Under 23s, and you train with them in hopes of being on the national team by the time the Olympics come around. But it was for a minimum of two years and you have to live in Princeton, New Jersey, and you don’t get paid, so you have to find a random job and you obviously aren’t even guaranteed a spot.
Like, even in the months before the Olympics, they’ll have a camp with like seventy people for less than thirty spots. ”
“You were worried about the odds?”
I inhale a deep breath and then take a moment to let all the air empty out of me, trying to parse that particular moment in time.
“No . . . I knew I could get it if I wanted it,” I say, truthfully.
It’s not bravado; I just always have been able to push myself enough to earn the things I want, even if that’s hard to articulate.
I look over at Nico, and I’m glad to see he isn’t laughing that off.
“But ultimately, I think I didn’t care enough to have it keep being my entire life.
I didn’t have the passion for it that I’d already realized I had for cooking.
I’d set out to be a great rower and reach some pinnacles, and I did it and was done. ”
“How’d that go over?” It’s so Nico to see immediately where the cracks are for me.
“My mom was happy for me, but my dad was disappointed.” Understatement of the century.
Nico raises an eyebrow, as though he sees right through that statement too.
“He felt like it was worth seeing through as far as it could go, but I’d given it so much of my life already and I’d won everything I’d set out to win.
I was ready for an actual career and knew I couldn’t do well at both if I was doing them at the same time.
I’d already applied for culinary school, because when I’d had time off outside of rowing season, I’d worked in restaurants and already loved it—I think I related to the hierarchy and pressure of a kitchen.
” He snorts a laugh, and I give him a look. “What?”
“Hierarchy and pressure aren’t usually the standards people are looking for.” He gives me a smile and a hand squeeze, making it clear that he’s only gently mocking.
“I thrive under that kind of environment, though,” I continue. “It brings out the best in me. I want to work hard and know the stakes and have a goal. There aren’t a lot of careers where you get that along with creativity.”
“Fair point,” he says, his mind on something else. He’s quiet again for a moment before he turns back to me. “And how was your dad with that?”
“He eventually got into it,” I say with a casual wave of my hand, ignoring the fallout and instead focusing on his passion once he got on board with my new focus.
“He loves the research of it all, so he started looking up where I should do a stage—where I’d learn the most; which chefs de cuisine actually let their line cooks contribute.
It was like an extension of coaching for him. ”
“Did you enjoy it?”
“Enjoy what?” I say, prickling a little bit.
“All of that work? Sounds like you didn’t have a lot of time for yourself.”
“I don’t need time for myself,” I say automatically.
The look he gives me is like one you might give to a puppy chasing after its own tail.
And it’s harder to brush off, since he’s one of the few people who’s actually scratched below the surface and truly sees what’s underneath.
All those weeks when I was forcing my heart to say friends, friends, friends, it was only the wanting more that was fraught—because friendship happened without effort.
I don’t let a lot of people in, but Nico slipped in a back door and made himself at home without me even needing to unlock it.
He did it so effortlessly I barely noticed that he’d settled in, like a person whose spot was always meant to be occupied.
So when he looks at me with skepticism, I can’t help but bristle a bit. He seems to notice it, but that doesn’t stop him.
“You can’t build a wall on wet cement,” he says finally. “You have to take a minute to actually let things marinate.”
“Listen, I love a marinade,” I joke, trying to lighten the conversation. I know I started it, asking about his ex-wife of all things, but now that the spotlight is turned on me, I want to brush it all off.
He nods in understanding. “I’m glad you’re getting this time here, then.”
“Me too.” He doesn’t say anything else, and I put my head on his shoulder, grateful he’s letting me off the hook from delving into the past when all I want is to exist in this present.
“The new fencing seems to be holding,” I say, changing the subject. From this angle I’m unable to see the patched hole.
He tilts his head. “The seams still bother me.”
“Don’t be such a perfectionist,” I say with a smirk. “You’ve stopped the wayward fence-breakers; isn’t that enough?”
“I’m not convinced they’re done messing with us.”
“Clearly.” I motion around us, the absurdity of another night with an unloaded rifle, camping chairs, and cows obvious.
“I still can’t believe you’re willing to do this.
” He reaches over and tucks a tendril of hair behind my ear that wasn’t sticking out enough to justify the movement.
But considering I’ve spent the whole evening trying to figure out how to plausibly touch him without any real reason, I understand.
His eyes are on my mouth, and I have to shake away my desire to turn this night into something else entirely.
“Well, I’m on Gia’s team, and I’m pretty ride or die,” I finally say, leaving him out of all my justifications.
“Since being on Gia’s team keeps you pretty busy,” he says with a smile, his hand still resting below my ear and his eyes still glued to my mouth, “can I claim your one night off on Monday? Since you don’t need any time to yourself?
” He scrunches his nose like he’s enjoying teasing me, like he has no problem calling out my bullshit and already knows it won’t bother me.
And it really doesn’t. Because I can’t think of anything better.
“Is this the part where you’re asking me on a date and I’ll know it?”
“Yup,” he says with a grin.
“Then yes,” I reply, because this, at least, really is as simple as that.