Chapter 23 #3
Jacks shrugged in his Jacks way. “You were wrong. About Taz. That’s not cool.”
I rubbed my eyes with the heels of my palms, immediately regretting waking up that morning.
Jacks smiled again, picked up a tray, and headed for the floor. “Just say what’s true,” he said over his shoulder. “Peter’s the one person who’s not going to run from it.”
My shift ended at 1:30 a.m. I closed out my tabs, cleaned my station, and restocked the well. Mia hugged me on her way out and whispered, “Call me tomorrow with details, or I’ll come to your apartment and get them myself.” I believed her because Mia’s threats were promises with better marketing.
I drove home with both hands on the wheel and the radio off.
The apartment was quiet when I opened the door.
The stove light was on.
Peter’s door was open three inches. Through the gap, I could see the glow of his desk lamp and hear the faint sounds of a man who was awake and waiting.
I went to the kitchen and sat on the counter. I didn’t pour cereal or get the mixing bowl. I just sat in the stove light and waited for Peter to hear me and come out, the way he always came out, the way we always found each other in this room at this hour.
His chair creaked, followed by footsteps in the hall, then he was in the kitchen doorway in his pajamas and his glasses, holding nothing, bringing nothing between himself and whatever was about to happen.
“Hey,” I said.
“Hey.”
I watched him make tea. The kettle, the mug, the tea bag, the pour, each movement precise and unhurried, a ritual that preceded every honest conversation we’d ever had.
He sat at the island. I sat on the counter.
Four feet of kitchen sprawled between us, charged with everything that had happened in this space and everything that was about to.
“So,” I said.
“So.”
“I couldn’t make drinks today. I put simple syrup in someone’s beer. Jacks told every single person at the bar that you kissed me, which I think violates some kind of HR code, but I can’t identify which one.”
“How did they take it?”
“Rod said, ‘Good,’ and went back to the kitchen. Finn said, ‘About time.’ Mark said it explained the simple syrup. Mia is expecting a full report tomorrow and has threatened to debone me if I’m late filing that report.”
“Deboning. That’s harsh.”
I nodded. “That’s Mia.”
“And Dante?”
“Dante told me I have seven smiles. He said the one I wore all day was the one he’s only seen once before, at the adoption event when you told the family they could take the mutt home.”
Peter looked down at his tea and was quiet for a moment. I could see him turning Dante’s observation over, examining it, placing it alongside his own understanding of the evening and the morning and the space between them.
“Seven smiles?” he asked.
“Apparently.”
“Which one am I seeing now?”
I hadn’t realized I was smiling, but I was.
It was the one Dante had identified, the one that had nothing to do with performance and everything to do with the man sitting four feet away from me, holding a mug of tea he wasn’t drinking.
“Yours,” I said.
Peter set down his mug, carefully, the way he set down everything.
“Come here,” he said.
I slid off the counter, crossed the kitchen, and stood in front of him, close enough to feel the warmth of him, close enough to see the stove light reflecting in his glasses and the steadiness of his face and the small, almost imperceptible way his breathing changed when I was near.
“I know how to do most things,” he began.
“I know how to perform surgery and organize a whiteboard and write about a man I loved who died, but I don’t know how to do this.
I don’t know the protocol for falling for someone while you’re still grieving someone else.
I don’t have a system for it, and I can’t put it on the whiteboard, and I need you to know that going in. ”
“I don’t need a system, Peter.”
“But I might. I might need a system, at least at first, because systems are how I function, and I’d rather be honest about that than pretend I’m someone who can do this without structure.”
“Then we’ll build a system. We keep using Post-it notes and stove lights and 3 a.m. kitchens and whatever else you need. We’ll build it together.”
He stared at me.
Behind the glasses, his eyes were the most open I’d ever seen them. Every wall was lowered, every door unlocked, the full interior of Peter Loupier visible in the warm kitchen light.
“Post-it notes and stove lights,” he repeated.
“And blankets, folded in thirds, like a psychopath.”
“Always in thirds.”
“Even though it’s wrong.”
“It’s not wrong. It’s precise.”
“So are stab wounds, but you don’t see me supporting their use.” He was grinning with me now, so I rambled on. “It’s your version of precise, and I’m willing to accept your version, even though it’s objectively incorrect, because that’s what compromise looks like.”
“That might be the single worst definition of compromise I’ve ever heard.”
“It’s the best definition of compromise you’ve ever heard and you know it.”
His mouth did a thing. It was slow and warm, and I watched it happen the way I’d been watching it happen for months.
I leaned in and kissed him. Gently and briefly. It was a kiss that said, “I’m here and I’m staying and we’ll figure it out and your blanket-folding technique is still wrong, but I’m falling for you because of—or perhaps, in spite of—it.”
Falling for. Not in love. I wasn’t saying the L-word yet. That word was in a drawer of its own, deeper and more carefully sealed. It definitely wasn’t time to open it—for either of our sakes.
Peter’s hand found mine on the counter. His fingers laced through mine and held on, steady and warm. The tremor from last night was gone. The surgeon’s hands, calm again, were anchored to something that felt less like a risk and more like a decision.
We stood in the kitchen and held hands and didn’t speak. The silence was the best kind, the kind that doesn’t need filling, the kind that two people can live inside without any furniture except the warmth between them and the light above the stove.
“Good night, Benji.”
“Good night, Peter.”
“Thank you for putting simple syrup in someone’s beer.”
I snorted. “You’re welcome. It was my finest moment.”
He squeezed my hand once, let go, leaned in for one last, lingering kiss, then went down the hall.
I sat on the counter for a while longer, alone in the stove light.
I didn’t slide down any doors or make any sounds into my hands.
I just sat there, quiet, in the room where everything important had happened between us, and I let that quiet hold me the way it held Peter, gently and without asking for anything in return.
Princess Consuela yowled from the foster room because her water dish was a quarter-inch below acceptable levels.
“Coming, Majesty,” I said. “Hold your complaints.”
I went to bed and slept well. In the morning, there was a Post-it on the fridge in Peter’s handwriting. Punctuated by a smiley face.
Simple syrup in a lager. I’m choosing to be flattered.
— P