Page 86 of Roommate
“Oh my God,” Roddy says a few minutes later as he drops to his knees in front of our Christmas tree. “Is that what I think it is?”
“Yeah. Some things just can’t be wrapped.” I take a big bite of French toast. It’s terrific—crunchy on the outside with a custardy center.
Meanwhile, Roddy pounces on the guitar case under the tree, untying the bow I lamely strung around one end. “I can’t believe you did this! Please tell me you got a good deal on a secondhand instrument.”
“I bought it new,” I confess. Secondhand for a gift just didn’t feel right. “I hope it’s the right style.”
He lifts the lid. “It’s awesome. God. So much nicer than my old one. You really shouldn’t have done this.”
“I wanted to,” I say before casually stuffing my face with more breakfast. The fact that he’s so excited does unusual things to my heart. He looks, as they say, like a kid on Christmas, as he lifts the guitar out of its case and runs a thumb across the strings.
The deep tones give me a shiver. It really does sound good. I’ve never been happier to spend four hundred dollars in my life.
Forgetting his breakfast, Roderick fusses with the tuning. And then he launches into a pretty riff, right there on the rug.
I give a low whistle. “I thought you said you weren’t very good?”
He shakes his head. “I’m not Nashville good. But I sure like to play. Kieran, seriously, this is just amazing.” He lets out a happy little sigh and then carefully tucks the guitar back into its case. “My present for you isn’t as fancy.”
“I don’t need anything at all,” I insist. And right that minute it’s true. “Eat your breakfast.”
“But it’s your turn.” He pinches a bite of bacon off his plate and pops it into his mouth before ducking out of the room. He returns with a wrapped box and hands it to me. It’s still cold from sitting outside in his car.
I rip the paper off and open the box. Inside I find two things: a flannel shirt in a cognac color and a hardcover cookbook by someone named Christopher Kimball. The cover is shiny and new, but there are already a bunch of those sticky flags jutting out of the pages. “Hey, thanks! Did you pick out some recipes for me? But what happened to, ‘You can’t learn to cook from a book’?”
“Hey—we’re still cooking together. But this way you can be in charge of the menu if you want. Christopher Kimball has some Vermont cred, by the way. I flagged a bunch of dishes that we’re set up to make. Like, I skipped anything that required a food processor or too much attention.”
I run my hand over the cover, imagining all the time we’ll spend together cooking. “Thank you. The shirt is nice, too.”
“Well, that was a selfish purchase. The flannel speaks to my lumberjack fetish. And that color will look great with your eyes.”
“Whatever you say.” I laugh, pulling it out of the box. “I just like the fabric.”
“Good.” He gets up and comes to sit next to me on the couch. “Thank you for that outrageous present. I love it so much.”
“I really liked giving it to you,” I say, feeling more than a little self-conscious. “Now let’s eat this food before it gets cold.
Rod picks up his plate. “I’m going to get some jam for my French toast.”
“Wait.” I say, pointing at the little jug of syrup I’d brought out here with me. “You like jam better than Vermont’s finest?”
Roderick shrugs without meeting my eyes. “Both are good.”
“But which do you like better?” I press.
“What does it matter?” he asks, biting another strip of bacon.
“It matters because you feed me all the time, but you won’t use the syrup I brought here for both of us.”
“I like feeding people. It’s my profession. And that stuff is expensive,” he says.
“It would be,” I concede, “except that Kyle and I made it.” I grab a piece of bacon and bite off the salty, wonderful end.
He blinks up at me. “Really? That’s neat. My lumberjack. Do you carry around an ax while you tap the trees?”
“You’re changing the subject.” And I am really terrible at working through something like this. But my breakfast smells really good and Roderick looks so right in my living room. I like having him here, and I need him to know it. “What if I like feeding you, too? Maybe it makes me happy to share groceries.”
“It’s not personal. I just don’t want to owe you. My ex was really weird about it. He made me feel like a slacker.”
