Page 26 of Brenna, Brat

I looked into his Dutch oven. Ours, the one at my parents’ house, was stained on the bottom and a little chipped on the outside, but this one seemed suspiciously unscathed. In fact, it almost looked brand-new. And there were some other funny things about this meal, like how he had read the directions on the back of the pasta box and how we’d had to open everything, from the bag of carrots to the bottle of peppercorns. All the ingredients were new and previously untouched.

“It looks ok,” I said, and gave the sauce a stir with a wooden spoon that also looked pristine. “Do you actually cook or is this your first time using your kitchen?”

He looked at me. “If I said that I was really good at it and was in here all the time, would you believe me?”

“No,” I answered. “I think you’re faking.”

“I definitely make toast and I also watched a lot of videos. I thought I had the chopping thing down very well. Didn’t I dice that onion like a machine?”

“Yes, but you only have one, singular knife that we had to share. People who cook have more than just one…wait, do you have utensils so that we can eat when it’s done?”

“I do.” He paused. “I bought them when I bought everything else.”

“Why were you pretending?” I asked.

“Because I’m a grown man who should have been able to cook dinner.”

“I would have been fine going out in this nice little town,” I mentioned, but then had a thought about that. Maybe he didn’t want to be seen in public with me. Maybe there would have been people he knew and he didn’t want them to think that we were somehow together? I tested my theory. “After dinner, we could walk around and maybe get coffee or dessert,” I suggested.

“It’s kind of cold tonight.”

Hm. I nodded. I had been right, and I was not weekend-girl caliber. I opened my mouth to tell him what I thought about not measuring up, but he continued to talk.

“You were freezing at the rink, remember? Your nose turned white. I got brownies from that good bakery near Eastern Market.” He was looking in the drawers and did locate utensils, because he removed a spoon and had me taste the sauce.

“It’s not bad. It needs salt,” I said, and poured some into my palm before I stirred it in.

“How did you know that was the right amount?”

“It seemed right, didn’t it?” I asked.

“I’m learning a lot. I thought you’d need to be more careful about sticking to a recipe, otherwise it could be like when a hat doesn’t come out well.” He smiled.

“Someone should have stopped me,” I said, shaking my head. They probably couldn’t have, because I was a tiny bit stubborn.“It’s no wonder Juliet pretended that she didn’t know me for a decade or so.”

“My sister liked having me around. I was her conduit to the hockey team.”

I couldn’t imagine that Carrington had ever needed much help meeting guys, not with her appearance, but her attitude might have held her back. I remembered the expression she’d worn when she’d departed the bar after seeing me and my sisters there, and I thought that she could have beat me out for the Best Bitch Face award if she’d been in the running. She’d stared at me like I was a nail that had punctured her tire, a mixture of surprise, anger, and utter revulsion. I had a feeling it was the same expression that Campbell’s other friends might have if they spotted us out to dinner together. Like, what? Him, withher?

Not that I was with him. Not that anything had happened at all, and it certainly wouldn’t. I didn’t appreciate that he might have been trying to hide me, but it made sense aesthetically. But maybe he really was worried that I’d get cold. I didn’t want to argue anymore, anyway.

Despite his lack of experience and my lack of measuring the salt, the dinner tasted good. He did have plates, forks, napkins, and a place to sit. The furniture in here was almost perfect, actually, a good mix of new and old. I wonder if his mom’s decorator had helped and then I thought about my own parents’ house being emptied out, divided up between the two of them.

“Why did you sigh like that?” Campbell asked. “Were the onions underdone?”

“No, they blended right in,” I assured him. He had been overly concerned about the onions. “I was over at my old house today and I saw my mom’s new meditation room.”

“What’s wrong with having a meditation room?”

“Nothing,” I said. “Just like you should buy whatever coat you like, she should meditate if she wants to. But you shouldn’t buy a new coat if you can’t afford one and you shouldn’t buy silk curtains, either. You shouldn’t spend your time with your eyes closed, humming, if you need to be scrolling through job listings.”

“You’re worried about her,” he said, and I shook my head.

“Not at all! She’s an adult and she can waste her resources however she choses.”

“Sure,” he said. “Then why did you go over to check on the meditation room, and why are you thinking about it during dinner rather than focusing on the new pillow I got for my couch? I meant for it to impress you.”

I turned to look at it. “Did you really buy that pillow in my honor?”

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