Page 19 of Now That It's You
She dumped a few chopped sprigs of fresh mint and lavender into the bowl, grateful the little herb garden on her back patio was still giving up the goods even as October spit frost on her windshield most mornings this week. She checked the timer on the pork loin in the oven and thought about how nice it felt to have an excuse to make a meal like this.
She ran her finger over a photo in her aphrodisiac cookbook and tried to remember the night she’d come up with the recipe. New Year’s Eve day. She could picture it clearly, even though it was nearly four years ago. She remembered drizzling the blood-orange olive oil over the basil-wrapped scallops and carrying the whole thing into the living room on a bright blue plate.
“I’m thinking of writing a cookbook,” she’d told Matt as she set the tray on the coffee table and curled up beside him on the sofa.
“What’s that?” he’d asked absently, plucking a scallop off the platter as he flipped through some other photographer’s images on Instagram.
“A cookbook,” she told him. “I think I might like to write one. Something with recipes using aphrodisiac ingredients.”
“You’re pretty damn delicious.” He’d squeezed her knee, and Meg had felt herself glowing with the compliment, even if it wasn’t precisely what she’d wanted him to praise right then.
“Thank you,” she said. “I thought I’d include something about the history of aphrodisiacs. Maybe a few sidebars with interesting science stuff behind the ingredients. I think there’s a market for it."
“Could be.” He kept scrolling on his phone, chewing the end of a toothpick he’d removed from one of the scallops. “You’ve gotta have a platform to write nonfiction.”
“I’m a chef,” she said, a little hurt he didn’t seem more enthusiastic about the idea. “And I have a degree in biology, so I know a few things about pheromones and human nature and?—”
“Damn, can you grab me a napkin, honey? This sauce is getting everywhere.”
A hand on her shoulder jolted Meg from the memory and back to the present—to her kitchen and Kyle holding out a bowl of tropical fruit salsa with a curious expression on his face. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you.”
“You didn’t.”
Kyle cocked his head to the side and gave her a knowing look. “You just did it again.”
Meg felt a flush creeping into her cheeks and she dropped her hand from her ear. “I did not.”
“You did, you tugged your earlobe.” He grinned. “Come on, let’s go eat this in the living room while the rest of dinner cooks. Grab us some wine while I come up with three embarrassing things to tell you.”
Meg rolled her eyes and tried to muster up some indignation. The man was bossing her around in her own kitchen and acting like he knew her every thought and feeling when she hadn’t even seen him for two years. Who the hell did he think he was?
The guy who knows your every thought and feeling when you haven’t seen him for two years.
Hell. Meg grabbed the bowl of warm cinnamon tortilla crisps and a chilled bottle of Viognier from Sunridge Vineyards. She moved to the living room, setting both on the coffee table before turning back to the kitchen for glasses.
“Oh.” She jumped back, nearly colliding with Kyle who clutched two wineglasses in a hand. “How’d you know I’d choose white wine?”
He looked down at the thin, mouth-blown glasses, and Meg recalled they’d been an engagement gift from one of her aunts. “Educated guess,” he replied as he set them on the coffee table.
Meg nibbled her lip. “I’ve got a whole cabinet full of red wine glasses, but you grabbed the ones for white wine.”
He shrugged and popped a chip in his mouth. “White wine pairs better with tropical fruit. I might play with welding tools for a living, but I’m not a total Neanderthal.”
Meg snorted and dropped onto the sofa beside him. She grabbed a corkscrew off the table and opened the wine. “Pretty sure no one would ever mistake you for a Neanderthal.”
“You did.”
“What?”
“I think it was nine years ago. No, eight. It was during my ‘primitive period.’ You and Matt stopped by to check out the new sculpture I’d been working on and you said it looked prehistoric.”
“That’s hardly calling you a Neanderthal.” She poured the wine, careful not to fill the glasses too high. She hadn’t eaten much these last two days, and the last thing she needed was to have the alcohol go to her head. She set the bottle down and took a sip, enjoying the bright crispness of the wine and the warmth of Kyle’s body beside her on the couch. She leaned back against the cushions, feeling her shoulders relax for the first time in days.
“I’m sorry, though,” she said, “if I discouraged you as an artist.”
“You didn’t.”
“I’m sorry if Matt did, then.” She winced as she heard her own words on instant replay in her head. She’d apologized for Matt plenty of times in their years together, but never to his brother.
