Page 21 of Apple of My Eye
I try not to look at Nick, instead I steal glances at him from under my lashes, watching him appreciate the food. He eats slowly, closing his eyes briefly between bites.
‘You used fennel,’ he says after his fifth bite. Everyone else’s plates are almost clean. Betsy’s already gotten up for seconds. Nick, meanwhile, is taking his time. It takes a Herculean effort for me to keep my focus on dinner and not start to think about where else Nick may take his time or whether his mouth can appreciate other things like it clearly appreciates food.
Mom nods. Dad glances at her from under his eyebrows. ‘You did?’ He winces.
‘I hate fennel,’ Betsy announces. ‘There’s no fennel in here.’
Mom and Nick share a glance and they both smile like they’re in on a secret. I squint at her. There is no need to bethisnice to the person sent here to ruin everything I’ve planned. Even if it does seem like he knows his way around a kitchen.
Mom and Nick talk for so long the streaks across my plate from the chicken cacciatore are completely congealed. He is curious, asking her non-stop questions about Carnation. She’s explained the dirt road get-through that shaves a half-hour off of getting to the nearest big box store, she’s commiserated with him and Betsy about the butcher’s husband taking over the shop while his wife takes maternity leave (the husbandcannotcut a decent pork belly), and she’s forced Nick to recount all his favorite recipes.
The fact that he knows his mom’s recipes by heart makes mine do a little flutter. I ignore it. It must be the fennel coming back up.
Mom, on the other hand, is positively gleeful. She grabs a notepad and starts writing things down.
‘I can’t believe I’ve been subjecting you to my cooking!’ Betsy wrings her hands in her lap. ‘We need to get you in the kitchen.’
Nick laughs. ‘Your cooking is wonderful,’ he says, laying a gentle hand on her forearm in reassurance.
I feign boredom, not wanting Nick to realize I’m focused on his every word. Instead, I trace my fingers slowly over the curves of grain in the wood, remembering snippets of dinners growing up, of Linden complaining about his many responsibilities, of trying to be noticed by my parents while sitting next to him, the golden-haired golden boy. I play with my split ends, wondering how Linden got a vibrant blond color that looks like spun gold, while my hair looks like dishwater.
Mom’s chair pushes back from the table with a creak against the floor, and I shoot up, hurriedly grabbing plates to clear.
‘Oh, thank you, Lou,’ she says sweetly, sitting back down and watching me clear the plates.
Nick tries to help me. ‘I got it,’ I say, but I clearly don’t have it. I reach for another plate and wobble. Wordlessly, Nick jumps up and starts to clear. I hear him behind me as I make my way to the sink.
Slowly, I dip the plates into the suds and stack them in the dishwasher.
Nick clears his throat behind me. ‘Do you prefer Lou?’
He’s managed to pile the salad bowl, chicken cacciatore remnants, and bread basket all on top of one other, and I have to take them off his hands one by one, leaving us an inordinate amount of time to stand extremely close to each other.
‘Eloise is fine,’ I say curtly, trying to focus despite being able to smell him again, cinnamon and mint mixing with the Italian scents lingering in the kitchen. His biceps bulge with tension as he stays stock-still, arms at ninety degrees, holding the stack of dishes. I breathe a sigh of relief when I’ve successfully offloaded the platters without dropping anything. The last thing I need to do is draw any more attention to myself.
‘Did you like dinner?’ I murmur, offering a conversational olive branch as a thank you for his help. I keep my voice down so my parents can’t hear.
‘Delicious.’ He smiles shyly at me and I glance at his teeth, perfectly square and white, gleaming against his skin. His lips are the color of pink terracotta or a late-blooming rusty dahlia.
He picks up a clean bowl as I set it on the counter next to me, grabs a faded green dishtowel from where it’s hanging on the oven handle, and starts to dry. We repeat the process in silence until there’s a stack of dry dishes next to the sink. As chatty as he was earlier, he seems just as comfortable with neither of us speaking.
‘Guests aren’t supposed to clean,’ I say, more to myself than to him.
‘Am I still a guest if I live across the street?’
I raise an eyebrow at him. ‘Technically you’re across the hill, and being here for two months is a lot different than living here.’
‘Across the hill,’ Nick repeats. ‘That’s got a nice ring to it.’
‘Plus, even if you moved here, you would still be a guest.’
‘It’s nice here—’ Nick shrugs ‘—maybe I will.’
‘Something tells me you won’t.’ I shrug back, leaning against the counter. I glance out the window over the sink, the last dregs of sunlight dapple over the hills. The Parkers’ farm gleams on the nearby hilltop.
Before I can second-guess it, I decide the best way to figure out exactly what Nick has planned will be to ask him directly. ‘Want a beer?’ I offer. ‘We could take a quick walk out back?’
Nick’s eyes meet mine and linger there, like he’s trying to read the expression on my face. ‘Sure,’ he says. ‘That sounds really nice.’
