by Katy Regnery
Although he hasn’t asked me to handle his meals, I am anxious to do anything I can to ingratiate myself to him, to make myself less of a nuisance and burden, and perhaps to lay the groundwork for us to become friends. Since I left all mine behind and he appears to be my only option, I’d very much like for Julian and me to be friends.
As my eggs fry, I write in careful cursive:
How kind. Thank you.
Please pick up a dozen eggs, some butter and flour, a package of sugar, pork chops, chicken breasts, sausage, ground beef, garlic, vegetables for salad, half a dozen baking potatoes, cheddar cheese, and whatever fruit is in season.
I will look forward to preparing dinner for you and your sister while she visits with us.
-Ashley
By the time I finish writing, my eggs are ready to be plated. I grab a paper napkin and an orange from the bowl on the counter, then push open the screen door with my elbow so I can eat my breakfast outside.
CHAPTER TEN
Julian
Knock knock knock!
And then . . . bare feet running over gravel.
I’ve grown accustomed to this routine after four days, and per usual, my watering mouth and Bruno’s excited yelps overrule any objection I should make to her cooking for me.
We haven’t talked since our quick conversation on Sunday morning—in fact, I’ve made a concerted effort to avoid her—but something about refusing her food would be, I don’t know, mean. Or something.
I’ve thought about Noelle a lot over the past few days—about her living alongside some stranger like this girl sharing a house with me. Oh, sure, Jock and Gus showed up yesterday to check on her and bring necessities like shampoo and a new toothbrush, but they aren’t here all the time with her like I am.
If something happened to me? And Noelle was suddenly living with some stranger? Well, I’d want him to treat her kindly. I wouldn’t want him touching her or making moves on her, for Chrissake. But I’d appreciate it if he was kind.
She’s long gone by the time I crack open the door and pull the white plate inside. I can already smell her latest creation and look down greedily at what appears to be simple macaroni and cheese. One bite, however, and I’m groaning because I don’t know what the hell she does in that kitchen, but everything—every damn thing she makes—is delicious.
Tonight? Buttery noodles are bathed in a mix of molten cheeses. Flaky bread crumbs fried to perfection practically melt in my mouth.
As I take a second mouthwatering bite, I feel bad for every kid in the world who thinks bright orange goop over disgusting little rock-hard elbow pasta is food. It isn’t. I know the truth now. And the truth is that when there’s an angel in the kitchen, everything tastes like it’s straight from heaven.
Sighing over a third bite, I retread that thought, annoyed with myself for referring to Ashley as an angel.
For all you know, she screwed over some guy royally, and now he’s after her. For all you know, she’s a little tease who could get you in hot water too.
It wouldn’t be the first time, Julian.
“Angel,” I scoff. “Right.”
Bruno whines, tilting his head to ask if I’m almost done. He’s waiting as patiently as he can to lick the plate, but I know the wait hurts, so I eat a little faster.
Well, she sure looked like an angel sitting on the porch Sunday morning and feeding my dog her eggs. Her blonde hair was loose, lit by the rising sun like a halo. And her blue eyes when she stared at me? Fuck, I could feel my whole body tightening and hardening when I caught her staring at my ass. She’s sexy beyond words. Effortlessly gorgeous. Eminently fuckable.
That said, I don’t sense that she’s a tease. There’s an artless innocence about her. An otherworldliness. An old-fashioned vibe that would be almost unbelievable if it wasn’t so tangible.
Yesterday she fell asleep on the porch, in the sun, holding a book—not a Kindle, not a phone, but a real book with paper pages—on her lap, and while she was sleeping, I snuck upstairs to her room just to look around.
I didn’t see a laptop charging on the coffee table or the bureau in her room. No phone plugged in beside her bed. No tablet propped up on her pillow. No electronics anywhere, in fact. Just a neatly folded quilt at the foot of a neatly made bed, and two books on the floor, like maybe they’d fallen from her fingers and slipped off the covers as she drifted to sleep.
And then there’s her cooking.
She cooks things like pasta and cheese. She makes biscuits—the carbiest carb of all—with butter. Last night she made a little fruit tart that she delivered with a hefty slice of meat loaf. Dessert. No one eats dessert anymore! Who cooks like that? I mean . . . butter? The girls I dated in Florida and DC barely ate more than lettuce. Maybe, once in a while, they’d splurge big with a veggie burger. But under no circumstances would they eat the bun.
This girl? She’s all about the carbs. I’ve seen her sitting on the porch, finishing off the same meals she makes for me. Seriously. What millennial chick eats like this?
Ashley. That’s who.
Her cooking and eating, coupled with her blatant lack of technology, reads odd, but genuine, to me. Genuinely odd. Genuinely lost. Genuinely down on her luck. Genuinely at the end of her rope. I watched her with Gus yesterday—the way she hugged him, the way she smiled at him.
So what’s her story?
I know it’s none of my business, and I hate it that I’m curious, but I am. I can’t help it. Curiosity is hardwired into my DNA.
Is she a little lost waif? Or a damn good actress?
“Like you’d know th’ difference,” I growl through a shoveled-in mouthful of food. “Your ’stincts with women aren’t th’ best, dummy.”
If her entire persona is an act, what’s her angle? A free place to stay? Nah. What girl would go to such lengths just to skip rent? There must be more. Money? Maybe. Maybe this is all a long con. Jock and Gus do well for themselves. Maybe she wants to bleed them dry. Or maybe—as I suspected the first day I met her—she’s hiding. But from who? Who did she piss off so badly that her best option is living in the middle of nowhere with a complete stranger?
I rub my eyes, feeling a headache coming on.
Whatever her story, I don’t trust her. Not until I learn more about her situation. Because some women, like my grandmother and sister, are genuinely good-hearted and well-intentioned. For a good woman, I would give the world. I would help her, protect her, keep her safe.
But other women—like my mother, like Magdalena—are users. They prey on men, they destroy them. They would ruin a man—his reputation, his future, his very life—without a second thought.
My biggest problem? I have no gift for telling the difference.
Estoy desesperada. Sin dinero, mi padre morirá. ¡Ayúdame, Julian! ¡Por favor, ayúdame!
I’m desperate. Without money, my father will die. Help me, Julian! Please, help me!
Magdalena’s pleading voice, garbled with tears, enters my mind and circles, the words despairing, relentless, and, in my gullible ears, genuine. Even now. Even when I have twenty-twenty hindsight.
My stomach rebels, turning over. I clench my jaw to keep from throwing up all that good mac and cheese.
It’s been a year.
A year, and the memory of that night can still double me over.
Magdalena Rojas was a user. A thief. In one night, she stole my dreams and my future. She destroyed my reputation and my credibility. She shattered any chance of my having the life I had worked so hard to build.
She broke me.
And I cannot let it happen again.
I stare down at what remains of my dinner, my heart thundering with something that feels like panic. There’s still a chunk of pasta left for Bruno, but instead of putting the bowl on the floor for him, I cross quickly to the door.
No more dinners, damn it.
This has to stop.
I push through the barn door, stalking toward the house, only to find Chicken ’
n’ Biscuits sitting on the back porch in her favorite chair, a forkful of pasta in one hand and an open book in the other. She looks up at the sound of my approach, her face brightening with a smile before her brows furrow in confusion. She senses my anger and sits up straighter in her chair, her smile gone by the time I’m standing before her.
“No more dinners,” I spit, practically throwing the bowl down on the porch floorboards, then putting my hands on my hips as I glare at her.
“I’m sorry?” she asks, her expression startled and confused.
Part of me—the part that would want Noelle treated with kindness were she in a similar situation—feels like a shit heel, but this conversation is a hundred and fifty percent necessary. In fact, it’s overdue. I don’t trust her. I can’t trust her. If we’re going to share this house, she needs to leave me alone and stay the hell out of my way.
“Don’t. Cook. For. Me. Any. More.” I enunciate each word just to be a dick. “Got it?”
“I . . . I don’t know.”
She blinks at me, and even though I steel myself, I’m not prepared for the hurt that seeps into her big blue eyes, making them glisten. I’m about to soften when an image of Magdalena’s big brown eyes, glistening with similar tears, takes front and center in my mind.
“Are you hearing-impaired?” I ask. “I don’t want any more fucking dinners.”
She winces like I just smacked her, and I wince inside, hating myself.
“You didn’t . . . like it?” she asks.
Her question takes me off guard. “It was fine.”
“Then why . . .?”
“I . . . I asked you to stay out of my way, and . . . and you’re not doing that.” I take a breath, then release it in a huff. “You’re just . . . bothering me.” My eyes slide down to her breasts, which are small and round, like twin globes, pushing against the front of her T-shirt. “You’re bothering the fuck out of me.”
“Oh.”
“Cut it out, okay?”
“Okay,” she says, blinking as she lowers her gaze and stares down at the bowl of pasta in her lap like she’s lost her appetite. I know she’s going to cry, and I know I caused it, but man, I just don’t fucking want to see it.
“Anything else?” she whispers.
“No. That’s all.”
I’m about to head back to the barn, but she surprises me by looking up, and although her eyes are shiny, she somehow keeps her tears from falling. Suddenly I have a terrible notion that she’s had a lot of practice at that, and it makes me feel even worse.
“I’m sorry,” she says softly, her voice gentle but strong. “I’m sorry I’m here. I’m sorry I fed your dog. I’m sorry I cooked for you. I’m sorry for all of it.” She pauses for just a moment, her eyes searing as they stare unrelentingly into mine. “Will you forgive me?”
It takes me several seconds to realize she’s waiting for an answer. She’s waiting for me to actually forgive her, and the terrible irony of her request is not lost on me, since I’m the one yelling at her and she hasn’t done anything wrong.
“Um.” I gulp. “Yeah. Fine.”
“You forgive me,” she confirms.
“I forgive you,” I say, feeling terrible.
“Thank you, Julian.”
She stands up, leans down, and picks up my bowl. Then, without looking at me, she walks back into the kitchen.
And me?
I’m left staring at her perfect fucking ass before the porch door slams shut, wondering why I feel like I just kicked the shit out of a chicken ’n’ biscuits angel kitten when all I’m trying to do is protect myself.
***
Ashley
I place the bowls on the marble counter, head to the stairs, and make it up to my room before I allow a single tear to touch my cheek.
I didn’t mean to upset or offend him, but I have a knack for alienating myself from other people, and it’s happened yet again. I have no idea what I did, but he obviously hates me. Lucky me, now I get to live here for an undetermined amount of time enduring his daily scorn.
“What did I ever do to you anyway?” I mutter softly, sitting down on my bed as I swipe away a tear.
Through my window, I watch him walk back to the barn, standing at the door for a minute, then turning around, like he’s about to walk back to the house, then pivoting back toward the barn, yanking open the door and letting it slam behind him.
“It was just a little pasta,” I whisper.
Except it wasn’t. If I’m honest with myself, I know it wasn’t.
It was, though not ill-intentioned, a bribe.
Especially after our short conversation on Sunday, I was hoping that Julian could be my friend.
I was trying to buy a friend with food.
“You’re pathetic, Ashley. Completely pathetic.”
I see the barn door open again, and he steps outside with Bruno at his heels. Without even glancing at the house, they turn toward the meadow. Bruno races toward the woods with Julian following. They’ll be gone for an hour or so.
Without making a conscious decision, I slip downstairs into the living room and through the small dining room, but instead of turning left into the kitchen, I turn right, down a short hallway that leads to Julian’s bedroom and bathroom.
I know precious little about my housemate, but I’d like to know why he decided to dress me down today. Maybe his room will hold clues about who he is and why he’s so desperate to have nothing to do with me.
Gus told me that he used to be in some sort of law enforcement before moving up here last summer. I know he has a sister. I can see he loves his dog. I suspect that he speaks French, though I’m not positive. Based on Gus’s descriptions of the type of glass he blows, I feel like I can identify which pieces in the house are his. They’re good—exceptional, even. He has an eye for color and a gift for unusual beauty.
“But he’s moody as h—heck,” I add, turning the bathroom knob and peeking inside.
I was about to say hell, which surprises me.
I’m no stranger to cursing, of course. Tig had a mouth like a trucker, and Mosier swore in several different languages, including English, but it’s been years since I’ve muttered anything worse than “Fudge!”
“Fudge!” I say, reaching left and running my hand along the wall, feeling for the light switch.
I flick it on, look at my face in the mirror, and watch my lips form the word fuck.
Fuuuck.
I only think it, but Lord above, it is such a foul word. It makes me giggle.
I find a container of deodorant beside the sink and lift it to my nose. The container reads NATIVE in bold letters, and when I take off the cap, it smells like woods and spice. I close my eyes and take a deep breath, my bare toes curling on the tile floor because it smells so good.
I replace the cap and exchange the deodorant for a bar of soap. The word BEEKMAN is barely visible after multiple uses, but the bar itself smells like sweetgrass, and I sigh softly, murmuring, “Fuuuck,” as I replace the soap in its little silver dish beside the sink.
There isn’t much else in the pristine bathroom: a bottle of Pert shampoo/conditioner in the shower and a white towel hanging on the back of the door. It’s clean and tidy, unremarkable even, except for the scents that have captivated me.
I close the door behind me and step down the hallway to his room. My heart quickens as I turn the knob—if he found me in his bathroom, the only lavatory on the first floor, I could make a plausible excuse. But there’s no excuse for my poking around in his room, and I know it.
In for a penny, in for a pound, I think, stepping into the cool, dim room.
As my eyes adjust to the lack of light, I inhale the now familiar smells of Native and Beekman, which engulf me, making me whimper softly. The unique combination of woods, spice, and sweetgrass mark the room as his space, and it makes my stomach tighten like it wants something very badly. It almost feels like hunger, but I just ate half a bowl of macaroni.
My mind, look
ing for context and answers, offers up a memory from several months ago:
“What is the difference between hunger, desire, and lust, girls?”
Sister Agnes’s Irish brogue sounds in my head, her lecture on the seven deadly sins in full swing now.
There is a dusting of giggles among the girls in my class, and Sister Agnes strikes her desk with the back of a wooden ruler. “Focus, girls. Hunger, desire, and lust. The difference, please?”
No one dares answer, and I look around, wondering if anyone will be bold enough to raise her hand.
“No one?” she asks, her eagle eyes sharp behind bifocals. “Then I shall explain: hunger is hunger. It is a physical need over which you have no control. Your stomach aches for food. If you eat—not to the point of gluttony, girls, but enough to satiate your hunger only—the ache will disappear.” She pauses, watching us, and we nod at her in understanding. “Desire is a kind of hunger, but within the context of Christian marriage, a hallowed kind. Desire for one’s husband may even be considered a Godly gift, for from that blessed hunger may come children born of wedlock, who are welcomed into Christ’s kingdom.”
She crosses her arms over her ample chest and lifts her chins. “Now, lust? A deadly sin. Satan’s evil work. Beware lust, girls. Lust is also a kind of hunger. A very wrong and very bad sort of hunger. It is self-seeking. It is blinding. It is consuming, and you will never be full. And, make no mistake, girls: lust will separate you from the love of God.”
Lust, I think, standing in the doorway of Julian Ducharmes’ room, secret muscles deep within my body alive and quivering. This must be lust.
I gulp, hoping that my thoughts alone aren’t enough to strike me down where I stand. When nothing happens, I exhale softly, stepping into his room.
If my room is heaven, then his room is Eden.
The floorboards, molding, and furniture are made from dark wood, sophisticated and deep, overwhelmingly masculine, but tempered by their placement within . . . a garden.
In the far corner, a tree is painted on the wall, the thick trunk rising up from the floor. Beautiful branches, covered with green leaves, pink buds, and delicate blossoms, billow out on both walls. Over my head, more painted boughs cover the ceiling, with blue sky and sunlight peeking out from under the branches. Hanging from the middle is a chandelier with arms of brown glass emulating branches, dotted with hundreds of tiny green glass leaves and pink petals.