Total pages in book: 101
Estimated words: 103102 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 516(@200wpm)___ 412(@250wpm)___ 344(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 103102 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 516(@200wpm)___ 412(@250wpm)___ 344(@300wpm)
“Still?” His voice pulls me back to the moment.
I’m totally gone. I need to get laid. Or at least touch myself. Or mount him right now.
No. Not that one. The middle one.
He wipes his lips again. The way I imagine he’d wipe them after—
Ahem. “You’re good.” I dive into my pollo verde tacos. They taste familiar, like lime and tomatillo and home, but they don’t sate my craving. They don’t fill me where I’m hungry.
I finish one and lick the salsa from my fingers.
River laughs. “You make everything graceful.”
“This is graceful?” I hold up my salsa-streaked hand.
“The way you do it, yes.”
I shake my head.
He nods.
The compliment hits me somewhere deep. It’s honest. Real. How he actually sees me.
It makes me warm everywhere. Too warm.
I turn my focus to my food. Lime. Tomatillos. Soft chicken. Homemade corn tortillas. Is anything better than a homemade corn tortilla? The freshness and flavor are in a whole other league compared to the store-bought ones.
A groan falls from my lips.
His pupils dilate.
This isn’t working. I’m only thinking of sex. The two of us, naked, right here on the table.
Thankfully, he shifts the topic. “I’ve never imagined you eating tacos.”
I laugh a little. “Why wouldn’t I?”
“It’s not an artisanal jam and hazelnut butter sandwich. Or lobster mac n’ cheese.”
“Is that what we ate?”
“What did you eat?”
“Normal mac ‘n cheese,” I say.
“What do you consider normal?”
“Something less fancy than what your grandma makes,” I say.
His laugh is soft. Easy. “She loves cheese, yeah.”
“Cheddar and peas. Not, what, gouda and caramelized onions?”
“Name-brand boxes,” he says. “That’s what my mom made. Then what I made. Even when I got here.”
“What does Ida cook?”
“Basic stuff. Sandwiches, meatloaf, roasts,” he says. “But she doesn’t do it often. She works a lot, too.”
She’s like me that way, yeah. She loves what she does. She loses herself in it. “Was that lonely?”
“Sometimes.” He doesn’t take the bait. He turns the topic back to me. “Did your mom cook a lot?”
“Before she got sick, yeah.” I swallow hard. I don’t usually talk about this, with anyone, but I want it off my chest. And it’s incredibly unsexy. It’ll keep my thoughts in line. “At first, friends dropped off casseroles. Then Dad started buying ready meals. We had a freezer full of them.”
“What was that like?”
“Mushy,” I say. “Frozen food always tastes mushy.”
His eyes bore into mine. “What was it like, losing her?”
I don’t know what to say, how to explain it. There’s no way to understand without going through it. Not really. “Horrible.”
“I’m sorry,” he says. “I never thought about how hard it must have been.”
I swallow a sip of my water. “Which part?”
“All of it.”
There isn’t anything to say. I don’t have a logical response and I don’t do emotional responses well. I never react the way people want. With tears of sorrow or no, I’m sorry that this is awkward for you.
“You don’t have to talk about it,” he says.
I finish the glass, but it doesn’t cool me off. The heat isn’t the flush of desire. It’s something else. A sense of vulnerability. As if I’m not wearing anything under my sheer black cover-up. “I didn’t really understand what was going on at the time. I knew about death. I knew about dying. But only as philosophical concepts and biological realities. The way it felt was different. Watching her fade, actually seeing her life force slip away one day at a time… She didn’t ask me to be strong for her, but I tried anyway.”
He studies me carefully.
As if I’m not wearing a cover-up, either.
But it’s not the stare of desire. It’s like he’s looking at my naked brain. My naked heart.
It feels strange, too much and just right at the same time.
“I didn’t want her to have to comfort me. I hate when that happens. When something hurts me, and it makes someone else uncomfortable. They expect me to say something to ease their awkwardness, but I can’t. I won’t.”
“You don’t have to say anything to me.”
“I know.”
“I am sorry,” he says. “About all of it. Watching her fade. Losing her. Having to grow up on your own.”
“I had my dad.”
“It’s not the same,” he says.
Right. His dad isn’t even in the picture. And his mom has been out of it for a long time. “You know what it’s like to grow up on your own.”
“I have Grandma.”
“Still.” My heart rate slows. My skin cools. It’s easier, throwing this back to him, but I’m not throwing it exactly. I’m passing the ball. I’m sharing. No. We’re sharing. “Was it hard, losing your mom? I know she’s alive, but she’s not around, right?” I don’t know the details, really. Only that Ida curses her daughter.
“It was a relief,” he says. “And an agonizing loss.” His eyes go to the sky. He stares at the expanse of blue, looking for something among the big, puffy clouds.