Nightwork, page 16
“Yeah, see you tomorrow. Hope your dad wins his quarter.”
She tossed a sparkling look over her shoulder. “Not as much as he does.”
In the same daze, Booth made his way back to the stands.
What the hell had he done?
And what the hell was he going to cook?
CHAPTER TWELVE
It threw off his entire Saturday routine, which told him maybe, just maybe, he’d already settled into a rut.
It wasn’t as if he’d never cooked for a girl—woman—before. Dauphine might’ve been the first outside of family, but she hadn’t been the last. Though he’d kept that particular move mostly in reserve for when both parties knew—or certainly assumed—the evening would end in bed.
That wouldn’t happen here—he’d firmly decided that one. Besides, this equaled a first date. If it really was an actual date, and he had to admit Miranda kept him continually off balance.
Maybe they were just pals. Platonicville. That would be best all around. Her father was one of his professors, for God’s sake. Talk about sticky.
Still, he wanted to impress her with the meal. Nothing fancy though, he thought as he rejected a half dozen menus. Fancy was just bragging.
But nice, something nice.
He decided, finally, on pesto pasta with grilled chicken. He’d use farfalle so nobody had to wind or slurp. Plus, farfalle looked cheerful, casual. Pasta was casual.
It was all casual.
He still had his Saturday cleaning, so he hit it early and hit it hard while the dough for the Italian bread rose.
He did all his usual Saturday chores, baked the bread, then went shopping for what he needed for dinner.
Then he made himself sit down and work on a paper for his own French class. Shifting from that he went downstairs, set a timer, and worked on improving his personal best on combination locks.
It helped, keeping his hands busy, his mind focused. And still by the time he took a shower, started dinner prep—and a soft, light rain began to fall—he admitted he was a wreck.
He should’ve done some yoga. Mags swore by it, and whenever he tried it, it zenned him out. Plus, it kept the body limber, and someone with his career choice needed to stay limber.
Too late now, he thought as he wondered if he should light some candles, put music on. Or if that was just too much.
He decided the candles worked because the rain made it gloomy. Just cheering it up, like the farfalle.
At 7:02—not that he was watching the clock—the knock came. And his stomach clenched. Not like a fist, but like two fists wringing out a wet rag.
She wore one of those dresses with a short denim jacket over it. Little raindrops glimmered on her hair.
He’d never wanted anyone or anything as much in his life.
She held out a small bouquet of flowers. “I thought about wine, but since I didn’t know what you’re cooking, I didn’t know what kind to steal from my father.”
He stepped right back into the daze as he took the flowers. A first, he thought. No one had ever brought him flowers.
“Thanks. Come on in.”
“It’s a nice house, and wow,” she added as she stepped in. “So clean it sparkles.” When he laughed, she quirked that eyebrow.
“Family joke, I guess. My mother and my aunt had a cleaning company. The Sparkle Sisters.”
“Great name for it.” She wandered the living room.
Pretty sparse, he realized now that she stood in it. But absolutely clean.
“I grew up cleaning houses, so … habit.”
“He cooks, he cleans. You must like living alone off campus.”
He just shrugged and fell back on the line he’d used all summer. “I like having the space—a yard—and the quiet when I’m working. Studying.”
“You’ve got that. Why don’t you show me what smells so good?”
He walked her back to the kitchen, watched her wander again. Nothing much to see, he thought, beyond the ancient Formica countertops, the clunky cabinets. Considering the size, he’d hung a pegboard and taken a page from Sebastien’s book, hung up kitchen tools.
“This is where you live more than out there.”
“Yeah, I guess I do.”
“And it’s Italian.” She gestured to the plate of antipasto on the counter. “Always a top fave.”
“I’ve got some wine to go with it if you want some.”
“Not technically legal until April, but I would.”
He didn’t have a vase, but had an iced tea glass that would do. He stuck the flowers in, poured the wine.
“Okay, you’re not perfect.”
“I’m not?”
“You don’t know how to arrange flowers.” She took the wine, then set it down to fuss with the flowers. “Hayley’s thrilled, by the way. She got the lowdown from Ken. He says you’re a kick-ass tutor, which is high praise from Ken.”
“I did some in high school, and here and there. Ken’s motivated, but the grammar’s killing him. We’re working on it.”
“Too bad you’re not a math major. I know some people struggling there.”
“Actually, I used to tutor math.”
She glanced up, then took a pepperoncini from the plate, bit in. “This is, like, calculus and advanced algebra.” When he shrugged, she did that eyebrow thing. “Really?”
“Math’s just numbers, formulas, and logic.”
“I can’t say I ever felt that way about it. But I never have to take another math class in my life.” She tried an olive. “This is good. Anyway, if you want to add to the tutoring, I know a couple people.”
“Sure, I guess.”
She leaned back against the counter as she sipped her wine. “Are you thinking about teaching?”
“No, not really. Right now, it’s about learning. You?”
“Maybe. I’d like to write, but there’s that whole earning a living thing in there.”
“Write what?”
“Big, sprawling, juicy novels.” She sent him that smile. “Which takes time and talent and probably luck, so I may end up teaching big, sprawling, juicy novels other people wrote.”
Maybe, he thought, but she struck him as beyond motivated. She struck him as driven.
“But you’ll write anyway.”
“It’s what I like best. You must read something besides Shakespeare.”
“Anything and everything. One day I’ll read Big, Sprawling, and Juicy by Miranda Emerson.”
Laughing, she shook back her hair. “Doesn’t every lit major want to write, even secretly? Don’t you?”
“My mother hoped I would. I’m okay at it—just okay—and it doesn’t pull at me, you know?”
“Yeah, I do. What does? Pull at you?”
Dark, quiet houses, he thought. Locks to be lifted, safes to be cracked. “Too many things, maybe, so I can’t settle on one. I like figuring things out, how things work. People, too. How do they work? Languages—I like learning them. It’s figuring things out. Theater. How do you take this story, this setting, these people and make it all work?”
“Back up.” She circled a finger in the air. “Languages? More than French?”
“Yeah, well, Spanish and Italian. I’m pretty solid now in Russian and Portuguese. I think I might try Farsi.”
And he was telling her too much, he realized. Because it was all so easy.
“Hungry?”
“I’m making inroads in the antipasto, so I must be.”
“I’ll get the pasta going.”
He already had the water heating, so turned it up to bring it to a boil.
She sipped her wine, moved over to lean on the counter by the stove. “How do you say that in Italian? You know, boiling the pasta?”
“Buttare la pasta.”
“Of course, you could’ve made that up, but it sounds right.”
He’d wrapped the bread in a cloth, and now uncovered it to put it on a cutting board.
“Where’d you get the bread?” Her hip bumped his as she moved over to sniff it. “You did not make the bread.”
He didn’t know if he felt goofy or proud. “Baking bread’s one of my zen things.”
“Shut up!”
When he starting slicing it, she grabbed a piece from the board, bit in. “Well, God! This is awesome. Maybe you should open a bakery.”
“Are you kidding? Do you know how early bakers have to get up every day? Middle of the night, basically. And baking for a living cuts deep into the zen.”
“I guess it would. But you could, and that’s the thing. Dad and I bake cookies together every Christmas. Trust me, we couldn’t open a bakery.”
She watched him add the pasta to the boiling water, get out a colander, wide bowls.
“You’re the first male to ever cook—or attempt to cook—dinner for me other than my father.”
“Really?”
“Really. I’d ask if I can help, but I’m just going to stay out of your way.”
She did just that while he got out the cherry tomatoes he’d already halved, the container of pesto he’d made, more fresh basil, a hunk of fresh Parmesan.
She nibbled from the antipasto plate while he sliced the grilled chicken he’d kept warm in the oven, mixed the pasta, chicken, pesto, tomatoes in a bowl.
“Did you actually make the pesto from the basil?”
“That’s how it’s done.”
He cut slivers of it, to garnish the servings he’d arranged in the bowls, then grated the Parm over it.
He poured a little balsamic over the olive oil in dishes for dipping. Put it all, and the bread, on his table.
It looked good, he decided. Damn good. And she looked just perfect.
“Okay, buon appetito.”
“I heard that.” She sat, immediately took a forkful of the pasta. “Okay. Well, wow. You know, when I invited myself to dinner, I figured you’d toss something on a grill, maybe bake a couple of potatoes—which is all fine. This is amazing. And delicious.”
“You’re the first person I’ve had over for an actual sit-down dinner.”
“Is there another kind?”
“There’s taking some Cajun potato salad over to a neighbor’s cookout, or sharing some leftover spaghetti with the kid next door.”
“Now I have to ask what’s Cajun potato salad.”
“Something else again. A friend of mine in New Orleans gave me his secret recipe for his Cajun spice mix.”
“I’ve never been to New Orleans. Is it as wonderful as it looks in movies, sounds in books?”
“It’s like nowhere else. I felt steady there, easy there, when everything went rocky. You should go sometime. It’s not just a place. It’s an experience.”
“I’ll put it on the list. Where else have you been?”
“I’d never been anywhere before, so I took a long road trip on the way to New Orleans, then to Texas. I drove through the Smoky Mountains. Chicago is, you know.” He drew a flat line with his hand. “So I’d never seen anything like them, and I’d never seen the ocean, so I drove the coast some, went to the Outer Banks. Water pulls me. Water and hills.”
“We stayed in a house on Hatteras a few years ago for a week in the summer. It’s beautiful.”
“Where else have you been?”
“England.” She tore off a hunk of bread, dipped it. “My dad, right? Shakespeare. Ireland, because Yeats, Joyce, and so on. Gorgeous and green. Maine. And if you like the ocean, you should see it from one of those rocky Maine beaches.”
“I’ll put it on the list. Where do you want to go you haven’t been?”
“Top pick? Florence—the art, the architecture, the food, the sun. The shopping.”
He’d stopped feeling nervous and self-conscious. Stopped worrying about what to say—and what not to say. He felt more easy sitting at the little table with her while the sound of rain pattered outside than he’d felt anywhere in life.
“You hit one of mine. In fact, Mags and I are going over spring break.”
“Mags?”
“My aunt.”
“Lucky you! You must be tight with your aunt. What does she do now? Does she still have the business since she moved to New Mexico?”
“No, actually…” He could’ve said anything, but went with truth. “She’s a phone psychic.”
He waited for the reaction, expected laughter, possibly derision. Instead he got wide eyes and a light punch on the shoulder.
“Get out! Seriously? Does she read palms? You can’t read palms on the phone, can you? Tarot cards?”
“Yeah, that, and vibes or something.”
“This is amazing. Wait.” She pointed at him. “You don’t believe.”
“You’d have to know Mags to … You do? In psychics?”
“‘There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio.’ We went to Stonehenge when we were in England, and this—much smaller, but incredible—stone circle in Ireland. If you didn’t feel the ‘more’ there, you’d never feel it.”
They talked, and talked, and it was all so easy. He couldn’t pinpoint the moment when the nerves vanished. Everything just glided.
Books they’d read, movies they’d seen, music they liked, and more as they ate pasta and bread, then scoops of gelato. They talked while she helped—insisted on—with the washing up, then more as they sat awhile longer, her with a sparkling water, him with a Coke.
Just past midnight, she sighed. “I need to go. This was really just perfect. I wish I could reciprocate by offering to cook you a meal, but I like you, so I can’t subject you to the horror of it.”
“We could grab that pizza sometime. Or you could just come back.”
“Both sound good. Let’s try this. Pick a movie. I can take you to a movie without risk of giving you food poisoning. That way, I can invite myself to dinner again with a clear conscience.”
“Okay. How about tomorrow night?”
She rose to pull on her jacket. “Monday’s better for me. I’ve got a paper due Monday morning, and it still needs some polishing.”
“Monday works.” Any Monday, he thought as he walked her to the door. Any day, anytime. Ever.
“Pick the flick, text me.” She tossed her hair back, looked dead in his eyes. “Thanks for dinner. It was wonderful.”
When she opened the door, he saw the rain had gone to a mist. It floated, thin, cool, and beautiful. She stood in the open doorway, her back to it, and simply took his breath away.
“I have to ask you a question.”
“Okay.”
“I think I’m a pretty decent judge, and I judge you’re into me.”
“Who wouldn’t be?”
“Scores,” she said easily. “But I judge you are. I’ve given you a few openings, and you don’t go through them, so I invite myself over. And we’ve had, oh, a good five hours or so alone in your house. Good food, good company—again in my judgment. But you don’t make a move.”
And there, once again, she’d thrown him off balance.
“I wasn’t sure if you…”
“I could’ve moved on you—not at all opposed to that. Equal rights and all that. I wondered if you’re just not over that bad breakup.”
“The what? Oh. No, no. No,” he repeated. “That’s all done.”
“Good to know. Maybe you don’t have any moves.”
Off balance and knocked back, he led with pride. “I got moves. I’ve got some damn moves.”
“Maybe you should show me one. Just one,” she added, holding up a single finger. “Doesn’t have to be your best. I’ll certainly grade on the curve, as you might be rusty.”
Irritated, as she’d certainly intended, he moved in, gripped her hips, then with his eyes on hers, slid his hands up her sides. Slow. Until he’d gathered her against him. Close.
Only then did he lower his mouth to hers.
It was hard not to take too much, not to feast when he’d wanted and wanted and wanted. But he could float here, like the mist floated beyond them. Float on the taste of her, the feel, the scent, the everything of her.
Not take too much, follow the no-greed rule, and just bask in the moment. Having her arms around him, having her lips answer his, hearing that low hum in her throat.
Her hands slid up into his hair as the kiss spun out. And because his hands wanted to touch, to take, too much, he cupped his on her face, changed the angle of the kiss. And let it spin out once again.
When he eased back, he looked into her eyes, those sea-witch eyes.
“That’s a good move,” she managed.
“I thought about starting with this one.”
He turned her, pressed her back against the doorjamb, and with her pinned between it and his body, took a little more. Now he could feel her heart pounding, her pulse jumping, and the single, quick tremble that shuddered through her.
“Also a good choice.”
He liked knowing her voice wasn’t quite steady, nor was the hand she pressed to his chest to create a little distance between them. “Ten out of ten, no curve needed. Now I really have to go.”
“Or you could stay.” He touched her hair, all that beautiful fired-gold hair.
“I want to more than I thought I would, so I have to go. I have a rule about first dates, and I really want to break it, so I can’t.”
“We had coffee that one time.”
She laughed, shook her head. “Definitely doesn’t count. Rules is rules,” she said, and sidestepped him. “Let’s try that movie, maybe the pizza or whatever.”
“I get rules. I’ve got some of my own.” And one, carved in stone, was to respect a woman’s choice. “Monday night.”
“Monday night.”
He watched her walk through the mist to her car, watched her drive away.
And he thought: This is what they’re talking about. In all the books, this is what they meant. This was falling in love.
* * *
When she got home, Miranda hung up her jacket, very carefully. She walked up the steps, very quietly.
She knew her father’s bedroom light was on, as she’d seen it glowing when she pulled up. But he often fell asleep reading in bed, his glasses sliding down his nose, the book open on his lap.
