"He is." I lean up, kiss him at the door. Not hiding, not quick. The kind of kiss you give someone in front of a building with a rainbow flag because you can. "But Wednesday I'm yours."
"Wednesday," he agrees.
"Bring a new book. I finishedPiranesi."
"Already have one picked out."
"Of course you do."
He watches me go inside. I wave from the hall. He waves back. The porch light is warm and the evening is cold and somewhere between the door and the stairwell I realize that I'm not counting down anymore.
I'm counting up.
I want more days with Silas. I want them all.
Chapter 17
Silas
Wednesday evening and I'm in the garage not working on anything.
The carburetor on the lift is fine. I rebuilt it yesterday. But I'm sitting on the stool with a wrench in my hand pretending to be busy because Devin is in the bar kitchen trying to cook me dinner and I've been told, firmly, by both Robin and Jason, to stay out.
"He wants to do this for you," Robin said, pushing me toward the garage door. "Let him. Go be somewhere else."
"It's my kitchen too."
"It's Jason's kitchen and you know it. Go."
So I went. And now I'm sitting in the garage listening.
"No — salt the water first, THEN bring it to boil." Jason's voice, patient but precise.
"How much salt?"
"It should taste like the sea."
"What does that even mean? I've never been to the sea!"
Robin's voice cuts in: "Just a good pinch. Like this —"
"Robin, that is not a pinch. That's a fistful."
"It's a generous pinch."
"A generous pinch is still a pinch. That's a tablespoon. You're going to —"
"Jason, I've been cooking longer than you —"
"You've been BAKING longer than me. Baking and cooking are different disciplines. Baking is chemistry. Cooking is art. You're trying to apply chemistry to art and it's —"
"Guys." Devin's voice. Quiet but firm. The voice he uses when café customers are being difficult. "The water is boiling. What do I do?"
Silence. Then Jason: "Salt it. A tablespoon. An actual tablespoon, not Robin's interpretation of a tablespoon."
I hear the clink of a spoon. The pour.
"Good," Jason says. "Now the pasta goes in. Stir it once. Then leave it alone for eight minutes."