“The one about why you were listing your faults.”
“Ah,” he said as if her question was a buzzkill. And the buzz she was feeling definitely needed to be killed. “Dunno. I guess it seemed like a reasonable time to bring it up.”
She snorted. “Why, because we’re broken up and locked in a house together with nothing better to do than analyze where it all went wrong?”
He cast her a side glance and shrugged. “I mean, yeah.”
Olivia couldn’t help laughing. “You sure that’s a good idea?”
“I don’t see why not. Come on, you give it a try. It feels kind of good to admit after all this time. What’s something you could have fixed?”
She frowned at him, not liking his implication that there was a list at the ready. But if she thought about it, he was right: there were several admissions she could make about herself that might have made their relationship a little smoother during its time.
She sighed and thought back to their argument on the day their relationship ended. She’d hated to admit it, but there was some truth to things he’d said. “Fine. I guess I can be a little stubbornly independent. I’m just used to being on my own, and I can see how that might be hard to deal with.” The final words came out with the ease of a cat gagging up a hairball. A shudder shook her shoulders just as she reached for her glass of wine to wash down the icky feeling of self-reflection.
Chuck laughed. “See? That wasn’t so bad.”
“That was literally the worst thing you’ve ever made me do. I might never forgive you.” She spoke into her glass, and her voice echoed back like it was a tiny amphitheater.
“Baby steps. I’ll settle for one confession tonight, but we’ve got a long way to go in this house still.”
“Ugh. Don’t remind me.”
“Oh please. It’s not that bad. Look! We’ve survived almost forty-eight whole hours together.” He pointed at the clock on the microwave.
“Yeah, well, we are about to encounter our first round of real dishes, and we both know our track record there.”
A smirk bent his lips. “Iwill do the dishes tonight. It’s only fair if you cooked.”
She blankly stared at him, her expression one of utter shock. “Seriously?”
“Yes, seriously.”
“Wow. If I’d known the threshold was a million dollars, I would have pooled my assets ages ago.”
He rolled his eyes this time, and she couldn’t help smiling.
The upturn in their compatibility encouraged her to ask a question she’d been thinking about all day.
“Earlier when we were working on the couch, what did you mean when you said there’s nowhere to go this time?”
He paused chewing and looked over at her. “I thought it was obvious. We’re locked in a house.”
“Well, yes. I know. But you sounded kind of…happy about it?” Uncertainty colored her voice. After thinking about it all day, she did and didn’t want to know what he’d meant.
Chuck took a sip of his wine and then cleared his throat. A cautious seriousness settled over him and made Olivia wonder if she shouldn’t have asked. His voice came out careful and calm, as if he were tiptoeing through a minefield. “To be honest, I’m not entirely mad about it. You have the tendency to…sidestep confrontation, and being stuck here together is a natural barrier to that.”
She blinked at him in confusion. “Chuck, you and I fight like it’s an Olympic sport. You think Isidestepconfrontation?”
“Not in that sense, no. I mean you tend to neverfinisha fight. You walk away before it’s over, and then I’m chasing after you for some kind of resolution. That I usually never get.” He said the last part quietly and glanced at her.
She suddenly felt naked. Like she’d been stripped bare, and a spotlight shone on her right there on the kitchen barstool in front of all the cameras. Her reflex was to deny.
She folded her arms over her chest. “I don’t think that’s true.”
“It is, though. You’re like the sexy cat that’s always trying to get away from Pepé Le Pew.”
She snorted. “So, you’re the problematic cartoon skunk in this analogy?”