“Okay, so I can keep that shift or—”
“Come over for dinner.”
“I was really hoping you’d say that,” Darren laughs, low and just a bit rough. “Do you want me to grab takeout?”
With the phone pressed to my ear and the spring sunlight on my face, I close my eyes. It’s not always easy to remember 28 years of marriage so clearly, but very little escapes me now. The laughter and the tears and the noise and the silence and his and her gardens and sex by the pool and a long goodbye and the chance to let someone else all the way in. I’m overwhelmed, but comforted by the weight of so many good things, gratitude thick in my throat until I clear it away and do my best with words thatbetray nobody.
“No,” I tell him. “I want you to cook with me.”
“You know the routine. Pick a bottle, open it up, and pour.”
Barefoot in my kitchen, and wearing nothing but a thin t-shirt and cotton shorts, Darren bends to study the selection of wine I’ve left on the island. I don’t have much on either—just a tank top and sweatpants—but once he's made a decision, he locks his mischievous eyes with mine instead of leering.
“How many people would think we’ve been fucking because you’re an older man who tells me what to do?”
“Ah, well, how many people tracked your daddy issues from a mile away?”
“Ha, yeah, that’s fair,” he chuckles. With a bottle in one hand, he snatches the corkscrew with the other, and doesn’t look at me again until I push two glasses his way. “Were you concerned about that?Areyou concerned about that?”
“No to both.”
“Why not?”
Something quivers between those two words—a detail so subtle Darren could deny it without blinking—and I move swiftly, skirting the island to pull everything out of his hands before I kiss him. With my fingertips trailing over his jaw, I’m tender about it, but I open his mouth enough to make sure I know howthe next sound tastes, and then I pull away so I can see his face when I answer.
“I would never have met those needs for you, and it wouldn’t have occurred to me to try. Everyone else can praise you however they want. I'll praise you like Jake.”
“Jesus—”
“Now be good and pour,” I say, letting him go with a wink. “It’s time to make dinner.”
“What are we making?”
“I figured we could make the same pasta I had the night of my accident.”
“Mmmm, I remember those dirty dishes,” Darren murmurs. “So, is tonight an attempt to change bad memories into good ones?”
“Oh, I don’t know. I’m pretty fond of what happened back then.”
“Ugly scar and all?”
“Ugly scar and all,” I say, working my way around the kitchen to gather everything we’ll need.
I’m not concerned about Darren keeping up, a scribbled recipe on the counter for him to decipher if he wants. He wants, of course, and as soon as we both have our glasses of wine, he picks up the page, his hands never still for long. When he speaks, I expect a question about the food, but he hasn’t left the past behind, and I know a little about what that’s like.
“Do you think we would’ve ended up here if you hadn’t shown up at Trailhead that night?”
“Yes,” I answer easily. And maybe I just want that to be true, but I shrug either way. “Trivia night was starting to feel like—I don’t know. The flirting. The teasing. It turned serious. There was an edge to it, like we both knew if we pushed a little harder—if we said one more thing—we could get answers to anything we wanted to know.”
“I wanted to know everything,” Darren says. “Still do.”
We both take a sip, and then I turn to fill a pot with water. “I should take some of that back.”
“Oh?”
“I’m not sure we would’ve ended uphere. I think we would’ve slept together, but I’m not sure it would’ve been more than something quick and casual.”
Darren frowns. “I never had plans to drag you into the keg room like everyone else.”