“That, I might agree with,” I said with a laugh.
“Give me fifteen minutes,” he said, already stepping back from the door and pulling it open wider. “Come in, come in. Please. Fifteen minutes, I swear. I’ll shower and change and we can go.”
“I think it’s too late for that,” I said.
“Fuck. The reservations. I’m so sorry.”
I shrugged. “It’s fine.”
“I’ll call them,” he said. “I know the owner, I can explain I’m a mess.”
“Colt.” I put my hand on his arm. “It’s fine. Truly.”
I could see how distressed he was. I walked into the house. It had been so long since I’d been in the house but I remembered the layout.
I walked to the kitchen, which was visible from the living room with the open floor plan.
“I’m going to cook,” I said.
“You don’t have to do that.”
“I know I don’t have to.”
“Shower. I’ll see what you have in here. If you guys have been living like bachelors, I’ll go to my house and pull something from the freezer.”
“We have groceries,” he said. “Cody insists.”
I glanced back at him over my shoulder. “When you come back down, you’re going to be my line cook.”
He blinked. “Your what?”
“My line cook.” I pulled open the refrigerator. “My sous chef.” I surveyed the contents of his fridge. There was actually quite a lot to work with. Someone had gone to the grocery store recently and it hadn’t been Colt. I pulled out a few things and set them on the counter. “My bitch,” I finished.
Then he laughed. “Your bitch,” he repeated.
“That’s what I said.” I found a cutting board in the third cabinet I tried and set it on the counter. “Now go. You stink. Make sure you put on that cologne. I want to smell you.”
“You want to smell me?”
“Go.”
He went, still laughing. I had walked over here ready to have a very difficult conversation and instead I was standing in his kitchen in my good dress about to make pasta. Life was strange sometimes.
I found a pan, olive oil, and garlic. There was also fresh onion. Becca did most of the cooking at home but I knew how to. I opened cupboards and drawers and found everything I needed. Cooking was meditative for me. It always had been.
By the time I heard him on the stairs, I had water boiling and something that smelled genuinely good happening in the pan. Sauteed onion and garlic was the best smell. It didn’t matter what the dish was, it always made you seem like a pro.
“That smells unbelievable,” he said.
I turned around. He was freshly showered, hair still damp, wearing a dark blue tee and khaki shorts. He looked so good it was genuinely unfair.
He kissed my cheek. “I’m sorry. I am truly, deeply, embarrassingly sorry for ruining our date night.”
“You should be.” I turned back to the stove. “You stood me up. I was sitting over there spiraling.”
“You were spiraling?”
“I caught it early. I was expecting to come over here and find you knocked out at the bottom of the stairs. I knew you were home. I knew you weren’t caught in traffic, so if you weren’t bleeding out at the bottom of the stairs and chose to stand me up, you were going to be in serious trouble.”