“You stir,” she said. “I’m checking the chicken. Don’t let those tomatoes burn.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
I kept stirring and told her a bit more about the Judd issue.
“He’s scared,” she said, when I finished.
“Yep.”
She looked at me over the rim of her glass. “How many investors does that leave him with?”
“Two that I know of. Maybe three if one of the others holds.” I shrugged. “He can’t build anything without capital. The committee review is going to drag out his timeline. He’s hemorrhaging money and he knows it.”
“So he’s trying to make you bleed too.”
“That’s about the size of it.”
It felt like the most natural thing in the world to be in the kitchen with her. The music shifted to something a little moreupbeat. She was twirling around, singing along with the music. She hip bumped me, almost knocking the spoon out of my hand.
“I think we’re good,” she said. “Let’s eat.”
We filled our plates with pasta and the chicken. We carried the plates to the table. She brought the wine. I brought the bread she’d toasted.
I sat down across from her and realized I was starving. “I worked up an appetite,” I said.
She laughed. “Me too.”
“We won’t tell my mom I had my dessert before dinner.”
Her cheeks burned. “You’re so bad!”
I laughed and took a bite and it was, genuinely, the best thing I had eaten in recent memory.
“Damn, this is so good.”
“It’s pretty basic.”
“Maybe it’s the taste of you that makes it better.”
Her cheeks were bright red. I loved seeing her flush. Was it a little crude? Maybe. But it was true.
We were halfway through dinner when I decided to bring up something we had to talk about.
I exhaled slowly. “I have to go back,” I said. “To Texas.”
She went still. The way her jaw tightened just slightly before she relaxed it. She nodded once. “Okay.”
“I know what we talked about, but I can’t just abandon everything.”
She nodded, sipped her wine, and was doing her best to act like she was unaffected. I wished there was a better way to tell her, but I figured honesty was the best option.
“There’s a lot there,” I said. “The business has been running without me but it needs attention. There are contracts and decisions that have been deferred because I’ve been here. My attorneys need me in the same room for some of this.” I paused. “And there are personal things. My parents. I need to talk tothem face to face. There are things to sort through.” I held her gaze. “It’s not a quick trip.”
She nodded again. Another drink from her glass. She drained it. I reached for the bottle and refilled her glass. She was very composed.
“How long?” she asked. Her voice was steady. Too steady.
I thought about it honestly. “I don’t know. I can’t give you a time frame. I don’t want to say a month and then have it take three.”