Page 76 of The Promise Of You

“I had a gummy… or two last night. Best sleep ever,” she confesses.

As I look at her, my gaze drops to her endless legs. My breath catches. and it becomes hard to breathe and hot in here. My eyes lock on hers. She crosses her arms for a beat and then points her thumb to the staircase. “I’m gonna take a shower. I’ll be real quick.” She grabs her to-go cup and stops on the bottom step. “We did say nine, right?”

“Yeah. Your assistant.” I know it wasn’t her answering her chat, because I was on the phone with Dad while I was on the chat, and he mentioned holding the door for Chloe who was walking out from Easy Monday with a tray of drinks.

Her eyes flash between annoyance and amusement. She purses her lips. “My sous. Corine. I don’t have an assistant.”

That’s what I thought. She wouldn’t have agreed to a meeting like that. I’ll have to thank Corine, some day.

But also, she didn’t cancel. That has to mean something, right?

The shower goes on and I can’t help but fill in the visual, so I take Moose to the porch before I completely lose it.

What am I even doing here? What am I hoping? I don’t want a relationship. I don’t want a girlfriend. I’m not going to sleep with her.

I just want to be with her.

She comes back in a baggy gray track suit, her wet hair braided tightly on her back, leaving a dark straight mark between her shoulder blades. No makeup, of course, and no jewelry, except her clover pendant. She’s trying hard not to look sexy. E for Effort.

No trace of the floral scent she wears, but the coconut note is stronger. I’m guessing it’s her shampoo for sure and maybe also her shower gel. I don’t know about that.

I’d have to taste her.

She sets a thick notebook on the table. “More coffee?” She’s already at her espresso machine, so I just nod. “I need to find out what’s in that Road to Heaven,” she mumbles. She grabs a pen from a kitchen drawer, sets it on her notebook, and returns to making coffee, all without ever making eye contact. “So I was thinking,” she says loud enough to cover the hissing and grinding of the espresso machine, “we should try and produce something that’s halfway between comfort food and sophistication.” She plops our cups on the table and brings a cute little pottery bowl for the sugar and a matching pitcher for cream. “Yeah?”

She sits at an angle from me, our knees not quite touching yet, but they could. She did it so I could follow on her notebook, which she opens. Or maybe it’s so we’re not facing each other, and she can keep looking out the window, which is a much more interesting view than me.

I’m interested in her, so that’s where I’m looking. Right at her profile. She pours sugar and cream, takes a spoon in her dainty hand, stirs, licks the spoon, sets it down, brings the cup to her lips, blows on the hot coffee, then takes a careful sip. Her eyebrow raises. “What do you think?”

What was she saying? ‘… between comfort food and sophistication’ “Absolutely. Something that expresses the identities of both our places.” I take a sip of my black coffee, the bitter taste hitting my tastebuds in a satisfying manner. “We should incorporate clovers.”

Her cup hits the table loudly, a few drops of coffee jumping out.

“Don’t, seriously,” she pleads, giving me a glimpse of something unexpected. Something that pierces through me, making me believe for a fleeting instant that given the choice, that morning, she wouldn’t have… I need to stop.

“Sorry. I mean—your uncle’s restaurant. The sign has a clover, right?”

She’s back to looking out the window. “A shamrock. We can incorporate a shamrock.”

“I dunno. The word shamrock doesn’t really—it doesn’t sound great in a dish, you know? Sham and rock. Could we…? Clover is such a better word.” I wanna add that it has the word lover in it, but I don’t want to push my luck.

“Sure! Clover. Why not?”

Well that was easy. I’m almost disappointed.

“As long as we incorporate salamanders in that dish.”

“Salamanders? No one eats salamanders.”

“Why not? A bunch of people across the globe eat insects. The French eat frogs. Why wouldn’t we create a dish with little salamanders?” Even when she says something so disgusting, she manages to make cute little gestures and faces, like that chick on the Schitt’s Creek series that Haley used to be so hooked on.

“How would we prepare salamanders?” I wonder how far she’s going to take this.

“We could try roasting them. Little baby salamanders roasted like marshmallows, on a toothpick for apps. With a clover leaf at the base. We could boil mommy salamanders and roll them in sushi rice and wrap them in clover leaves. Take big daddy salamanders and chop their heads off, filet them and eat them raw with just a little lemon and freshly chopped clovers.”

“Like an oyster,” I play along.

“Yes! So. It’s set?” She dips her head to her notepad and starts writing.

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