Page 46 of The Kitchen Contract

“It’s blue,” he says. “For future reference.”

I make a mental note to ask him later what kind of blue. Are we talking navy, royal, robin’s egg, aqua?

Right now, I’m ready to pay the nice lady who made my hair look amazing and go to Alex’s house for some dinner.

27

ALEX

The video footage I took of Nora’s big reveal is completely unusable, because the instant the stylist spun her around and stepped out of the way, my hand dropped to my side. The result is that all you can see is a close-up of my olive-green cargo shorts and an upside-down view of the woman behind us with her silver hair in curlers.

I spend the whole drive home trying to recover some sense of the cool that I lost when I saw her. Thankfully we met at the salon and are driving separately to my house or else it would be a lost cause. I would be uncontrollably distracted by her long hair which is, as she described it, very much her. It’s hard to explain the glow she had when she saw herself. It was like she sat up straighter and looked herself in the eye. I loved seeing her so confident. She was beautiful before, but her new self-assurance makes her stunning.

I have a feeling our views are about to skyrocket.

I beat her home and let myself in through the garage, striding through the house to open the front door for her. I have regained at least some amount of chill by the time she steps inside, but it goes away instantly when she slides past me and I catch a whiff of a new scent that must have come from whatever the stylist used on her hair at the salon. It’s not her usual strawberry—this smells sharper but still sweet, like citrus.

I swallow a groan. I’m beginning to get the feeling that this is going to be the opposite of a relaxing evening. All I want to do is pull her into my arms and see if I can taste that citrus, run my fingers through her hair and see if it’s really as silky as it looks.

But I can’t. As much as I want to, I know Nora could do better than me. She could have her pick of any number of guys who don’t have a whole cargo ship load of romantic baggage.

She kicks off her sandals and perches on a stool at the island, propping her chin in one hand. “I believe I was promised dinner.” Her playful gaze makes the longing expand until I feel like a party balloon that’s about to pop. I turn away to ease the pressure.

“Coming right up.”

I try not to think about her watching me as I pull out pots and pans, preparing to make a pasta recipe I saw online the other day. The video made it look simple with just a few ingredients, so hopefully I can pull it off even in my less-than-focused state.

“What are you making?” she asks. “Do you want any help?”

“Pasta and nope, I’ve got it.” I keep my voice light but what I really want to say is Please don’t come over here and make me crank my self-discipline levels into overdrive.

“I can at least get us drinks,” she says, hopping down from the stool. “Getting a makeover made me thirsty.”

Thankfully she stays on the other side of the kitchen, pulling down two glasses and filling them with ice.

She’s quiet as I boil water for the pasta and sauté mushrooms and peas in butter. When I dare to glance up at her, I see she’s watching me, her expression thoughtful.

“What’s going on in your head?” I ask as I stir.

“I was thinking about change and how it’s always stressful but not always bad. Like how I was really nervous about changing my hair, but it turns out I really like it. Or how I almost didn’t contact you about using your kitchen because I was scared to do the show.”

This catches my attention, and I frown. “I didn’t know that. What were you scared of?”

She twists her mouth to the side. “I was scared I was going to fail at this like I did culinary school. I thought nobody would watch it, you’d get tired of me hanging out in your kitchen, the recipes wouldn’t be good enough…all kinds of things.”

“First of all, you didn’t fail at culinary school. You passed all your classes up until that other student stole your idea, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Second, you are welcome to hang out in my kitchen whenever you want. Third, I’ve already told you your recipes are delicious. And if the number of views on the channel is any indication, the internet agrees.”

She rolls her eyes. “It’s easy to hear all that now and know it was worth it. But I didn’t know anything when I had to decide whether to go for it or not.”

“That’s true,” I concede.

“But all that has got me thinking about if there are any other things in my life that I might want to change. Any other chances I might want to take.”

My heart speeds up as she slides off her stool and moves toward me. She stops beside me and lays a hand on my arm, tugging slightly to get me to turn and look at her.

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