Page 51 of The Party Line

All this talk was making me as jittery as a wild turkey on Thanksgiving, and I almost burned the first four pancakes. “We are friends. We are neighbors. What about the consequences if it’s not and we ruin what we already have?”

“Anything worth having is worth taking a risk,” he assured me.

I set a platter of pancakes in the middle of the table. “I have commitment issues.”

Connor brought over the skillet and set it on a hot pad beside the pancakes. “So do I.” He poured melted butter and hot maple syrup on a stack of pancakes, took a bite, and rolled his eyes toward the ceiling. “You are right! These are the best pancakes I’ve ever eaten. What’s the secret?”

“Whipping the egg whites and then folding them into the batter,” I told him. “For your first try at agotta goomelet, you did a mighty fine job.”

“Maybe we should turn our backs on Ditto and put in a restaurant somewhere,” he suggested.

“No, thank you! Running a café of any kind is at the top of my list of things that I donotwant to do.”

“Why?”

“Because I saw firsthand how much my mama’s feet and back hurt when she came home from a shift. Standing on concrete for eight hours every day for a whole week does not appeal to me.”

“I didn’t think of the work, just the good food. I could enjoy your pancakes often,” he said.

“I can make that happen without having to open up a café at five in the morning,” I said. “You simply have to ask, and I will make pancakes. But I do not like to cook. I enjoy baking, mostly around the holidays, but making real food, like roasts and all that, it’s not me.”

He chuckled. “Well, darlin’, I don’t like you for your ability to make a roast.”

“For a relationship to last past the ...” I paused and thought about what I was about to say. “I was going to say past the lust stage, but I’m not sure we even had that. Which is really the reason my former relationships didn’t last. There was no magic. In the end we were more like roommates instead of a couple. The breakups were actually kind of boring.” I thought about Aunt Gracie’s diary entry when she wondered if she could die of a broken heart.

“I hear you,” Connor said with a nod. “Pretty much the story of my life, too. Do you know anyone who can honestly say that they have experienced the magic?”

“Mama did, even if my father didn’t. I think Aunt Gracie did when she was very young, but whoever it was with ended up breaking her heart, and she never really got over it,” I answered.

“How will you know ifyoufind it?”

“I figure that once I’ve known that kind of love, then the mere thought of not having it will shatter my soul.” I figured that he would make an excuse and never come back. This was some heavy conversation, but hey, if he wanted to run, the door wasn’t locked. “If I don’t feel like that, then there is no magic.”

He finished off the last bite of pancakes and shifted two more from the platter in the middle of the table onto his plate. “I like that idea.”

I laid it out there. “This is pretty heavy conversation for friends. But then, we did have one kiss, so maybe that gives us the right to talk about our feelings.”

“I guess it does.” He grinned.

The smell of coffee filled the whole downstairs the next morning. I made Jasper a stack of pancakes and fried several slices of bacon and carried a plate out to him, along with his morning medicine. He was sitting on the porch while Sassy chased a bee around the yard. The sun peeked over the treetops and threw a yellow glow on Jasper’s face that morning.

“Did you make breakfast for Connor?” he asked.

“No, I did not. Old women are supposed to be the gossips, not old men,” I scolded him. “Are you eating out here or in the house?”

He stood up and started inside. “Did he cook for you this morning?”

“No, but he’s bringing me muffins.”

Sassy ran up onto the porch and looked up at me with begging eyes. I picked up one piece of bacon and dropped it. She caught it before it hit the porch.

“Hey, now!” Jasper barked. “I was planning on saving back one bite for her.”

“There’s plenty enough that you can still feed her another piece.” I set the plate on the table and poured him a cup of coffee. “Want water to take your pills with?”

“I can use the coffee. Let’s do the breathing thing first. Pancakes look good.”

I handed him the inhaler and waited to give him the pills until he was finished. Then I sat down at the table with him to be sure that he ate and didn’t set the plate on the floor for Sassy to clean up.

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