Page 90 of Seeing Grayscale

I blush immediately. “So are you,” I admit.

His neatly groomed eyebrow arches. “Think so?”

Nodding, I finish chewing and say, “When you are thinking hard, your toes wiggle. It’s cute.”

A bark of laughter bursts from him. “How the hell do you know that?”

“When we shared the hotel. I…well, I was watching you work.”

Those elusive dimples poke through his beard as he shakes his head again. “I knew I was keeping you awake.”

“It wasn’t you. I was thinking a lot that night. Besides,” I pause, waiting for those hazel eyes to land on me again, “I like watching you.”

Now it’s his turn to blush. “So how is it?” I take it for what it is. A subject change to avoid the real issue in the room. The one we can’t seem to acknowledge unless we are kissing.

“It’s really good. I’m pissed that my parents didn’t ever eat this.”

“Were you a picky eater as a kid?”

I think about it. Shame rushes to my face. “Yeah. I was. Maybe that’s why we never branched out. My mom cooked most nights,but it was always the same stuff. I…” I should’ve been easier on her.

A few memories bubble in my skull. One was a tantrum over the type of pasta she used for spaghetti night. It was one of the times Dad was at work later than normal. I missed him, and wealwayshad spaghetti nights together. It wasn’t about the pasta, but Mom never bought it again after that…

“Mine can’t cook.” He laughs a little. “Not for lack of trying, anyway. But once she came back…well, she only does it for show. After I moved out, my dad hired a chef.”

“How come?” I ask, grateful that the spotlight isn’t on me anymore, and I take another bite.

“They can afford one?”

“You don’t sound so sure,” I tease.

He stares at his food, pushing it around in the container. “A lot changed. I still don’t know why she left in the first place. But I have always known she wasn’t happy with my dad.”

“Like…she left, as in they got divorced?”

“Legally separated.” The sentence is clipped. He grips his fork tighter, the plastic giving way in his fist. “She was gone for five years. She called on my birthday and Christmas.”

“Fuck…Hunter,” I whisper, pushing my food aside to reach across the small table and take his hand. He gives me a grateful squeeze. “And then she just came back one day?”

“It felt like that. And when she did, my dad told me I needed to forgive her and let it be in the past. I don’t think I ever did.”

“Because she left you? Or left you with him?”

“Both,” he says easily. “If she hadn't left, I wouldn’t have missed her so badly, and I wouldn’t have had to deal with all of his expectations.”

The more he shares, the more I understand him. What a warped fucking childhood. I don’t know what’s worse: losingyour parents forever or being abandoned. Because that’s what his mother did anyway you look at it.

“Did she ever apologize?”

“No. But she does try, especially as of late. I never let it show when I’m around her, though. I keep it all in.”

“You do that with everything.”

He snorts. “Touché.”

When he returns to his food first, I follow his lead and eat the rest in comfortable silence. After we clean up, we go outside for a smoke. There’s a bit of awkwardness that wasn’t there before. I think everything we’ve confessed, and everything we haven’t, has created the shift. I know he wants to have his space; it’s evident with how he fiddles with his lighter, staring off into the distance, and standing at least ten feet away from me.

As I take a drag, I wonder just how bad being his secret would be.

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