Page 54 of A Novel Love Story

“Can’t say I have.”

“Count yourself lucky. Once, Pru and I took a shortcut through a bit of farmland in our hometown. Forgot that the farmer had put out his ponies for the summer. The little shit chased us across theentire field. In the middle of the night.” I took down a pot and started to fill it with water, my gaze a thousand miles away. “I still can’t walk through a field at night without hearing the ghost of a neigh.”

“And the pony’s name was Ralph?” he deadpanned.

“Tiger Beat,” I replied, which only baffled him.

His kitchen reminded me of my grandma’s house, back when I was little and she used to take care of me while Mom went to work. The cabinets had creaky hinges, the stovetop was gas, the faucet tookforeverto get hot water,and everything was just a little rusted. He sat down in my chair and instructed me on how to turn on a gas stove, but I’d grown up with them. He, apparently, hadn’t. Born and raised in the heart of Los Angeles. His father was an accountant for a big movie studio, and his mom was a Pilates instructor, which surprised me because Rachelusuallyorphaned her heroes. I guessed she wanted to do something different with him.

“And you … decided to own a bookstore? How did that come about?” I asked, taking a piece of spaghetti out of the boiling water and tossing it at the wall. It slid down, so the pasta wasn’t ready yet.

“I’m going to pretend you didn’t just sling pasta on my tile.”

“It’s how you tell if it’s done,” I explained. “If it sticks, it’s done. You know the saying—throwing everything at a wall and seeing what sticks? What did you think that came from—Velcro balls?”

He thought about it. “I hadn’t really thought about it.”

“Clearly you weren’t an English major,” I replied.

“Journalism.”

“Then how did you wind up here?”

His face pinched, and he sat back in his chair, as if trying to figure out what to say. I leaned against the counter, studying him as he did. There had to be some connection to the other characters. Usually, Rachel introduced the hero or the heroine before their book arrived, and so far there was no obvious heroine around. Lily had called himuncle, so maybe he was related to Thomas? But he didn’t look like they were related, and as far as I remembered Thomas had the whole orphan backstory. But if not Thomas, then who? Anders felt familiar, like there was something so obvious, and I just couldn’t put my finger on it. After a moment, he glanced up at me and nudged his chin toward the pot. “I think it’s about to boil over.”

“Oh, shit!” I grabbed the potholders and drained the spaghetti, and then put it back into the pot with the marinara sauce. (Pru would have beenbesideherself knowing that I didn’t make it from scratch—she swore by this one celebrity chef’s recipe, but all I liked from his cookbook was the lemon pie.) As I finished up, Anders took out a bottle of red wine from another cabinet, along with two wineglasses, and poured us both a drink.

“I might have overestimated my cooking skills,” I admitted, putting the pot of spaghetti between us on a trivet.

“I’m serviceable at best,” he replied, probably to make me feel better. “In fact, one time, Chel …” he started, but then he quieted, as if the name he was about to say had stolen all the wind out of his lungs, and shook his head. “I just burn everything.”

“Pru says that it just takes practice, but I don’t believe her.”

“You don’t seem like the patient type,” he agreed, grabbing some tongs from the drawer and two bowls from the cabinet.

I mocked hurt. “I am the very model of a modern major general, why thank you.”

He shook his head, amused.

We served ourselves from the pot. We didn’t have meatballs, but I’d eaten just noodles and marinara sauce for so many years in undergrad that I didn’t miss them. I motioned with my fork to his plate.

“So? Thoughts?”

He took his knife and fork like polished people did, and swirled up a bite of spaghetti with the kind of polite precision that was about to make me look like a Neanderthal. After a moment, he said, “It’s decent.”

I raised my eyebrows. “I hope that’s high praise.”

He chased it with a gulp of wine, which wasn’t a great sign, so I had to have a bite,too—andimmediatelyrealized what had gone wrong.

“Sugar,” I groaned, realizing I must’ve used it instead of salt. “Why didn’t yousayso?”

“It’s honestly not the worst I’ve had—perhaps some hot sauce will help?”

“Hah,” I sighed as he retrieved the salt, and while the pasta still wasn’tgood, at least it was edible. After a few more bites, and a glass of wine, I admitted, “I wish I could say I’ve never done this before—but I have. For the book club. We all laughed so hard.” I smiled a little at the memory. “I think that was the year we all read that vampire series and couldn’t stop calling each othersuckling, like the main vampire guy does.”

He groaned. “Ihatedthat series.”

“The sex was decent.”

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