Page 45 of The Night Shift
‘No, honestly,’ he said. ‘There’s nothing to this dish– it’s really simple, but you could get the plates and cutlery out? If you don’t mind?’
She moved around the kitchen opening a few cupboards and drawers at random, the area was small and fairly intuitive in terms of what went where, and she enjoyed the opportunity to nose around with permission. In fact, she was enjoying everything about being here, her heart felt lighter than it had in weeks. The sensation of weightlessness, the feeling she might just drift off on a cloud of contentment may of course have been related to the fact that her blood sugar was in her boots– but being here with Gus just seemed so normal and natural, soeasy. And despite the obvious novelty value of playing house with another man, she felt almost as comfortable here as she did being in the kitchen with Dev or Marvin. The major difference between those scenarios of course was that every time she brushed past Gus she felt as though a million volts of electricity had been released into her erogenous zones and she couldn’t concentrate fully on the meal preparation because she was so excited about getting back into bed with him.
She did wonder whether she should have been so honest with him about her little problem. It might simply have been easier to fake it, but she suspected that if anyone would see through her poor acting it would be Gus. He already knew her far better than most of the other men she’d slept with and the majority of them had been too engrossed in their own climactic experience to pay anything other than superficial attention to whether hers was genuine. Gus’s reaction had been interesting though, slightly worrying if she was honest. She didn’t want to turn this into some kind of challenge, like her orgasm was an obstacle course that just needed to be completed in the right sequence. She knew how to please herself obviously, but that was something she did in the privacy of her own bedroom and nobody else needed to be involved with that, thank you very much. But she had the feeling that whatever happened this evening with Gus would add significant fuel to her future DIY attempts. She already had a bank of images and sensations from the past half hour that would likely see her through the next few months and just being this near to him made her want to run into the bathroom and start touching herself.
She watched his face as he cooked and could see a smile still playing on his lips. She wondered if he knew what she was thinking. Part of her wanted to tell him now, to stroll over to him as he stirred the tagliatelle and casually whisper it in his ear. She imagined his reaction, how she would press her body to his and feel his hardness against her, how she might slide her hands into his trousers, stroking along the length of him before dropping to her knees and taking him into her mouth. She was good at blow-jobs. She knew that from previous feedback– although she suspected it was rare that any man would complain about poor-quality fellatio, so she didn’t congratulate herself too much, but she prided herself on her anatomical knowledge and tended to approach the process in a methodical, systematic way, one that bore sustained and consistent results. At least here was a practical procedure she excelled at.
‘You are giving off seriously naughty vibes, Violet Winters,’ said Gus as he transferred the pasta to two bowls and carried them to the small dining table. ‘Come and sit down. We need to inject some sense of normality into this situation.’
‘Must we?’ she said, pouting.
‘Five minutes,’ he said. ‘Besides, you definitely need some calories inside you.’
‘Are you a bit of a feeder, Gus?’ She brought the cutlery to the table with the pepper grinder and took her seat.
‘Not in a fetish way, no. But I do like to cook,’ he said. ‘Or at least I used to. I haven’t bothered for a long while; cooking for one isn’t the most exciting prospect. And before Amelia left we tended to enjoy eating out, she said that was one of the benefits of living here, the fact that we were so close to so many good restaurants, which is true, of course…’
Violet could see how hard he was working to make sure that anything perceived as criticism of his ex-fiancée was explained away with a reasonable defence. He didn’t want to be bad-mouthing Amelia, she could tell, but she wasn’t sure whether that was because he was such a nice guy or whether he was still in love with her, or both.
‘I love people cooking for me,’ she said, aware that she was stooping to playground tactics with her direct comparison of her preferences against those of his ex, but it was also true. ‘Dev’s a brilliant cook. He really is a feeder but then his whole family are. We’ve still got stuff of Aunty Beena’s left from Boxing Day. You’ll have to come over and…’
The sentence petered out. She wasn’t sure whether inviting him over to hers might come across as a bit heavy. After all, it was incredibly rare for her to bring men home. She tended to keep her romantic liaisons separate from her home life, and both of those things separate from her work life. In fact, the past twenty-four hours had been a complete mess from that point of view– Dev and Marv at the hospital, her sleeping with a colleague. It seemed that all of her nice tidy life compartments had been unceremoniously squooshed together in a blender and, to be honest, the whole thing was making her feel a bit panicky.
‘Anyway, I really enjoy it,’ she said, glossing over her earlier stumble. ‘Somebody cooking for me. It makes me feel looked after. And this smells delicious.’ She indicated the bowl in front of her.
‘Well, tuck in,’ he said, looking pleased. ‘Before it gets cold.’
She was aware that he was watching her as she ate, trying to subtly assess whether she liked it or not. Knowing she was no better at faking culinary enjoyment than any other kind of enjoyment she steeled herself for an Oscar-winning performance, but as she bit into the firm strands of pasta, perfectly oiled and seasoned without a cloying creamy sauce in sight she made a little noise of surprise. ‘Oh my God, it’sreallygood,’ she said. ‘I don’t normally like this kind of thing. The pancetta tastes amazing and the tagliatelle is delicious.’
‘I’m glad you like it,’ he said, a tiny frown forming between his eyebrows. ‘But what do you mean you don’t normally like this sort of thing?’
‘I just…’ Had she made a mistake? It was a fair assumption. ‘I don’t usually like carbonara,’ she said carefully. ‘The times I’ve had it in restaurants, it’s usually too creamy, and a bit sort of gack.’
‘So why didn’t you say that when I asked you earlier?’ He looked oddly deflated. ‘Why did you pretend?’
‘Because I thought it would make you happy,’ she said, faltering slightly at his expression. ‘Isn’t that what people do?’ Normal people– that’s what she meant.Isn’t that what normal people do when they’re trying to make someone like them? They pretend.
He reached across the table and took her hand. ‘Don’t pretend for me, Violet,’ he said. ‘Don’t fall into that trap. If you don’t like something, just tell me.’
‘I’m sorry.’ She looked down at her bowl. ‘I got it wrong again, didn’t I?’
He smiled at her. ‘Don’t get all despondent,’ he said. ‘You didn’t get it wrong exactly. It’s just, that’s one of the things I love about you.’ He hastily corrected himself. ‘I mean, it’s one of the things I really like about you, the fact that thereis no pretence. There’s nothing artificial going on. I know where I stand.’ He rubbed his thumb against the palm of her hand. ‘Believe me, it makes a big difference Don’t ever change that part of yourself to fit in with what you think other people want to hear.’
‘Okay,’ she said, equanimity restored by the combination of his soothing tone and his stroking which was now actually becoming a bit distracting, but in a good way. ‘Anyway, to get back to the original compliment, before we got sidetracked into a morality tale– the food is absolutely delicious.’
‘Well, some of it is down to Signora Fratelli and her amazing pasta,’ he said. ‘Although I do sometimes make my own. If I’ve got time. I can do a pretty good ravioli. Do you like a more tomatoey Neapolitan sauce? I could maybe make you that sometime?’
‘I do,’ she said enthusiastically. ‘And this time I’m not pretending in the slightest. I really like ravioli. Although, to be fair, it appears I like tagliatelle carbonara a lot more than I thought. Maybe I should try and broaden my culinary horizons.’
‘Well, how about after we finish this week of nights and everything goes back to normal we could– I could cook for you again– do it properly?’ he said. His tone sounded hopeful. At least, she thought it did, but maybe that washerbeing hopeful.
‘That would be lovely,’ she said. ‘It’s a real treat for me, honestly. I mean, I can cook but it means a lot when someone else does. We didn’t really do the whole “home-cooked suppers” when I was growing up, not like some of my friends, so it always feels like a treat, even more than going out for dinner somehow.’
Gus helped himself to more pasta and indicated her plate to see if she wanted seconds. She nodded eagerly.
‘So, you parents didn’t cook much then,’ he said, sprinkling some parmesan on his food.
‘Too busy helping the sick and needy,’ she said, her laugh a little hollow. ‘Oh, I didn’t mind– of course I didn’t. It’s just that when you’re a kid you don’t really understand why your parents are so wrapped up in looking after everyone else. They were always working late, there were evenings when nobody was back before eight or one of them would collect me from school and I’d have to hang around the surgery until they’d finished evening clinic or go out on visits with them. I sound really ungrateful– it wasn’t like I was neglected. And my parents were always very keen that I knew how fortunate I was. They’d worked for Médecins Sans Frontières in Africa for five years before they had me so I knew I was lucky to have a roof over my head and food on the table, even if it was just a microwave meal or some sandwiches left over from the partners’ meetings.’ She laughed abruptly. ‘God, listen to me– first-world problems. They’d be appalled to hear this.’
