Page 16 of Longing for Liberty
Holy crap, it was so good.
“Do you always eat standing up?” He lifted the lid from his own plate and made a sound of praise from the back of his throat when he looked at the meal.
“Um, not at home, sir. But usually at work, yes.” We weren’t exactly expected to make ourselves at home. “Can I take your plate to the table?”
“No.” To my shock, he took a fork and knife from the drawer and cut into his pork. I felt weirdly nervous and proud as he inspected the bite and gave it a nod before he put it into his mouth.
I looked away and took another bite of spinach, crunching into almonds.
“Taste what you made.”
My gaze rose to find him holding out a bite of pork at the end of a fork. Wait, did he want me to…yep, he moved it closer to my mouth and I opened my lips, taking the meat. The flavor and quality hit me at once, and I brought my fingers up to cover my mouth as I chewed and nodded, giving him a small smile.
“It’s good,” he said, turning his attention to his plate.
This was insane. I was eating with the State Secretary Amos Fitzhugh in his kitchen, standing up, and I now had his germs in my body from sharing a fork. I had no idea how to feel about this. I bit into a ripe piece of melon and quietly sighed at the sweetness. We’d had cantaloupes in our community garden this summer, but a huge rainstorm made them over-ripen overnight, most of them bursting with cracks. We’d all been so sad the next morning, standing at the edges of the garden together. If we’d known a huge storm was coming, we would have picked them all. Many people still ate them, even though the flavor and sugar had been watered down, and they were mushy.
I finally finished and washed my dishes as I chewed the last of my food. I turned and took Fitzhugh’s plate when I saw that he was finished, and I washed all of his too, all the while feeling the heated energy of him at my back, watching me.
When I finished, I wiped my wet hands on my apron and turned to find he hadn’t moved. He’d only loosened his tie, unbuttoned the top two again, and put his hands in his trousers pockets, leaning back against the counter.
“Good night then, sir. Um, thank you for the breakfast.”
His eyes were locked on mine in that intense way of his as he gave me a simple, small nod, and I rushed out, hoping I wouldn’t trip and fall over my sore feet as I practically ran from the Penthouse.
* * *
Jeremy worked later than normal,so I made dinner. Working with our rations was a stark contrast from cooking for the Secretary. I welcomed Jeremy home with a supper of hamburger with rice and stewed tomatoes. But it wasn’t the dinner he looked at; it was my face. His brows came together, and I couldn’t figure out his expression, almost distasteful.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“I’m just…” He shook his head and motioned upward. “Not used to seeing you with lipstick like that.”
“Oh.” I quickly brought my hand to my mouth, feeling self-conscious. “Yeah, my boss suggested I use it.”
He gently took my hand from where it covered my mouth and pulled it down, his expression softening. “You look beautiful.” He pulled me close and whispered in my ear, “I didn’t mean to make you feel bad.”
I calmed down a little at that and pulled back to give him a small kiss. “You hungry?”
“Always.”
It felt weird when we sat down to eat. I didn’t keep secrets from Jeremy. Not that I had a secret, necessarily, but I couldn’t exactly tell him about my awkward interactions with Fitzhugh, or how he made me feel. Howdidhe make me feel? Ambiguous, warring emotions for sure.
For over six years, I’d held a simmering, deep-seated anger toward the Three. Yet when I was with Fitzhugh, I had a hard time mashing that version of him in my mind with the man in real life. Why? I knew from pictures that he was handsome. That’s not what threw me. It was his whole…essence. I hated that I felt allured by his mysteriousness and dominance. I hated that I had to remind myself he was a terrible man.
Jeremy wasn’t the jealous type, but hewasthe protective type. I didn’t want to ignite that part of him when there was absolutely nothing we could do to change the situation. So for now, I wouldn’t share any details of my time at the Penthouse. Instead, I held his free hand with mine as we ate.
After dinner, we met Rebecca and Stanley for a walk. The chit-chat was rote, and when Rebecca asked me with concern in her eyes how the job was going, I assured her that my day had been fine. I couldn’t express to anyone in words the strange, powerful effect of Amos Fitzhugh’s presence. Hopefully, the feeling would lessen and subside over time.
The four of us sat in a patch of grass between the garden and orchard as the heat of the day began to dissipate.
“I don’t think we’ve ever heard how the two of you met,” Stanley said.
Jeremy and I shared a smile, and he nudged me to tell the story.
“Okay,” I said. “I was supposed to meet friends at this bar my freshman year at college. We’d heard that they served underage, so I was in line for a drink, and this guy came up next to me—not Jeremy—some not-so-nice guy who’d been drinking too much already.”
Rebecca and Stanley were a rapt audience as I remembered the scene.
