Page 38 of Why Cheese?
I sweep my finger down his cheek, blotting away the hot sauce. Cheddy’s ribald tale of rind mold pauses. Looking me in the eye, he lunges forward and sucks all of the Tabasco clean off my finger. “Whew! That’s…” Cheddy breathes deep, his earthquake voice dropping to a breeze. “…spicy.”
My heart’s beating like a timpani falling down a staircase. Where are the extra packets of hot sauce?
“You have to help me move the wheels into the cellar, remember?” Roq interjects.
“Oh, yeah.” Cheddy grins wider, then he drags streaks of red sauce back through his dark blond hair. “Should be fun. Maybe, when you and Brie are done, you can join me. One time, I carried ten wheels at once.”
“Then you tripped and dropped them all, spoiling five hundred pounds of cheese.”
“It was fine. You just had to cut off the ends. Those are for the dogs anyway,” Cheddy says to Roq’s deep exhaustion.
I keep darting across Cheddy’s physique hiding below the giddy goofball. Five hundred pounds on a whim… That’s um, very impressive. Almost as impressive as his pecs that start to dance up and down. “I’m bored. Let’s get to work. Come on, Cam!”
Before Cam can say a word, Cheddy grabs his arm and drags him toward the basement. Cam gives me a whispered, “Sorry” before he vanishes down the black hole. I brush the tip of my tongue over my lip thinking about our kiss on the bridge.
Roq lingers, arms crossed as he pivots from watching Cam then me. “I don’t remember him making it back last night. Yet he popped up behind me. That’s rather curious.”
“The world’s a strange place,” I say and dive for the bags of cleaning supplies and linens. “Are you ready, Brie?”
“Yes, yep. Uh-huh.” He skitters past Roq but momentarily pauses to bob his head before leaping in front of me to hold open the door. A girl could get spoiled with all of this chivalry.
“When you’re finished up there, Brie, I expect to see you in the cellar for a meeting.”
“Of course. Anything you say, Roq.” Brie takes half of the bags from my arms and skedaddles to the ladder. I pause, watching Roq. He cleans up the remains of the fast dinner, but—before heading to the basement—he lingers by one of the pictures on the wall. I can’t see what it is until he moves on.
The photo from when I was five wearing a yellow tutu and tights is slightly tipped on the wall.
“Violette? I can’t get inside,” Brie shouts.
“Coming,” I cry out and dash up the ladder to join him.
Rather than battling the gremlin, I leave the door open. It also helps to air out the two-decade build-up of dust, dead moths, and mildew. I try to duck my nose into my shirt while laying out all of the sprays, sponges, and brushes I bought at a bodega.
Brie’s gone wide-eyed, his mouth partially ajar as he drops his bags and stares around the room. “It’s so much smaller than I expected.”
“You’ve never been up here?”
“No.” He blushes and shakes his head. “Roq handled all of the business.”
Roq. I’m getting rather sick of hearing about or thinking of him. With that smug way he crosses his arms like he’s some pristine angel judging me just because I nearly…
My mental rant crashes into a wall as I catch Brie staring at me.Oh shit. Did I say all of that out loud too? I can’t remember. Say something else. Anything?
“I hear you like books.”
Brie winces and shakes his hair in front of his eyes. “Some of them. On occasion. Just as a way to… Yes.”
“What’s your favorite?”
“Oh, I couldn’t pick. For a time, I was really into those crime serials you’d find on newsstands.”
The what on the what?
“Cam got me a box of spooky stories, but I kept scaring myself reading them by lantern in the cellar. One small knock behind the bricks and it was total goosebumps.”
Okay, put a pin in something knocking behind the bricks, but most of my attention falls on Brie. He’s smiling, his cheeks pinked with excitement instead of embarrassment, and he keeps sliding his hair behind his ears as he talks.
“Right before we were… Before, I had a bunch of action books. Average man goes to Mars and fights off monsters. Brave explorer tames the wild jungles. I’d read them to Cheddy while Cam and Roq silently pressed the whey out of curds. Of course, he’d shout with every cliffhanger chapter, startling Roq who’d go damn near green.”
