Page 25 of Change My Mind
“You made a paella?” Becky asked, jealousy bleeding into her voice.
Clara nodded. “On a random Tuesday. It was good. Rach isn’t wrong.”
“Can I move into your spare room, Rachel, if you’re getting a random home-cooked paella on a Tuesday?” Becky asked, tapering off into a laugh. Although it didn’t necessarily sound like a joke.
“I’ll send out a telegram the next time he gets fancy for dinner,” Clara said, resting her head on Jesse’s shoulder. I had never known my sister to be this tactile with a partner before. It was almost like she couldn’t not touch him in some way. Even two years in.
“We will never get—” Lucy trailed off as Eli approached our table.
“I have it on good authority that if I want honest feedback, then this is the table to get it from,” Eli said.
“Our dads are out here making it sound like we’re Anton Ego or some shit,” Lucy scoffed.
“So, were they wrong?” Eli asked. He sounded nervous. I was still regretting my poor attempt at a joke earlier. I feared that it had done nothing for his nerves.
“No, they weren’t. But now, when we tell you that it was amazing, you’re going to think that we’re lying because they made us sound like the Big Bad,” Becky answered, nodding her head at the adults’ table.
“Do you actually think that?” he asked, still sounding sheepish.
“See! This is what I mean. Yes, we really did think that. And yes, I can speak for the whole table because we were just talking about it,” Becky said.
“I thought the pasta was wonderful. What was the sauce you used?” Jesse cut in. Eli’s shoulders seemed to drop now that another voice had offered compliments.
“It was lemon, mascarpone, some cayenne pepper, and then some of the oil that the chorizo was fried in,” Eli answered.
Jesse turned to Clara. “I told you there was something to do with chorizo in the sauce itself.”
“You cook?” Eli asked.
Jesse looked back at Eli. “Yeah. Everything but lasagne. That is all Clo here.”
I couldn’t see it, but it looked like there was movement under the table where Jesse was touching Clara’s thigh. Much like I had never seen her be so touchy-feely, I had also never seen anyone be so tactile with Clara before. It was the most comfortable I had ever seen her. It opened a woundsomewhere that made me yearn for something like that. A safe space full of small moments. I hadn’t yearned for something like that since I was in my mid-teens.
“That’s cool. What about you, Addie, thoughts?”
I turned my head to look at Eli. His deep brown eyes were already locked in on me. It was like my answer had the power to make or break him.
Eighteen
ELI
Addie had flour on her neck.
It was right behind her ear, which was probably why no one had noticed, including her. But I could see it, and now I couldn’t stop staring at it. A white smudge against brown skin, almost kissed by the gold backs of her earrings. I wanted to go over there and wipe it away with my thumb, but doing so would probably make me do something stupid. Like cup the back of her neck in my hand and stroke my thumb along her jawline. I wanted to see what colour her eyes would turn as I stared at her. I wondered who would make the first move once we entered that standoff. Green locked with brown. Whose lips would touch whose first? Would hers be cool like the gin and tonic she was currently sucking through a straw? Or would they have traces of the lemon that I used in the pasta dish that was sitting mostly empty in front of her?
I had ventured out of the kitchen for a reason and, funnily enough, it wasn’t so I could let a smudge of flour against a neck derail me into fantasies of kissing my flatmate. Ineeded my brain to learn that just because she no longer openly hated me, it didn’t mean that we were suddenly going to run off into the sunset together.
I pivoted away from Addie’s table and went to the one with my bosses sat on it. Maybe that would clear my head.
“Eli! This chicken! I might need to steal the recipe,” Xander said when he caught sight of me. Relief like I had never felt before flooded through me. My lips turned up into a smile.
“Thank you. I might hold on to it just a little while longer so the public can try it first,” I replied. I hoped it sounded like I was joking, but I was so emotionally and physically drained from the build-up to this one day that I had no idea if it was coming across. Maybe I should just stop trying to be funny today. It clearly wasn’t working for me.
“I think that is very wise.” Xander patted my forearm, and I felt a flash of emotion spark through me at the gentle touch.
“Any other feedback you have would be useful. I mean, I’ll just spend the next couple of days frantically perfecting the whole menu anyway, but if you have any other notes that might make the perfectionism feel like it is directed towards something, I would be eternally grateful,” I said once I had swallowed the clump of emotions that had settled in the base of my throat.
“If you want actual, constructive feedback, then the kids’ table is where it’s at,” Darren said, pointing at Addie’s table.
