Page 68 of Because of Dylan

“I think we both need a refill.” His voice is husky.

He walks away, and I watch him retreat into the kitchen. He refills both glasses and looks at me across the room.

Neither one of us moves.

The ding of an alarm makes us both jump. He sets the glasses down and turns back to the kitchen. He moves around, opens the oven and fusses over whatever is inside. The delicious scent of something roasting draws me in and makes my stomach grumble in appreciation.

I don’t know what’s going on between us. We have this odd connection I can’t explain. I’ve known him for a little over a year, and most of that time I spent hating him for judging me. But now I have to ask myself, who’s judging whom? I walk into the kitchen and wash my hands. “What can I do? Put me to work.”

He hesitates for a second, then opens the fridge and takes out several vegetables. “Do you know how to make stuffing?”

“I’ve never made it before, but tell me what to do, and I can work on that.”

“We need to chop the vegetables first, all in even sizes.” He grabs a bag of baby carrots, opens it, eats the first one and offers me the bag. I take a carrot and crunch on it while he cuts up a few carrots to show me how he wants it done.

“You work on the carrots, and I’ll wash the mushrooms and celery. I know you’re not supposed to wash mushrooms, but I could never bring myself not to. Wait? Do you like mushrooms?”

“I like everything.” Starving kids are not picky.

“I’ll cut up the onions, they get cooked first.” He chops the onion in seconds and puts them in a pot with a drizzle of avocado oil.

“Avocado oil?”

“It’s better for you. Even better than olive oil, but with a much milder flavor.”

“Tommy said you’re a talented cook.” The more I see Dylan outside Riggins, the more I realize he’s nothing like I imagined him to be.

We settle next to each other with cutting boards and a growing pile of cut-up veggies in a bowl between us. It’s mindless, simple work, but I’m aware of how close we are and how our elbows brush every so often. We fall into silence—the sound of chopping and knives scraping on the wooden boards oddly comforting.

He turns to the stove and stirs the onions. The fragrant smell adds to the already heavenly aromas in the kitchen. “We should put some music on. That’s usually Tommy’s job, but he’s gone into hiding, looks like.”

“I hope it wasn’t something I said,” I whisper to myself, but he hears me.

“What do you mean?” He looks at me, wooden spoon in hand, such a common and yet unfamiliar image I have trouble reconciling the Professor Dick I know with him. Dylan.

“When we were setting the table, I said I loved the dishes, that they were beautiful. He got quiet and said they were your grandparents’ china, and that they were all gone. After that, he went upstairs.”

Dylan nods and goes back to stirring the pot. “He gets a little down this time of the year. But he’s also in the habit of disappearing when there’s kitchen work. Don’t worry. It wasn’t anything you said.”

I nod, not sure how to reply, and add the last of the veggies into the bowl. I take the cutting boards and knives to the spotless sink. Dylan is a clean-as-you-go guy.

He sets the spoon on the side of the pot. “What kind of music do you like?”

“Hmm …” I don’t think anyone ever asked me that before. “Something mellow?”

He smiles and the corners of his eyes crinkle. It tugs at something inside me, like the loosening of corset strings. I can breathe better.

“Something mellow it is.” He pulls a cell phone from his pocket, taps the screen a few times and sets it on a small dock on the granite counter. The first strings of a song filter through hidden speakers in the walls.

“I put Pandora on. Is this song okay?”

I nod. But as I listen to the lyrics, I feel less and less okay. It’s as if the singer can see inside my soul. This song could be my anthem, I too have voices in my head that say I’m not enough. “What’s this song?” I’m sure my voice betrays me.

He walks back to his phone and squints at the screen.

“You Say by Lauren Daigle. You don’t like it?”

“No, the song is beautiful. I never heard it before, that’s all.”

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