I pull it out.
It’s Jonas.
Jonas.
I stare at the name on the screen, incapacitated for one standstill second.
Then silence it.
As the phone slips back into my pocket, I smile. “How about you handle the dicing, and I’ll make the cheese sauce for the omelet.”
I reach in my purse and start taking out the bottle of lemon juice and canned coconut milk.
As he’s running the peppers under tap water and his eyes gaze at me, his hands slow. When I pull out the bottle of nutritional yeast from my shoulder bag, he’s openly amused. “So, you just keep nutritional yeast on hand, do you?”
“I have a particular fondness for nutritional yeast, actually, so yes,” I reply without slowing. “It began when I started experimenting with cheese-alternative recipes for a lactose-intolerant client, and then when I discovered how tastyandhealthy it actually was, I started using it for all my clients. I love it.”
As I shake the bottle over a mixing bowl, he eyes the yellow flakes pouring into the bowl. “It looks like fish food.”
“They all say that at first. You’re just like every one of them.”
“And how many of ‘them’ are there?” He moves the peppers to the cutting board. The kitchen counter is so small we stand practically hip to hip.
“Currently? I have three clients. Two I split betweenmornings and afternoons, one I only stay with overnight when her son’s out of town. I’m in home health.”
“Do you like it?”
Well, if that wasn’t a trigger question. “I went to school for hotel management. It was never the plan to be doing this so long.”
“But do you like it?” he asks, undeterred.
I hesitate. “Yes. I’ve been doing it since I was sixteen. I get to be a professional friend maker. Frankly, I can’t imagine doing anything else.”
“Then why did you study hotel management?”
“Oh, Jonas thought it made more sense.” The answer slips out quicker than I’d intended, and I hesitate afterward ever so slightly. “He thought it was wise to use my interest in hospitality in a way that was more financially advantageous. I just... never really got around to it.”
“Ah. Mr.Yates. The one who I’ve heard had the misfortune of missing out?”
“On this trip? Yes.”
“The trip, yes. And of course, more.”
He gives a wry smile, not so much flirtatious but comforting. The kind of companionable smile that says, “He was a fool, wasn’t he? But look how much better off you are already without him.”
Oliver turns his gaze back onto the peppers as he continues to dice. “I’ve been there. Only, it was parent pressure instead of girlfriend, and I proved to be a little more stubborn than you and skipped the college degree altogether.”
I raise my brows. “From the way your dad talks, I figured he wanted you to always take over the touring business.”
“Oh, he did. He just thought I needed a plan B too. I felt otherwise.”
“Well,” I say, grinning, “it looks like it all worked out just as it should be.”
“Same for you.”
And to my surprise, the way he’s looking at me while he says the words brings a rush of warmth to me. And not just because I can’t help but admire the way he stands there, the tiniest five o’clock shadow across his cheeks, pepper in hand.
No, it’s also because he’s looking at me like, well, he thinks my chosen career isn’t a disaster of a decision. Like it isn’t absolutely pathetic to see a twenty-five-year-old woman living off thrift-store finds—despite the depths of her love of vintage wool threads—and holding off dentist appointments as long as possible, and living with a roommate, and eating more noodles and butter than is deemed acceptable, and making it all work for this job instead of taking one in management for three times the pay. Like I wasn’t an idiot for getting a degree and not using it—as I’ve heard on so many occasions before.
