She’s way off her script now. He wasn’t supposed to come over here and boil water, let alone make pasta from scratch.
Josh picks up his grater and walks toward her—only one step, because he’s a big man in a New York kitchen.
“Do you?” He looms over her, leaving just a couple inches of space between them. There’s a dish towel over his shoulder. He’s not playing fair.
“Do I what?” The black cotton of his shirt just barely brushes against the thin barrier of the faded Lilith Fair logo.
“Need. Comforting.” His eyes move up and down her face, like he’s maybe going to lean in.
Ari holds her breath, tilting her chin up very slightly. He lifts his right arm and—
—reaches for half a pound of fontina cheese.
“Make yourself useful and shred this.”
She exhales. “Sure, give me the dangerous job.” He opens the package of flour and searches the drawers for measuring cups, as if she might actually own some.
“While this is in the oven, we’ll go in the bedroom and clean out your ex-wife’s T-shirt drawer.”
They’re perfectly good shirts,she wants to point out.
But something feels tight in her belly when he saysbedroom. Her mind slips out of rational mode and begins generating images of sex they could be having.
No, no, no. She has to stay focused. There’s no point in disturbing their fragile peace now, not while he’s cooking for the first time in a year.
So they’ll eat. And then they’ll talk.
It’ll be fine.
“You know,” she says, looking for a subject change as she picks up the grater, “I do have a huge bag of bacon bits from Costco. They’re delicious in mac and cheese if you just sprinkle them—”
“Absolutely not.” He furrows his brow. “I brought prosciutto.”
JOSH EXPECTS TOfind maybe half a dozen of Cass’s shirts in the dresser he and Ari assembled two months ago. Instead, it’s almost like this woman forgot to empty one drawer in her haste to vacate the apartment and it happened to house the contents of Cameron Crowe’s laundry basket, circa 1995.
It doesn’t matter now. He won.
Overall, he’s really fucking proud of himself for the restraint he’s shown throughout the evening. There hasn’t been a hint of desperation. No pushing. It even feltrightto cook again, to demonstrate certain steps, even show off his knife skills a little, just like the first time they met.
They hadn’t kissed, which was also okay—almost like they didn’t need to prove anything. On the contrary, their lack of physical contact up to this point has only added to the tension.
And yes, her bare-bones communication over the last few days was aggravating. But he understands Ari now: When there’s something this big—thisimportant—she clams up. If anything, it’s confirmation of her feelings.
Which explains why she’s nervous, standing at the foot of her bed, rocking back and forth on her feet, watching him rummage through the shirts. Everything about her is slightly heightened now—she somehow gained freckles, her lower lip is fuller, her topknot is more unruly.
He pictures himself on top of her, the lights still on, her legs wrapped around him. She might even say “I love you” again but looking into his eyes so there’s no mistaking it. And he’d have the presence of mind to say it back this time.
He holds a trash bag open.
“They’re just shirts.” Ari bends at the waist and unceremoniously grabs at the contents of the drawer. “They’re not, like, symbolic of anything.”
“It’s about moving on with your life.”
“Iammoving on. You’re just depriving me of pajama tops.” She sinks back down onto the bed, clutching two handfuls of shirts. “That’s what I wanted to tell you.”
“That you’re moving on without pajama tops?”
“Actually, yes.” She sets the clothing down in two little piles on either side of her. She picks at the material on one of the shirts. “We’re putting the apartment on the market. I need to be out of here by the end of the month.”
