After seven or eight hours of me gazing at her, unblinking, she peeked over at me. Offered a small smile, no dimples. "Hi."
"Hi," I replied.
"Riley let me in. I hope that's all right," she continued. "I'm making some sauce."
I didn't respond. I didn't know what to say or how to say it because I knew I'd launch into a big, awkward speech that would invariably include another proposal of marriage and a dozen other things best kept to myself.
"Okay," she said, mostly to herself. "Food is—I don't know how to put this—food is about people. You know? It's not basic nutrition. It's tradition and family and giving something to the people you care about."
She was so beautiful it hurt. More than everything else already hurt. This was another ache, on top of all the others. She wore a dark purple dress and those pretty yellow shoes, and she had her hair tied in a ponytail. Nothing about her appearance was remarkable. She wasn't trying to win me over with an epic display of tits and ass, or piled on layers of seductive makeup.
She looked like she just came from a long day at work and she was perfect. Her eyes appeared tired and her shoulders were tense and I loved her. I loved her and she came for me and that was all I needed to know.
"Maybe that's not your experience," she continued. "But it's mine. For me, foodisfamily. It's spicy peppers and sausage when you're sick and Funfetti cupcakes on Serina's birthday and it's lasagna when I've fucked up so bad the only answer is cheese and extra sauce on the side. It's intertwined in a way I'll never be able to unravel. I tried unraveling it last night. I was in a car for three hours and spent most of that time—"
"Why were you in a car for three hours last night?" I asked.
She swung her gaze toward me, her fingers still curled around the handle of a knife. It was clear she hadn't planned for an interruption at this point in her speech. "I was in Connecticut. At ESPN."
I shrugged. Nodded. Motioned for her to continue. When she didn't, I said, "I want to hear the rest of this. You can tell me about ESPN later."
"Later?" she echoed.
Ah. Now I got it. Since I couldn't manage more than a flat stare and had myself braced in the most aggressive position possible with my arms straight out and hands holding up the walls, she thought I wasn't happy to see her. "Yeah. Later."
After a blink, she turned back to her vegetables picking up where she'd left off. "On the drive back here, I tried to figure out how I care for people. What is it I do to express that?"
It was a rhetorical question, one she wasn't interested in me answering. But I could spend all night ticking off the ways she did it.
"And it occurred to me that I communicate for a living," she said with a rueful laugh. "I'm all about the right words in the right way at the right time. But here I am, wondering how to show someone I care about him. That I care about him—about you—more than anyone else." She set the knife down, shifted to face me. "I've never had the right words for you. Never in the right ways. Definitely not at the right times." She rolled her gaze to the side, twisted her fingers together. "I'm trying to get better at the words but until then, I'm here. I'm cooking. For you."
She motioned toward the pots on the stove. I hadn't noticed them until now. Honestly, she could've torn down the walls and put my furniture in storage and I wouldn't have noticed because the only thing I could see was Stella. Nothing else existed for me.
"But I don't do this too often. I don't cook for anyone but myself, not much," she continued. "Food is family to me. It's special and personal and—and I've never done this. Not for anyone else." She lifted her fingertips to her forehead for a moment. "I have my sisters and my parents. Maybe Flinn and Tatum. It depends on the day with them. But no one else. There is no one else, Cal. It's only you."
A rough breath whooshed past my lips but I offered no additional response. I needed to replay her words, listen to them back one more time before I believed them.
Stella glanced back to the stovetop, speaking as she stirred. "I didn't have the right words for you. I'd felt it all along. God, that first morning on the trail. At the coffee shop. I'd felt everything but I didn't want to let myself feel it. No matter how many times I swore I wasn't broken, I was still afraid. Afraid of being forgotten again. And I didn't know how to be scared and vulnerable out loud. Not when I'd worked my ass off to bury it along with the rest of my baby adulthood. I didn't have any of the words, Cal, and I'm not sure I have them now. Instead of trying to make sense of it all, I'm cooking for you. I only cook for my family and you're going to be my family." She looked up, met my gaze. "If you still want that. If you'll belong to me."
Those statements, they knocked me back a step. I pushed away from the door and walked a slow circuit around my apartment. I needed a minute to gather her words, swallow them down. When I returned to the kitchen, I said, "Isn't there a game tonight?" I shot a pointed glance at the television and Stella's phone on the countertop. "Why aren't you watching?"
"The balls can wait," she replied. "They won't always be able to wait but they're waiting now. I have a lasagna to prepare and some more words to struggle through, and those are my priorities at the moment." She looked away from the stove, studying the floor for a beat. "If you're okay with that."
"With the lasagna?" I asked. "Or you struggling through words?"
She lifted her shoulders. "How about both?"
I bobbed my head, felt a smile tugging at my lips for the first time in forever. "Do I get the crispy corner piece?" I asked.
"Honey, you get all the corners," she replied.
"I don't want it that way, Stel." I advanced toward her, my hand outstretched. "If I can't share them with you, I don't want them. I don't want anything if I can't have it with you."
A strangled laugh-sob stuck in her throat as she closed the distance between us. "Okay," she whispered, knuckling away a few tears. "We'll share."
I wanted to sweep her into my arms and press her up against a wall and get my hand under that dress. Just to feel her. All I needed was thirty seconds and I'd be there, my skin against hers and the world sliding back to rights. But then I remembered my sweat-soaked t-shirt…and everything else sweat-soaked. "Not to end this before it starts, but I need to shower. I ran several hundred miles and I'm gross. Nothing about my appearance is acceptable."
She stepped back, looked me up and down, and belted out a laugh. "Oh my god, yes. You are completely filthy, Cal." She frowned at the mud caked to my shoes and splattered over my legs. "Where have you been?"
