He shuffled his feet, his gaze darting between my eyes and somewhere around my left shoulder, like he couldn’t quite decide where to look. His hands were shoved deep in hispockets, and there was something so unsettled about his posture that I didn’t remember seeing before.
“So,” he said, then cleared his throat. “How, um, how have you been?”
What an odd question from a delivery man who’d just, well, delivered.
“I’m good,” I squeaked, then immediately cleared my own throat and tried to sound more like a functional adult. A hand rose to reflexively tangle fingers in my disastrous hair. “Fine. I’ve been fine. You know, work and Debbie and the usual chaos.”
“Right. Chaos. I can, uh, I can hear the music.”
As if on cue, Taylor Swift’s voice swelled from the living room, where Debbie was presumably still wrestling with the package wrapping.
“I’m pretty sure they can hear the music in space,” I said, chuckling weakly. “We were dancing. She likes to stand on my feet while we—” I stopped, realizing I was rambling, unsure why I felt the need to explain anything to this guy I barely knew. “Sorry, you probably have other deliveries to make.”
“No,” he said quickly, too quickly. “My shift ended a couple hours ago. This isn’t actually a delivery. It’s more of a . . . personal thing.”
My heart did something acrobatic.
“Personal?”
He shifted his weight again.
“I felt bad about last week,” he said in a rush. “The whole mix-up, and Debbie thinking the . . . you know . . . Willie Wee . . . was a kitchen thing. I just wanted to make it right, so I went to this fancy culinary store downtown, and I asked the lady there what would actually be good for making pasta, and she showed me this whisk thing that’s apparently supposed to be amazing for mixing sauces and—”
He was babbling.
Full-tilt word salad.
Jeremiah stood on my front porch, looking like he’d stepped out of some fitness magazine, babbling about whisks and pasta sauces. It was possibly the most adorable thing I’d ever witnessed—aside from Debbie, of course.
“That’s . . . very thoughtful,” I managed, fighting back a smile. “You really didn’t need to—”
“Daddy, look what the mailman brought us!” Debbie’s voice carried from the living room, followed by the sound of something being dragged across the floor.
A moment later, she appeared in the doorway, holding what was indeed the most beautiful whisk I’d ever seen. It was stainless steel and probably cost more than I spent on groceries in a month. Its handle looked like it belonged in a professional kitchen.
“It’s so shiny!” she announced, holding it up like she’d just removed Excalibur from a pesky stone. “Can we make pasta now? Please?”
I looked from the whisk to Jeremiah. He was watching Debbie with an expression of pure delight.
“That’s averyfancy whisk,” I said. “I didn’t know whisks came gilded.”
“The lady at the store said it was the best one they had,” he said, his cheeks slightly pink. “I may have gone a little overboard.”
“A little?”
He grinned sheepishly. “I figured if I was going to replace your, uh, pasta equipment, I should do it right.”
Debbie had wandered back toward the kitchen, presumably to test out her new treasure, leaving us alone again. Taylor Swift had taken the hint and left the stage, too. The silence stretched between us, but it wasn’t uncomfortable. It wascharged. Electric. Full of something so distant in my past it was unrecognizable.
Jeremiah shuffled his feet again, his gaze finally meeting mine and holding it.
“You’re really cute, you know, and smart. I mean, fuck a duck, you might be the smartest guy I know,” he blurted out suddenly, his eyes going wide like he couldn’t believe the words had just come out of his mouth.
Fuck a duck?
I blinked, and my head tilted.
“We should do dinner, right?” flew out of his mouth. “Together. You and me. Minus the munchkin—though I love kids, don’t get me wrong. If you really want to bring her, we can. We could do one of those pizza places with games and stuff. Or putt-putt. She’d love that. But you know her better, and maybe you would have other ideas, and I’d totally be open to anything. I just think . . . maybe . . . you and I could . . . couldn’t we?”
