I heard the key in the lock before June realized that I had left the door unlocked and pushed it open.
She took two steps in and halted. “What’s that smell?”
“Good, huh?” I smiled at her from the kitchen, which was less than ten meters from the front door. Between us were the kitchen’s breakfast bar, the edge of the living room carpet, and a bit of open space beyond that toward the door.
I was stirring the pasta with the Béchamel sauce on the stove.
“Is this dairy?” June asked, taking a few hurried steps toward the kitchen.
“Yes. I know you’re not into it, but—”
“And you’re usingmypan for it?” She was next to me now, almost elbowing me out of the way.
I turned to face her. “I don’t have mine here, so yes.” That came out a little rougher than I had intended. “But I made sauteed vegetables, too.”
She looked around as if taking stock of the changes in her home. That cinnamon scent of hers mixed with the smell of the food.
“Okay, we need to talk about these things,” she said, walking back to the entrance to throw her key in the green glass bowl on the console and hang her jacket on a hook next to it. “It’s my fault you didn’t know.”
“Why is it anyone’s fault?” I leaned against the counter and crossed my arms over my chest. “I was hungry, there’s nothing in your fridge, so I went out and got ingredients. If I have to live here, I have to eat, too.”
June tied her dark brown hair up as she marched back toward me. “Thanks for the vegetables, but I assume they’re store-bought?” She peeked into the lidded skillet while I peeked at the way strands of smooth hair that escaped the clip caressed her nape.
“Yes.”
June tilted her head and raised her brows in aI thought so.
“Most of them were on your list,” I said. Her fridge had a few hand-written lists on it. One listed fresh produce, sprouts, and oatmeal, and was titled, “Buy.” Another wasuncreatively titled, “Green Smoothie A & B,” and specified contents that sounded like a salad recipe. Another list wasa color-coded timetable, and the last I gave up reading after “period cup.”
“Thanks, really. But I only buy from local farms. I don’t eat store-bought.”
Of course you don’t.
“More for me then,” I said when she turned and walked to her fridge and began pulling boxes that I had opened before and closed because their contents smelled and looked unappetizing as something that you scraped off a garden wall.
Mixing greens and seeds in a bowl, June raised her eyes to look at me. “Thanks, really,” she repeated. “But I only eat very specific things. My kitchen is … well, I can buy everything new later.”
I feltmyeyebrows rising to my hairline.
“It’s okay. I know not everyone gets that,” she said, noticing my expression. “I watch what I eat, that’s all. Everything I put in my mouth is pure, everything that goes into my body is pure.”
“Everything?” I shouldn’t have said it out loud, but the word just spat itself out. Yes, she looked the type. The type that would have dry, antiseptic sex, if this woman had sex at all.
She had blushed even before I’d asked, probably realizing how it had sounded. “When I say pure, I mean that I know where it came from and what it went through before it got to me.”
I had a feeling she wasn’t just talking about food anymore.
From the way June averted her gaze, I knew she noticed I stifled a scoff.
I grabbed two plates and cutlery from the drawers and cupboard I had acquainted myself with while cooking.
One thing I could say for June: she had no skeletons in her closets, no embarrassing ointments in her bathroom cabinet, nothing exciting in her wardrobe except fifty shades of beige, her underwear drawer, which I had accidentally opened, contained neatly folded organic cotton undies and only a few silky ones—and no interesting surprises at her bedside table. Yep, I looked.
The only surprise wasnotfinding something like a ball of rubber bands or sensibly folded used gift wraps in her kitchen drawers, which I had expected someone like her to keep.
Setting both sets on the table, I then turned off the stove and served some onto one plate. I poured half a shot of red wine, which I had bought and uncorked to let it breathe, into two wine glasses. I looked at June and found her watching me.
“Yes, I made myself familiar with your kitchen. That’s part of the reason I’m here, right? I need to know this place as if it’s mine, too.”
