Brooks smiles that half-smile that does things to me. “Smart woman.”
The house is unusually quiet—no TV game shows, no Maisie calling out random thoughts from the living room. Just the tick of the grandfather clock and the hum of the refrigerator.
“Where’s your grandmother?” I slip off my jacket and hang it by the door. Gus runs up to me, and I give him a good pet.
“Beaver Bookies meeting. In person this time, not Zoom. Pam Parker picked her up.” Brooks pushes away from the counter, moving toward me with that grace that makes my mouth go dry. “Said not to wait up.”
“Not to wait up? For a book club?” I raise an eyebrow.
“I’ve stopped questioning her social life.” He shrugs. “Pretty sure the Beaver Bookies is just a front for some poker tournament, anyway.”
“That fits. Especially because I don’t think Pam’s even in the Beaver Bookies.”
“Well, let her have a night of fun before her treatment starts tomorrow, Thursday, and Friday.”
I sigh. “Those take so much out of her—and she’s been doing so amazingly well.”
“I’m nervous, I admit.” He scrubs his chin. “Especially since she’s insisting she take the shuttle there since both of us will be at the Dickens’ High School hockey game thing tomorrow.”
“It’ll be the first time I don’t take her.” I purse my lips. “But maybe I should be happy she’s feeling good enough to do it herself.”
“Yup.” Brooks gestures to the counter behind him, where various ingredients are scattered—tomatoes, garlic, a block of cheese, some kind of herbs. “I was about to make dinner. You hungry?”
“Starving,” I admit, and not just for food.
Brooks and I are alone. Really alone. Well, minus Gus. My body hums with awareness.
We get little alone time, and we’ve fallen into a routine that’s perfectly split: Brooks does the shopping and most of the cooking while I handle all the cleaning and laundry. There’s something intimate about folding his T-shirts or picking up his socks from the bathroom floor, as if some neuron in my brain is firing off evolutionary signals about nest-building. Sometimes, when Maisie goes to bed early, he and I end up sprawled on the living room floor, watching old hockey highlight reels and trading stories about childhood disasters. We laugh until our sides hurt and then barely make it to the bedroom with our clothes on.
An impulse strikes me—an idea that pops up and refuses to leave. “Teach me,” I blurt out. The responsible part of my brain reminds me I should review tomorrow’s sports highlights, but the rest of me wants to spend time with him, be near him, and hey, maybe learn to cook something.
Brooks turns, brow furrowed. “Teach you what?”
“How to cook.” I wave at the ingredients. “You know I’m hopeless.”
“Come on. You’ve perfected burnt toast with a side of smoke alarm.”
“Exactly.” I move closer. “Come on, Brooksie. Here’s your chance to fix that tragic flaw in my character.”
His eyes light up at the challenge, or maybe at the idea of me admitting to a flaw. “All right, Holt,” he says, a note of playfulness in his voice I rarely heard before our night at the cabin. “Chicken parm. My specialty. Think you can handle it?”
“I’ve tackled fire evacuations and blizzard warnings. I think I can manage some dead bird and cheese.”
“First lesson: respect the ingredients.” He pulls out a cutting board and sets two chicken breasts on it. “The secret to great chicken parm isn’t the sauce or even the cheese,” he says, reaching for plastic wrap. “It’s getting the chicken just right. Too thick, it’s dry and tough. Too thin, it falls apart.”
He covers the chicken with wrap, then from a drawer, he produces what looks like a small hammer.
“Oh, cooking weaponry.”
“Right, but not to massacre. You want to pound it out evenly, thin but not shredded.”
The first strike is controlled, precise. His forearm flexes with each blow, the muscles shifting under tanned skin. I’ve seen those arms in action—on the ice, in the cabin, this morning in bed—but there’s something intimate about watching him cook.
“You’re staring,” he says without looking up.
“Just learning,” I lie.
He finishes the first breast and steps back. “Your turn.”
