I scoffed. “Of course, I know what it is. It’s… green stuff?”
“Basil,” she said slowly. “Just don’t murder it.”
I pulled the clear plastic bag closer and inspected the leaves like they were poison ivy. “Are you sure this is necessary for your recipe? It’s an exceptionally bright color. Is thatsupposedto go into a human body?”
She laughed and swatted my arm. “It’s bright because it’s fresh, Alex. You’ve had basil before. I’m sure of it.”
I frowned. “I can neither confirm nor deny that.”
Chuckling, she shook her head at me and went back to massacring the onion. “You’ve definitely had basil before. Clearly, you’ve just never cooked with it, but the taste will be familiar, and awesome.”
“I love basil. I’m just honestly not sure I’ve ever seen it fresh from the… basil tree? Basil shrub?”
She glanced up at me, blinking a few times before she cocked her head. “Have you ever actually cooked a meal for yourself before?”
“I’ve literally cooked you breakfast before,” I said, eyes narrowing at her. “Glad to know you like it.”
She laughed again and I grinned, upending the bag to let the fragrant leaves fall onto a chopping board on the counter. I started slicing through the pile of leaves, but it didn’t even take a minute before I realized I was doing a poor job of it.
“It’s the knife.” She watched me for a second, her lips twitching as she tried to fight a smile. “You’re holding it wrong.”
“Well, I can’t hold it from the other end.”
“No, you’re holding it like it owes you money.” She stepped closer, reached around me, adjusting my grip. Her fingers brushed mine and my brain promptly forgot how knives worked. “Try doing it like this. Controlled slices. Calm.”
I glanced at her. “When you’re this close, the last thing I feel is calm.”
She snorted and moved back to her pan on the stove, dumping the recently mangled onion into it, but I detected a flush to her cheeks. “Don’t get cocky. You’re still on probation.”
“At least I haven’t murdered an onion. You chopped that thing up like it murdered your dog.”
She let out a surprised laugh but ran her fingers through her hair and shrugged. “I might’ve taken out my frustrations on it a bit.”
The humor slowly drained out of me as I looked at her, noticing for the first time that she was a little pale, her eyes a little more tired than usual. “How was your day, Killer? Is that onion the only thing making you cry?”
She lifted one shoulder on another shrug. “It’s nothing that I would particularly like to talk about right now.”
I felt my eyes narrowing, my brow puckering on a frown I hadn’t meant to let free, but as she averted her gaze and poked at the contents of the pan, I sighed and let it go. She would tell me about whatever had happened when she was ready, but betweennot eating when she’d gone out to dinner and this, I was worried about my wife.
We fell into an easy rhythm after that. She put on music and cooked. I followed instructions. She corrected me. I pretended not to enjoy being bossed around, which was a lie. I liked it when she was the one doing the bossing. The longer she cooked, however, the more she relaxed, easing into being at home, no longer going around in circles in her head.
“Why is this pan smoking?” I asked when I glanced up to see faint tendrils rising to the ceiling.
She spun around, practically tackling the controls before finally looking back at me. “Because you turned the heat up to hell.”
Oh. Oops.“What can I say, I like efficiency.”
“You’re sautéing, not forging steel.”
I laughed and she shook her head at me, struggling to hide a smile. As I looked at her, so completely in her element with her hips swaying to the beat of the music and chopping up tomatoes for a salad, it hit me that this really didn’t feel arranged anymore.
Jane and I weren’t two people tolerating proximity for the sake of strategy right now. We fit like puzzle pieces no one expected to match until they did.
Once the food was ready, we ate together at the counter, drinking wine and joking around. Jane’s smiles were finally coming faster again, her posture not nearly as tense.
“This is good,” I said honestly.
She raised an eyebrow at me. “I know, but again, don’t get used to it.”
