“It is. Very tragic.” I gesture toward the kitchen. “Come on, let me show you where you’ll be working.”
She follows me through the living room, and I’m hyper-aware of her presence behind me, the way her footsteps are quiet on the hardwood floors. I sneak a glance back and catch her looking around with this expression that’s half-impressed, half-skeptical.
“So what happened?” she asks. “Did you feel claustrophobic in your tiny LA apartment and decide to compensate by buying a small mansion on a coastal island?”
“Something like that.” I run a hand through my hair. “My apartment in LA was about eight hundred square feet. I felt caged in there. When I decided to move here, I guess I went a little overboard.”
“A little?”
“Okay, a lot overboard.” I pause at the entrance to the kitchen and turn to face her. “But I had the money from Kid Logic residuals, and this place was just sitting here, and it has an ocean view, and—” I stop myself before I start rambling about the natural light and the way the sunrise looks through the windows. “Yeah. Overboard is accurate.”
“Understatement of the century,” she mutters, but there’s less bite in it now.
We step into the kitchen, and I watch her expression shift from sarcastic amusement to something closer to panic.
The entire kitchen is, admittedly, a disaster. Half unpacked grocery bags cover the counter space. The truffle oil sits in its little container near the sink. The saffron is perched on top of abag of rice. And right there, in the middle of the chaos, is a wedge of cheese that cost seventy dollars.
Kiera stops walking. “What…is all this?”
“Groceries?”
“That’s Pule.” She points at the cheese I left sitting on the massive center island. “And is that—” She moves closer, picks up the small container of truffle oil. “Truffle oil? River, do you have any idea how much these things cost?”
“Yes?”
She sets down the truffle oil and turns to face me, eyes wide. “You expect me to cook something amazing with ingredients I’ve only read about in textbooks? I haven’t even gotten into culinary school yet. I’m not a real chef. I’m an eighteen-year-old who works part-time at a bakery and whose main qualification is that I can follow a recipe without burning down the kitchen.”
Her cheeks are flushed, and she’s fidgeting with her ponytail again. I realize I’ve managed to do exactly what I was trying not to do. Intimidate her.
“Hey.” I hold up my hands. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to freak you out. I just—” I look at the chaos on the counters and feel stupid. “I had no idea what to buy. I walked into that gourmet market on the mainland, and there were all these ingredients, and I thought, ‘What if Kiera needs truffle oil? What if she wants to make something fancy and doesn’t have the right cheese?’”
“So you bought everything?”
“Pretty much, yeah.” I give her what I hope is an apologetic smile. “But you don’t have to use any of this. Seriously. The truffle oil, the goat cheese, the weird fancy stuff…ignore it. I just wanted to make sure you had options. You can make whatever you want. Scrambled eggs. Spaghetti. Anything.”
She stares at me for a long moment, and I can’t tell if she’s going to laugh or walk out.
Then she sighs. “You’re ridiculous.”
“I know.”
“Who buys truffle oil for a Sunday night home-cooked meal?”
“Someone who doesn’t know what he’s doing and is trying to compensate by over-buying?” I offer.
That gets a small laugh out of her. “At least you’re self-aware.”
“It’s one of my few redeeming qualities.”
She shakes her head but sets her bag down and starts pulling out one of the grocery bags. “Fine. Let’s put all this away before it goes bad, and then maybe we can figure out what I’m actually going to cook tonight. Something that doesn’t cost more than my car, preferably.”
“Deal.”
We work in semi-comfortable silence, unpacking bags and finding homes for things. Kiera takes charge quickly, organizing the refrigerator in a way that actually makes sense, although she does stop to give me a raised eyebrow at the caviar. She’s efficient, moving with the kind of confidence that tells me she’s done this before, probably many times.
I try not to stare at her as she works, but it’s hard. There’s something about the way she moves, the way she bites her bottom lip when she’s concentrating, that makes it difficult to focus on putting away the dizzying selection of pasta shapes I bought.
“Okay,” she says after we’ve put everything away. She turns to face me, hands on her hips. “What are you hungry for?”
