“The truth is a good place to start,” Seb offered.
I shifted uncomfortably on the booth. Jonas offered me a soothing smile and a rescue buoy. “Okay, now that we’re done analyzing Matt’s love life, did I tell you what Silas did at work today?”
The change in topic was welcome, though I was too distracted by my own thoughts to listen to Jonas and Silas’s workplace antics.
14
Matthadbeenquietafter his Thursday outing with his friends. At first, I thought he was just tired. It had been late when he got home, and he was always tired after he had a few beers. Just one of the little things I’d learned about him over the past few weeks, something I filed away in my head alongside other little idiosyncrasies like the fact that he washed his face in the shower instead of at the sink and refused to use the moisturizer I’d talked him into at the store. It didn’t seem like a big deal, except that he was still quiet on Friday. He was withdrawn, and I could practically feel the walls up between us.
I didn’t like it.
I didn’t like it one bit.
I thought about calling Eli. He’d texted me after Matt’s apartment caught fire, and I had a feeling he’d have some idea about what was going on with my boyfriend. The only thing that kept me from doing that was the fact that it felt way too invasive. Besides, I was probably overreacting. It was probably work related or something.
Saturday was a little better. He was a little more talkative as we ran our errands in the morning.
Okay, he was better once we hit the grocery store. He started making suggestions for dinners for the week, things he could make or things I could make. I could feel the wall starting to come down, and I wanted to figure out a way to pull it down completely. I didn’t like the feeling of disconnect between us, and I wanted it gone.
“We should cook tonight,” I suggested as we browsed the meat. “We haven’t made Nonna’s lasagna in a while.”
I found the magic words. Matt’s eyes lit up, and he practically wiggled like an excited puppy dog right there in the grocery store. “Oh my God, I used todreamabout your Nonna’s lasagna. Every time I had to eat someone else’s… And I could never get it right. I tried making it, but no luck. It always came out terrible.”
“That’s because Nonna told me the secret and made me swear on her life that I’d never tell anyone,” I said with a shrug.
“But we used to make it together all the time.”
“With a premixed seasoning blend. The secret’s what’s in the blend.”
Matt’s jaw dropped. “But you told me what was in the blend!”
“Everything but one ingredient,” I confessed. “Nonna told me I could tell you if and only if you became a Guthrie.” She’d not given the same blessing to any of my other partners. I think even she could tell that they weren’t the right fit for me, not the way Matt had been when we were younger. He was starting to feel like the right fit again.
If he wasn’t the right fit, would I really be going out of my way to tear down the walls? I used to embrace the walls between me and my partners. They used to be my walls. Having Matt, open and loving and kind Matt, putting up the walls just felt wrong.
Matt and I finished our shopping and checked out. We moved like a singular unit around my kitchen, putting away the week’sgroceries. I dictated the week’s menu to him after everything was put away, and he wrote it on the dry erase board on my fridge. The longer we moved around the kitchen like a team, the less disconnected I felt from him. Maybe this was just what we needed: a night that was just about the two of us working together on a project.
We started with the sauce. I set him to work on cutting the tomatoes and onions while I prepped the fresh garlic. Our elbows would occasionally brush against each other’s as we worked side-by-side, and each brush sent jolts of electricity down my spine.
“These look okay?” Matt asked as he finished dicing a few tomatoes.
I studied the uniform cuts and nodded. “They look great. Yours are always so much better than mine.”
“A coder’s attention to detail,” he teased as he nudged the stack to the side and started another tomato. I watched as he cut the next one, distracted by the way the muscles and veins in his forearm flexed with every move of the knife. He was distracting, and worse, he seemed to notice the effect he was having on me. “Aren’t you supposed to be getting that garlic ready?” he teased.
I stuck my tongue out at him and resumed my work.
Twenty minutes later, the sauce was simmering on the back burner.
“Do you remember how to make the noodles?” I asked him as I started pulling tins of flour from the top of my refrigerator. I could feel Matt’s eyes on the small strip of back that popped into view when I reached for it, and I was suddenly thanking God that shorter shirts were on trend. And if I took a little longer to grab the flour tin, well that was between me and God, wasn’t it? “Matt?”
“Uh,” he stammered. “S-sorry. Distracted. Yeah. I remember how to make noodles from scratch.”
“Perfect. Get out the eggs?” I instructed as I finally pulled down the flour and put it on the counter. He ducked around me to get the eggs from the refrigerator and stopped by the pantry for the olive oil without any direction from me. I loved cooking with people who actually knew what they were doing. I loved Moira to bits, but she was hopeless in the kitchen.
Most of the people in my life were. Matt was a welcome breath of fresh air.
Hot, steamy fresh air, I realized, as I watched him knead the dough ten minutes later. My tongue darted out between my lips as I watched him, and I started taking a few slow steps forward. I was a moth drawn to his flame, but at least I wasn’t alone in it. He leaned back against me when I neared him, resting his back against my torso. I slowly dragged my fingers down his arms, resting over his hands, as we began kneading the dough together.
