“Coffee or tea?” Jessie asks.
“Coffee.” Nelle fondly recalls the latte that resurrected her in DC. She accepts Jessie’s mug and tries it black, fighting back a sour face. “Do you have milk?”
“Oat milk.” Jessie grabs a carton from the fridge and pours a quick stream into the mug. “How’d you sleep last night?”
Nelle sips it. Scorching hot, but the taste is tolerable.
“Fine,” James says, crunching on his toast.
Nelle fights the urge to kick him. “Fine, yeah.”
Jessie flings a cabinet shut, and thebangmakes Nelle slosh her coffee.
“Why are you both being weird?” Jessie wipes her hands on a rag before planting them on her hips. “Yesterday you were all like, smiley and heart eyes and let’s dance in the rain. Now you’re not speaking?”
Nelle squeezes her coffee mug until it burns her fingers. “I didn’t sleep well last night.”
Jessie frowns. Squints. “You said you slept fine.”
Well, I did say that.“Um ...”
“Nothing’s wrong, we were just up all night,” James says. His toast is half gone. “And we’ve been driving for days straight. I can’t speak for Nelle, but I’m exhausted.”
Jessie sets a timer on her phone. “You’re giving me child-of-divorce PTSD. I’ll be gone five minutes tops. Talk it out.” As she pads down the hall in wool socks, she adds, “And don’t let the quiche burn!”
Discomfort settles between Nelle and James. She dares a look at him, hoping to see the James she knows. He rearranges the strawberries on his plate.
Fine.If he won’t talk, she will.
“What’s wrong with you?” Nelle twists on her stool to face him. “Why did you shut down when we got back to the room last night?”
“I didn’t want to talk.” He sits a few inches taller than her, but he seems small.
“Why not?” Nelle purses her lips, her defenses up. “Because I thought—”
Jessie’s phone timer goes off. James reaches over to stop it.
“Not because I don’t like talking to you,” he stammers, catching her tone. “I do, I love talking to you. It’s just that ...” He studies the ceiling as if he might find an explanation written there. “Oh, what the hell, I wanted to kiss you last night. On the roof and when we were in bed. It was all I could think about.”
“You’rethe one who said we have to wait.”
His dimples are dimpling. “I am very stupid sometimes. I have this idea of how things should go, and sometimes I try to ... orchestrate them.”
I wanted to kiss you last night.Nelle chews on a hunk of buttered toast to keep her focus off the animal inside her going rabid at his words. So far, she has kept it on a leash, scared of being hurt, scared of the real-world horrors Father warned her about: rapists, murderers, line cutters, heartbreakers. When she was seven, he sat her down on his knee in the living room and said, “People are the real monsters of this world, Nellie.” She never forgot that, even if she doesn’t agree with it. Now after feeling the world’s texture for herself, she loves the people in it most of all. The only real monster in her world, she has discovered, is Father himself.
Nelle blinks from her reverie to find James staring at her lips.
“I don’t have a frame of reference,” she says at last, “but this doesn’t feel like casual breakfast conversation.”
“It’s not.” James pushes back his hair. “Sorry for being cold. It was all in my head, nothing to do with you, and next time I’m feeling anxious, I’ll tell you the truth.”
He leans in and kisses her cheekbone. Nelle shudders, her soul lit up like a glow stick. Grinning, James leans back on the island and kicks his socked feet out toward the living room. A bird chirps on thebalcony. Nelle’s throat goes dry. She hadn’t realized that a peck on the cheek could be so sensual.
Jessie’s door squeaks open. “Are we finished making out and making up?”
“Yes,” Nelle calls down the hall, taking a plucky bite of toast. It is good, for being plain butter on bread. Maybe the flavor she tastes is freedom. Food made with the care and love of a sentimental hand-me-down butter knife. Food not prepared by a sociopath.
Jessie clears the air as she strides in. “All good now?”
