Lauren smiled and took another bite of the ruined rice. It was chewy, yet somehow undercooked at the same time, and she reached out to place a reassuring hand on Grey’s arm as she swallowed. “It’s not that bad.”
“You don’t have to eat it,” Grey muttered. “Really. You’re going to make yourself sick trying to choke any more of that down.”
“Nobody’s getting sick.” Lauren chuckled and rolled her eyes. “It’s just rice, Grey.”
Grey groaned and ran a frustrated hand through her hair as she glowered at the offending side dish, as if it was the rice’s fault that it had not turned out right. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s fine.” Lauren used the side of her fork to cut into her fish, and she looked at Grey as she speared the bite on the tines. “The Mahi turned out really well. And this sauce is incredible,” she added as she swirled the fish in the excess sauce pooled on her plate.
Grey blew out a loud breath and forced a small smile, embarrassment still written clearly on her face. “Thank you.”
“Thank you for a lovely dinner,” Lauren replied, her eyes soft and her tone warm.
“I…” Grey started to argue that the dinner she had made was anything but lovely, but she held back. Lauren was clearly not bothered by her lack of culinary skills, and her wallowing in self-pity was only going to ruin their last night alone together. She sighed and reached for her wine glass. Rice was apparently too difficult for her to manage, but she knew how to pick a good wine, and the pinot noir she had paired with the meal was outstanding. Grey met Lauren’s gaze as she lifted her glass, letting it hover in the candlelit air between them, and said, “To lovely dinners with even lovelier company.”
“Hear, hear!” Lauren murmured, lifting her glass to lightly tap it to Grey’s. She smiled at her as she took a sip, and sighed softly when she set her glass back onto the table. “Did I ever tell you about the time I made Yorkshire pudding soup?”
“I didn’t realize that was a thing.” Grey’s brow furrowed, and she shook her head. “I’ve heard of Yorkshire Pudding, but…”
“It’s not a thing,” Lauren interjected, shaking her head. “My first week in culinary school, we had to make Yorkshire pudding, which is just a million shades of awesome when done right.” She forked a another small bite of fish into her mouth and, when she had swallowed, continued, “So, Chef gives us the recipe, and sends us off to our stations. I still swear that I did everything right, but when it came out of the oven, even though the outsides were cooked, the middles weren’t. It was disgusting.”
“What happened?” Grey asked.
“To make the dish go wrong?”
“Yeah.”
Lauren shrugged. “Haven’t a clue. Probably pulled them a couple minutes early, but whatever the case, they were still soup. Chef cut into one and it poured onto the plate. I was mortified.”
“And yet you still went on to finish first in your class,” Grey pointed out.
“One mistake doesn’t have to ruin everything,” Lauren said. She sighed and shook her head. “Anyways, this sauce. Tell me how you made it. Since, you know, you banned me from the galley so I didn’t get to watch.”
After Grey explained her technique to Lauren, about which the redhead had a million questions, half of which Grey did not see the point of even though she answered them as best she could, they moved onto easier topics. First cars. Worst date they had ever been on. Favorite holiday and, because Lauren loved food, favorite holiday dish. For as well as they knew each other physically, and for as comfortable as they were together, they were still learning about each other as people, and the easy back-and-forth helped fill in some of those gaps.
Grey was finishing reliving, in all its gory detail, the train wreck of her first serious relationship as they put the last of the dinner dishes away, and she arched a brow at Lauren as she used her heel to close the dishwasher door. “And she threw my MacBook at me—thank god I caught it—and that was it. So…your turn.”
“I’m still friends with my first serious girlfriend.” Lauren smiled at the look of surprise on Grey’s face and reached for her glass of wine. “We dated for pretty much my entire freshman year. We met at a party at NYU—my roommate at CIA was from New York, and her best friend from high school was at NYU and invited us to a thing her dorm was doing. Rachel was a theatre student there, and we just…hit it off. Things were good. Simple, as they are when you’re nineteen, but good. Even though she was only a freshman as well, Rachel auditioned for and got a lead in a musical on Off-Off. That started taking up all of her time and things with us just…fizzled. No harm, no foul. It just didn’t work.”
“Well, that’s disappointing,” Grey teased. She topped off their glasses and tipped her head at the salon doors. “Go out to the tramps?”
Lauren nodded. “Sure.”
“So…is she still on Broadway?” Grey asked as she stared toward the front of the boat.
“She won a Tony last year,” Lauren said with a smile.
“Damn.”
Lauren chuckled. “Yeah. So...anyways, that’s it. No real drama. Sorry.”
“You can make it up to me,” Grey said, winking at Lauren as she took the glass of wine from her hand and set it down on the side of the boat. “Dance with me.”
“There’s no music,” Lauren pointed out as Grey stepped into her, the brunette’s left hand slipping possessively around her waist.
“Don’t need it,” Grey whispered. She took Lauren’s left hand in her right and stepped into her, tucking their joined hands between them. Grey shifted her weight to her right foot, then her left, and smiled when Lauren naturally followed. “See?”
“I do.” Lauren pressed in closer, leaning her forehead against Grey’s as they swayed to the music of the breeze tumbling around them. Her heartbeat slowed to match the even cadence of their movement, and she closed her eyes as she soaked it all in. The strength of Grey’s hand wrapped around her own, the firm press of Grey’s body, the feeling of Grey’s breath landing so lightly upon her lips. They moved in small, uneven circles across the trampoline, and Lauren let out a shuddering sigh when Grey’s lips landed on her own.
