Andi catches my eye and then rolls hers dramatically.
“Why do I ask you anything?” she says, but there’s that undercurrent of laughter in her voice that I’ve realized is usually there, and I don’t have a good response for her, so I don’t respond at all.
“Looks good,” she says, and before she leaves, she swipes her finger through the remaining pancake batter and sticks it in her mouth.
“Hey!” I shout, but she’s already gone, so I frown at the bowl instead.
Thank fuck she’s leaving today.
* * *
“Gideon,”Andi says, her mouth full. “These are amazing. I need the recipe.”
“They’re all right,” I say, and focus on putting a piece of bacon onto a bite of pancake, because I can feel myself blushing, which is ridiculous. It’s just a pancake. Andi said almost the exact same thing about the chicken soup I reheated for her the first night. She probably likes everything. I shouldn’t be this pleased that she likes my pancakes.
“If these are all right, I shudder to think what good pancakes taste like,” she says between bites. “Is it an out of body experience? Do you take a bite and instantly co—uh.”
And now we’re both bright red. Great.
“It’s a mix, I just added frozen blueberries,” I say, not making eye contact. I don’t think I can. “And couple other tweaks.”
“It’s especially good with the bacon,” she says, and we both fall silent for another moment. “The food up here is better than I’d have thought. Pancakes, bacon. That omelet yesterday was better than I can manage on, like, a regular stove.”
“I make do,” I shrug, and take another bite of pancake.
“I figured we’d be eating cereal and canned milk or something,” she goes on. “Granola bars and freeze-dried eggs, that kind of thing.”
“It’s a cabin, not prehistoric times,” I point out.
“Did they have a lot of granola bars in prehistory?”
I sigh again and don’t look at her, because I know she’s still doing that thing where she laughs at me with that look on her face that crinkles her eyes and that smile that means she’s expecting me to join in, and I can’t quite deal with it right now.
The thing is, she’s right. The two mornings before I rescued her from the tree, I had granola bars and instant oatmeal for breakfast, and I ate them standing over the kitchen counter and looking out the window. No real point in cooking when it’s just me, but her being here gives me an excuse to whip something up. Besides, the last time we took the truck out we ended up hiking a mile back to the cabin, and I’m not expecting that to happen again, obviously, but Andi may as well eat a real breakfast just in case.
We finish up in silence, but it’s a pleasant, friendly silence, so I like it. I grab her plate and take it to the sink when my phone buzzes on the table, then buzzes about six times in a row.
“That better be important,” I say, submerging the plates in the sink.
“It’s from… uh, ‘wizard emoji, ninja emoji, Wildwood Society BFFs, crystal ball emoji, candle emoji, toilet paper emoji?’”
“Motherfucker,” I mutter, wiping my hands on a towel and crossing the kitchen to grab my phone, because I’d forgotten that Wyatt got ahold of it last week. “Those assholes.”
“Are you a freemason?” she asks, chin on one hand. “I have so many questions, like what’s the deal with the eye in the pyramid on money?”
“I’m not a freemason,” I tell her. “It’s just—it’s a joke.”
“That’s what you’d say if you were a freemason,” she points out.
“No, it’s not,” I say, swiping my notifications open, because no one can leave me alone. “Being a freemason isn’t a secret. My great-uncle was a freemason. He was always complaining about the meetings.”
“Can he explain the weird stuff on money?”
“He’s dead,” I say as my phone buzzes again.
“Because he spilled the secrets?”
“Because he was ninety-three,” I say.
