I settle onto one of the tall stools at the kitchen counter and watch him cook. Of course, I offer to help him, even though I’m probably one of the world’s worst cooks, but he declines.
He moves through the kitchen with the same confidence he shows behind the bar. I realize he’s making trout as he unwraps two fillets from butcher paper. They’re golden brown and fresh-looking, and he handles them with care.
“Where’d you get those?” I ask.
“Caught them this morning. Off the creek, about a mile up the mountain.” He sets them on a plate and reaches for a cast-iron skillet. “My grandmother taught me how. Said if you’re going to live in the mountains, you might as well learn how to eat what the mountains give you.”
“Well, that sounds exactly like something she’d say.” I smile, thinking about having dinner at Dolly’s, about Meredith’s eyes and the way she’d squeezed my hand and told me not to worry. “She’s something else.”
“She is.” He sets the skillet on the stove and drizzles oil into it. “She liked you, by the way. Told me so afterward, which, trust me, is not something she does easily.”
“Oh yeah? Well, she told me that I’d gotten you all tied up in knots.”
Wyatt lets out a groan. “Yes, I remember.”
“I didn’t know what she meant at the time,” I pause, “but maybe I think I’m starting to figure it out.”
He goes very still for a moment, the oil shimmering in the skillet, and then looks at me with something in those blue eyes. He clears his throat and turns back to the stove, laying the fillets in the pan with a satisfying sizzle.
“She also said I needed some knots,” he adds. “Said I’d been too settled for too long.”
“Do you think she’s right?”
He doesn’t answer right away, just watches the trout cooking.
“Yeah,” he says finally. “I think maybe she was.”
He seasons the trout simply with salt, pepper, and a little squeeze of lemon. The smell that rises from the skillet is incredible: butter, lemon, and something earthy.
“What else are we having?” I ask, leaning forward on my stool, feeling my stomach start to rumble a bit.
“Roasted potatoes. They’re already in the oven. Collard greens with bacon and a little apple cider vinegar. And my family recipe for cornbread, of course.”
“Wow, you really had this planned out.”
“I did.” He flips the trout, golden and crispy on the first side. “Wanted it to be good.”
There’s something in the way he says it, simple and honest, with no performance, that makes my chest ache a little. This man, who could have taken me somewhere impressive, instead chose to stand in his own kitchen and cook me a meal from scratch. He caught the fish himself this morning and took the time to plan it out.
It’s the most romantic thing anyone has ever done for me, and it doesn’t look anything like romance the way I was taught to recognize it.
We eat at a small table by the window. He has set it simply: forks, plates, and cloth napkins that have been washed many times and are soft and worn from use. There’s a mason jar of sweet tea that sits between us, and he pours mine before his own.
The food is extraordinary. The trout is perfectly cooked, crispy on the outside and tender and flaky within. The lemon and butter brighten against the richness of the fish. The potatoes are golden and caramelized, and the collard greens are wonderful, with just enough tang from the vinegar to cut through the richness of the bacon.
I close my eyes on the first bite of fish. I can’t help it.
“That good, huh?” Wyatt asks. I can hear a smile in his voice.
“I’m not going to dignify that with a response,” I say, opening my eyes. “But yes, that good.”
He grins, and I see the crinkles at the corners of his blue eyes.
We talk while we eat, the way we’ve been learning to talk, not about the bar, not about me possibly leaving in October, not about anything heavy. Just each other, small things, real things.
He tells me about growing up in Copper Creek, about fishing with his grandfather before he passed away, about getting into trouble with Boone as teenagers, about the summer he was fourteen and tried to build a canoe in his grandfather’s garage, but flooded the whole thing.
“My grandmother was so mad at me. She didn’t speak for an hour.” He shakes his head. “Then she handed me a mop and said, ‘Well, are you going to learn from this or not?’”
