“Hey,” he says.
“Hey.”
We stare at each other for a moment. This is new territory. Yesterday we were barely speaking. Today we’re… what?
“I’m resetting my router,” he says. “Around four. There’ll be a service interruption. Maybe twenty minutes.”
“Okay.”
“I wanted to warn you in case you were in the middle of something. Work stuff.”
“That’s… thoughtful. Thank you.”
More staring. God, this is painful. I’m a talker. A filler-of-awkward-silences. Eden calls it my “pathological need to make everyone comfortable,” which is rich coming from the sister who once made small talk with a telemarketer for twenty minutes because she didn’t want to be rude.
But with Asher, I don’t know what to say. Everything feels loaded. Also, why wouldn’t he call or text with this information? It must have taken him a half-hour to hobble all the way over here.
“Do you want to come in?” The words escape before I can stop them. “I got pecan pie from LaTonya.”
He hesitates. I watch him weigh the options—retreat to safety, or step through the door.
“Okay,” he says. “Sure.”
He crutches past me into the kitchen, and I try not to notice how he seems to fill up the space. The house felt fine before. Now it feels small.
“You can sit,” I say, gesturing at the kitchen table. “I’ll grab you a plate.”
He lowers into a chair, propping his crutches against the wall, and I busy myself with baked goods so I don’t have to look at him. When I turn around, pie in hand, I catch him staring at my laptop screen.
“Sorry,” he says quickly. “I wasn’t… It was just open.”
“It’s fine.” I set the pie in front of him and take a seat across the table. “Actually, something kind of wild is happening.”
“Wild how?”
“My Fork Lick content is going viral.” Saying it out loud still feels surreal. “The videos I’ve been posting about the property were a bust, but then I posted about Baabara. People are really responding to it.”
Asher’s eyebrows rise. “Viral?”
I nod. “I’ve never had anything take off like this.”
“That’s…” He pauses, and I brace for something dismissive. But he says, “That’s really good, Eva. You deserve that.”
The sincerity in his voice catches me off guard. “Thanks,” I manage. “I’m still processing it. It’s weird because the stuff that’s resonating isn’t the polished professional content I usually make. It’s just… me. Being a mess. Figuring things out.”
“Maybe that’s why people like it.”
I tilt my head. “What do you mean?”
He shrugs, staring into his crust. “Everyone’s so curated online. Everything’s perfect and staged. But you’re just… real. You show up not knowing what you’re doing and owning that. That’s relatable.”
It’s possibly the most words he’s ever said to me at once. And they’re… nice words. Insightful, even.
“I didn’t know you paid attention to social media,” I say.
“I don’t. I pay attention to—” He stops. Clears his throat. “I just meant it makes sense. People would like that.”
I’m about to push when his phone buzzes. He glances at the screen and frowns. “It’s Lia.”
