“Damn it,” I mutter. “Cockblocked by fucking pancakes.”
Sadie dissolves into laughter, still sitting on my counter, while I grab the pan and move it off the burner and open the window above the sink to let the smoke out.
I look at the ruined pancakes. Look at her, laughing on my counter with her bare feet swinging and her hair damp and her eyes bright.
I’ll need to start over fresh.
I guess it’s a morning for all kinds of fresh starts.
“How about an omelette?” I propose.
“Sounds good to me, chef.”
A few minutes later, we take the plates and mugs to eat outside on the back porch. I grab the bluetooth speaker from the kitchen and take that with me too.
The morning is already warm, sun and dry air and the smell of the fields baking slowly.
I've carried out the plates of omelettes and sourdough toast while Sadie takes care of the coffee mugs. We sit next to each other at the old weathered table my dad built thirty years ago that I stole from Rosemont and never once thought about replacing.
She's got her bare feet tucked up under her on the chair. Her hair is drying in the sun, going lighter at the edges, already starting to curl.
I don’t know how to take my eyes off her.
Considering she’s leaving in two months, I should probably start practicing.
So I look out at the view instead. A monarch butterfly moves through the garden bed along the porch rail. Out in the pasture the horses are grazing, moving slow, tails switching.The meadowlark is still going, farther out now, and underneath it the constant percussion of grasshoppers in the long grass.
She takes a bite. Closes her eyes briefly.
“Wow,” she says. “You really can cook.”
“A couple things,” I say. “Easy stuff.”
“Don’t downplay it. I’ve never eaten so well in my life as I have living here.”
So stay, I think.
Stay forever and let me cook for you and take care of your car and all the other things a man ought to deal with while you do whatever you want. Let me make you laugh and drive you crazy and make you come.
Let me be your first and let me be youronly.
She fiddles with the speaker on the table, then starts scrolling through her phone for a song, her brow furrowed in concentration.
“Trying to find the perfect one?” I ask.
“Mmhm.”
“You’re thinking mighty hard.”
“Hoping I’ll pick one of yours?”
I mean, secretly, yeah, but I’m not about to tell her that.
“Let me guess. It’s gonna be something sugary. The pop princess flavor-of-the-moment. Maybe my people know her. I could get you an autograph,” I tease. “Set up a meet and greet if you ask nicely.”
An eyebrow raise. “I like sugary pop princess music, thank you, but this morning I’m in the mood for something else entirely. Something a little more masculine. Something sung by a gruff, tortured, sensitive artist.”
It’s truly embarrassing how much she’s got me on tenterhooks right now. Waiting to see which song of mine she’s gonna pick.
