I felt suddenly oblivious that I’d never asked Kallum about food before. “Do you keep a kosher kitchen at home? I guess it would be hard for a pizza place to keep kosher, because it wouldn’t just be the recipes themselves, but the equipment and ingredients too?”
“Down to the raisins for Raisin ’Em Right, my second bestselling breakfast pizza,” Kallum confirmed. “But nah. Lots of reform families are observant, but it’s just never been part of our family life. And so I decided not to start my new path as a pizza-wizard with a kosher restaurant, because it is pretty complicated to get started and do it right. But I do have a meat-free kosher pizza truck that makes the rounds to my different SSB locations one night a week. It’s called There’s Something About Dairy. A rabbi came in and kosherized the truck’s equipment with a blowtorch. It was awesome. And my mom likes to brag about it, so a win all around.”
He flipped the bacon and then hit the switch for the smallish electric pizza oven nearby, giving it a baleful look as he did so.
“I prefer wood-fired,” he said when he noticed my questioning stare. “Although this isfine, I guess.” He went back to the pizza dough, humming a little as he sprinkled cheese over it, and then went over to the bacon, drizzling maple syrup into thepan to great, sizzling fanfare, and then dumping the whole lot onto a wooden cutting board.
He kept humming as he chopped the bacon and then spread the pieces over the pizza, adding a second kind of cheese, and then slid the whole thing onto the pizza oven’s metal conveyor belt and set the timer. Ten minutes. I watched as he put all the ingredients away, scrubbed the pan, cutting board and knife, his hands, and then wiped down the counter.
Finally, he washed the pear and came back to me. He nudged his way between my legs with his hips, and with a paring knife, began slicing a wafer-thin piece of fruit.
“I was wondering when the pear would make an appearance,” I murmured as he held up the slice.
“Open,” he said, his voice a warm rumble, and I obeyed without thinking, parting my lips and letting him place the pear on my tongue.
It was sweet, bright, that perfect texture between soft and crunchy that ripe pears were, and I sighed with happiness as I ate it.
“Thank you,” I said, and he smiled down at the pear as he cut me another slice. His hands were so sure with the knife and the fruit, exerting just enough pressure, cutting at just the right angle, and it occurred to me that Kallum was so much more than silly jokes and nice cuddles and lap dances in private rooms. I’d just watched him go to the trouble to make me a custom pizza because nothing else sounded good to me; he’d not only made it, but cleaned up after, even the messy, greasy bacon pan. And now he was feeding me a pear like it was a privilege to do so.
And maybe... maybe I’d been too hard on him with the whole Teddy thing. Maybe it had just been a onetime slip—like Kallum had said, a blunder born of the early hour and being starstruck.
Maybe I could trust him to be careful with me. That was why I’d refused to even entertain the idea of a relationship before, right? Because I’d been scared of someone being careless with me again?
Kallum fed me another slice, and something in my chest broke like brittle ice under a warm spring sun.
I chewed, swallowed. Met his eyes with mine.
“I’m pregnant,” I whispered.
The moment stretched into silence, his lips parting as he drew breath, his eyes like sapphire mirrors reflecting my own nervous, hopeful face.
“It’s yours,” I added, maybe pointlessly.
“I...”
He trailed off. Behind him, the pizza oven dinged with a sharp noise that made us both jump.
Clearing his throat, he pushed away from me, setting the pear and knife down and then sliding the hot pizza onto a square of red-and-white-checked paper, and then using the rocking pizza cutter to slice it. It smelled divine; I’d forgotten what it felt like to smell something and want it immediately in my mouth.
Well, except for Kallum, of course. Who still wasn’t looking at me.
“Kallum,” I said, my voice trembling, a little hoarse. “Say something.”
He took a breath and then lifted his eyes to mine.
He was crying.
Panic tore at my throat, but before I could say anything, he was back between my legs and wrapping those strong arms around me. He buried his face in my neck: all wet cheeks and scratchy beard.
“Oh my God,” he breathed. “Oh my God.”
“Are you—” I couldn’t even think. Was he that devastated? Was he imagining his whole life ruined, his future crushed? “Kallum, I should have led with this, but I don’t expect you to help me, I don’t expect you to be a father or anything like that, I just thought you should know—”
“What are you talking about?” he asked, pulling back. His thick, straight brows were bunched together, his expression genuinely confused.
“I’m saying”—I took a steadying breath—“That I’m not trying to trap you into responsibility or anything. I’m not asking you for anything.”
“Winnie,” he said, shaking his head and then making a sound that was something like a laugh, something like a choked plea. “Why wouldn’t you ask me?”
