Like he’s walked straight into something solid he didn’t expect.
He stands there,eyes on me, cautious. “What’re you doing?”
“What does it look like?” I sing as I turn toward him with a grin, lifting the spatula in my hand like a baton. Batter drips from the edge. The radio hums in the corner, loud and rhythmic, the kind of music that makes it impossible not to move. I’ve been dancing along to it all morning, hips rocking, bare feet sliding across the tile.
I’m riding the high from yesterday.
That almost-kiss in the ballroom.
Even if he barely spoke to me at dinner. Even if he flinched when I reached past him for the salad his housekeeper left out.
I expected that. One step forward. Two steps back.
That’s how it’s going to be.
Lucky for him, I’m used to playing the long game.
Carrson’s still standing in the doorway. He blinks, as if he’s recalibrating.
“Sit,” I tell him, waving the spatula toward the table. “Go on. Sit.”
He doesn’t move right away. His gaze flicks over the kitchen, the stove, the plates, the food already set out. Totally normal.
“I made pancakes,” I add, turning back to the stove. “Bacon. Want your eggs scrambled?”
“Sure.” He walks the long way around the island, the way that avoids passing directly behind me, as if even that small brush of space between us would be too much, and lowers himself into a chair.
I plate everything, then pull off the apron I found stuffed in a drawer and toss it aside before bringing the food over. I set the plates down in front of him with a small flourish. “Ta-da!”
He stares at the food as if it might not be real.
“What happened to Mrs. Beckswith’s muffins?” he asks after a second. “She was supposed to leave some.”
“We have those, if you want. I thought fresh would be better.” My confidence falters. “Why? Do you not like it?” I work hard to keep the tremble out of my voice, but Carrson must hear it anyway.
“No,” he says quickly. “That’s not what I meant. I didn’t know you could do this.” There’s a small crease between his brows, like he’s trying to make sense of something that shouldn’t be complicated.
“No one’s ever cooked for me,” he adds, almost an afterthought. “Not like this. Just the housekeepers.”
“Oh.” I flounder, unsure what to do with that.
My mom wasn’t perfect, far from it, but she cooked for us. Sat us down at the table. Taught us how to do it ourselves, even when everything else was falling apart. When Lou said Carrson wasn’t taught well by his father I assumed she meant politics. Leadership.
Now, I wonder, has no one taken the time with Carrson to teach him—anything?
I almost ask about his mother, if she’d ever cooked for him, but before I do it comes back to me. That first meeting in the clearing.
Didn’t your mom teach you manners?I’d asked.
I don’t have one, he’d answered.
I think back to the articles. Photos of him. His father. Never a woman beside them.
Carrson’s gaze has already drifted past me, out the window as if the conversation ended for him the second he said it.
Which only makes me feel worse.
I spin back to the counter, but I’m more aware of him now than I was a minute ago. The way he sits there, shoulders slightly hunched, fidgeting like he doesn’t quite know where to put his hands.
