Don’t do it don’t do it don’t do it,said the infinitely wise and all-too-familiar little voice in her head, the one that usually preceded her doing things she shouldn’t do.
“Um... why don’t you come in. You can put the hummus right here on the... coffee table. Which is the box thing near the couch. I have to go pull the aforementioned lasagna out of the oven.”
She walked away from the open door and left him to follow her inside.
She slid the oven mitts on and laid the pan on the counter to cool. She stayed there for about a minute, standing over the bubbling lasagna, which despite its resemblance to lava wasn’t nearly as hot or dangerous or tempting as Mac Coltrane. She contemplated keeping the oven mitts on. It would be awfully hard to get his zipper down if she was wearing oven mitts.
“Where on earth did you find this couch, anyway?” he called. “What is it, like twelve feet long?”
“Pretty close to that. It’s from my family’s rec room.”
“It’s like a freaking barge!”
He sounded delighted.
She smiled to herself. She plucked one of the dishes her mom had donated out of the cupboard—there were roosters on it.
She turned around, squared her shoulders, then returned and sat down next to him on the absurdly long sofa, at a chaste three feet or so away from him, like they were a pair of courting Amish. She even put her knees together, as if she was afraid they would fly right open like a trap door.
Behind them, Chick Pea clicked over the floor, hopped up and settled into the chair across from them and gazed at them brightly and expectantly, as if she were a couples counselor and they’d come in for a session.
He leaned over and shook the crackers out onto the rooster plate and opened the hummus up.
Even over the lasagna smell, Mac smelled faintly like soap.
Which meant he’d showered before he’d come over.
Funny. It was regular old bar soap, if she had to guess, but one whiff and she was picturing him naked in the shower. Her head swam.
“I like the music volume,” Mac said, finally.
“What a very specific thing to compliment.”
She realized she was still wearing the oven mitts. She pulled them off one by one and laid them carefully on the table, like a cowboy disarming before a peace summit.
The oven mitts each sported a rooster.
She would never understand why roosters were such a popular kitchen motif.
“In light of the Melissa Manchester misadventure, I thought I should affirm your choice.”
“Affirm?”
“I pick up words here and there,” he said, loftily, teasingly.
She smiled. Another little silence fell.
“I have wine,” she said suddenly and dubiously, “but I think my mom may have bought it to cook with, so accept it at your own risk.”
“I can guarantee I’ve had worse. I’ll take my chances.”
She sprang up again and fetched the wine from the fridge door, uncorked it and poured about a half inch into two juice glasses that sported Yogi and Boo-Boo, faded by a few hundred go-rounds in the dishwasher. So classy.
She turned around and discovered she was in the beam of his gaze. He’d been watching her that whole time.
He took a sip of the wine and his eyes got wide. He blinked a few times and then swallowed. “Salud,” he said wryly, bolted the rest, and winced.
Something had been bothering her a little. “Mac? Can I ask you something?”
