She laughs, and the sound vibrates against my lips, and I lift her onto the counter. Her legs wrap around my waist and her socks dig into the backs of my thighs and she pulls me closer by the waistband of my sweats.
“You’re going to ruin dinner,” she says.
“I’ll make it up to you.”
“With what? Your terrible coffee?”
I kiss the curve of her neck, right below her ear, in the spot that makes her breath catch every single time. She inhales sharply and her fingers tighten in my hair.
“That’s cheating,” she whispers.
“I learned from the best.”
Her head tips back, and I trail my mouth down her throat, over her collarbone, pressing my lips to the hollow where I can feel her pulse racing. My hands slide under the hem of the T-shirt, and her skin is warm and smooth, and she isn’t wearing anything underneath it, which short-circuits my brain enough to make me groan against her.
“You planned this,” I say.
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“You’re not wearing anything under my shirt.”
“It’s laundry day.”
She grins and pulls the shirt over her head.
The kitchen light catches her, and I forget about the rice and the coffee maker and anything else that isn’t the way she looks right now, bare from the waist up and sitting on my counter with her hair falling around her shoulders.
“Hi,” she says.
“Hi.”
“You’re staring again.”
“Counting.”
Her eyes soften the way they always do when I say that. She cups my face with both hands and kisses me, and when she pulls back, she presses her forehead to mine.
“I love you,” she says. “Even though you burn roux and snore.”
“And I love you.” I kiss the corner of her mouth. “Even though you stole my dog’s loyalty.”
“It’s not my fault Cav has good taste.”
“The rice is done, by the way.”
“What?”
“It’s been three minutes.”
She shoves me back and lunges for the stove, and I watch her rescue the pot with the focus and urgency of a surgeon, and something that used to be a fist inside my sternum opens its fingers and lets go.
Percy comes by on Saturdays.
Not for training—not yet, anyway. Percy’s therapist is a guy named Dr. Waitz who specializes in adolescent trauma, and from what Percy tells me, he’s good. Direct. Doesn’t let Percy deflect with humor.
But Saturdays aren’t about therapy. Saturdays are about something else entirely, something I didn’t plan and wouldn’t have known how to ask for.
Percy shows up around noon, usually with a backpack full of textbooks and a bag of gas station chips that Genevieve confiscates on sight and replaces with whatever she’s been experimenting on for the restaurant. He does homework at the kitchen table from the courses he enrolled in at VU while Genevieve cooks and I pretend to read. But mostly, I watch the two of them talk.
