“I love crawfish boils. I had a one in Louisiana, and I swear it made the angels cry. Actually, it would probably make Satan cry because they’d added eight fresh scotch bonnet chilis to it because it was an old family recipe, but it was freaking awesome.”
“I add chilis to mine, too,” he told me as he pointed toward the kitchen. “I had one in New Orleans when I went on a mini vacation during college. They put thick pieces of Andouille sausage in it, fresh chilis, crawfish, shrimp, corn, and fresh crab, and I can’t eat it any other way now.”
That probably should’ve made me wary of how spicy it was going to be. I loved spicy food, but fresh chilies, seasoning you usually put in the boil, and Andouille sausage? But, it didn’t even register because I was too distracted by how great he looked in his kitchen. Him standing in it, surrounded by all the sleek brushed steel appliances on concrete countertops… I was starting to think maybe I should pack more underwear when I came here in future, the ones I was wearing were toast. I’d never thought a man would look sexy in a room as functional as a kitchen. A gym? Yeah. A bathroom? Absolutely. I’d seen the man with soapy bubbles running down the dips and bumps of his muscles, all that tanned bare skin—
“Ari? He called, snapping me out of my special moment.
“Mmm?”
“You were licking your lips,” he pointed out, and it took everything in me not to blush. “Are you hungry?”
No, I’m a pervert who was thinking about your naked body. Sue me!
I didn’t go with the whole truth, but I went with part of it. “Absolutely.”
“It’ll only take two minutes to serve up. Why don’t you get a drink and sit at the table.”
Getting us both a beer from the fridge—I had a vagina, so yes, I was a woman, but I was also a vagina woman who hated wine—I took them over to the neatly laid out table and sat down, watching him drain the meal and put it in a big serving bowl. I guess when you’re inside and have furniture as nice as he did, pouring it out over the table wouldn’t be a good idea.
Reading what I was thinking, he explained as he placed the bowl down, “Getting the smell out of the wood would be nigh on impossible, and I don’t want my house smelling of crawfish and crab for the rest of its life. Next time I make it, we’ll sit outside, and I’ll lay it out properly.”
Over dinner, we discussed everything and nothing. I told him about Sadie’s MeeMee and her ugly cat, enjoying his laughter as I described it to him. I told him about the dirty limericks she’d recited to us all, as MeeMee glared her into dust from her seat. I also told him about the woman who kept coming in and how weird it all was.
“Do you think I was sensitive enough?”
He’d looked wary as I’d told him about the changes she’d made, but it softened with my question. “I think you dealt with it the best way you could. It’s strange that she keeps coming back and goes to those lengths to be unrecognizable, though.”
“I think I was only really aware of it because I did it on my nose for so long,” I explained, pushing a piece of crab shell around my plate with my index finger. “Hers looked like a professional job, though, so if I’d only glanced at her if I was walking past her, I probably wouldn’t have put two and two together.”
Wiping his mouth with his napkin, he picked up his beer and took a mouthful. “What did she look like?”
“Which time?” I snorted, but it sounded weak.
I was freaked out by her and the way she watched us all, and I was starting to imagine some Single White Female shit happening.
“All of them.”
As I listed all of the looks I’d seen her in and tried to think of any instances when maybe I hadn’t served her and she’d been in the bar, Parker’s face turned to stone. “What does her face look like?”
“Slightly heart-shaped without the makeup, I think. She’s got a small nose with a slightly upturned tip”—unlike mine, both before and after the surgery—“and brown eyes. Probably three inches shorter than me, too.”
“Did she have a freckle here?” he asked as he pointed to the side of his chin.
Thinking hard, I couldn’t recall ever noticing one, so I just shrugged.
“What kind of things does she ask?”
I was looking to the side as I tried to remember, so I didn’t see the way his fists clenched tightly. “She asked about my family and if I was from here. Uh, she’s asked in the past about my brothers and how many generations of us have been in Gonzales County,” I paused and tried to remember more. “Oh, and she’s asked about you.”