“I am making you dinner!”
I take a quick inventory of the counter and everything on it. Mushrooms, onions, and garlic. Chicken breast on a separate cutting board. Lemons and ricotta.
“Is that quinoa?” I ask carefully, bordering on condescension.
Come on. Quinoa?
“Wanda is doing low-carb,” Penny explains. “Otherwise I would’ve gone straight for rigatoni or something. What, is that not fancy enough for you?”
Stunned, I simply fall into a chair on the other side of the island.
“This is… You know. You cook?”
She raises her eyebrows.
“I do all kinds of things,” she quips triumphantly.
“Yeah, but since you’ve been here, you haven’t even attempted to cook. Are you telling me that all this time you knew how to do this? And you didn’t say anything?”
She wiggles her eyebrows and grins, popping a bit of mushroom between her lips and chewing vigorously.
That’s an
other thing—we agreed not to date each other. We agreed to even keep flirting to a minimum. And somehow, she just keeps getting more beautiful. It’s like she’s doing it on purpose, I swear.
“You know, that lemon mushroom combination makes an amazing ravioli,” I mention casually.
“Oh, does it really?” she asks innocently.
“You do not know how to make pasta,” I counter. “That is not a thing. That’s not something the Penny I know would ever even try to do.”
She tips her head to the side, placing her fist on her hip and shifting her weight so that the neckline of her blouse slants to one side.
It’s killing me, I swear.
“You know, I’m just going to bet that in fifteen years, I picked up more than a few skills that would take you by surprise,” she sniffs, taking a deep breath that inflates her cleavage.
Okay. Now she’s just doing it on purpose.
I force myself to stand up and turn around toward the back windows, taking a nonchalant stroll around my own living room so I don’t have to see her anymore.
“What’s the occasion for dinner?” I call out.
“Oh… Wanda is coming over. We use to have dinner a few times a week, and it’s been a long time. I think Ethan misses her too.”
Wanda has been a fantastic site manager. I’m pretty sure she’s about a week ahead of schedule, but for some weird reason she will never admit it. Ron can’t get past the fact that she’s gay, so I don’t even think her job skills are getting through his thick skull. But I’ve noticed.
“Actually she just texted me that she’s in the driveway. Can you let her in? My hands have chicken on them.”
“Happy to,” I answer, literally grateful for a reason to stop watching her work her magic. What can I say? I guess I’m kind of a foodie.
“Oh!” I blurt out when I open the door.
Wanda stops, raising her eyebrows at me in challenge. She’s dressed in a coppery wrap dress, her legs shiny as plastic, her hair almost glittering.
“The hell does that mean?”
“I’m sorry... It’s just… I’ve never seen you in anything but jeans and a bandanna, you know what I mean?”