Before Him

“So where’s this pasta, then?” I turn to face her, rubbing my hands together. The words sound overloud and fake.

“I don’t remember offering you any.” Her back to me now, she plucks a plate from the drainer before attacking it with the dishcloth hard enough to rub a hole in it. “Drew also got dessert.”

“I hope that wasn’t a euphemism for something else,” I mutter with a scowl. She doesn’t answer, pretending not to hear or not caring to. “Does he come for dinner often?” This also falls on deaf ears as I glance at the wedge of parmesan on the kitchen table along with other dinner detritus—salt and a pepper mill, a water bottle with the Minecraft logo, and three round table mats. My brows knit, my emotions conflicted. I’m happy it wasn’t dinner à deux yet thoroughly pissed off that someone else got to eat dinner with my kid.

When will it be my turn?

“So this Drew,” I begin. “You know him well?”

She stills, her shoulders stiffening as though she’d forgotten I was here. Not really possible. “I know him pretty well,” she says, placing a dry glass carefully down next to another of the same.

At this rate, my eyebrows are going to become my beard as I glare at the countertop. One wine glass and one wine glass makes two. Maybe it wasn’t dinner à deux, but it might’ve been followed by intimate drinky-poos, which is worse because drinking wine relaxes muscles, loosens tongues—and inhibitions. I reckon I could go for a bit of that myself, I decide, swinging back to the fridge and pulling on the door.

“Make yourself at home, why don’t you,” she says, turning now to watch.

“Goon?” I moan, disheartened, brandishing the box of wine her way.

“It’s what?” She she chucks the dishcloth in the drainer and leans back against the sink.

“Cask wine,” I repeat. “The shit that comes in a box. Don’t tell me. You only bought it to cook with, then found you’d drank all the bottled stuff?”

“What are you talking about?” she says like I’m the crazy one here. But she’s the one buying cheap wine. Wine aside, I know she feels this connection. I also know she’s doing her best to ignore it.

“This.” I jiggle the box, knowing the action won’t hinder or help the taste. “Chateaux du Cardboard? There is nothing worse in life than cheap grog.” I lie because there are much, much worse things. Like losing the only woman you’ve ever had feelings for after only just finding her again.

“I don’t know what you just said. Not for the first time tonight,” she adds in a mutter.

“I don’t remember us having a problem with communication before.”

She doesn’t answer. Instead, she glances down at her feet, but I still see the smile she tries to smother. Mine, by contrast, is no secret as I consider her white ankle socks. They aren’t usually what a woman would wear to a hot date. Not sports socks, at least. But maybe I’m a deviant because I find I like them so much I’d like to see her wearing them again. Socks and nothing else.

I put the cask of wine on the counter and close the fridge door. “Pass me a glass, would you?”

She turns at the waist to reach, her T-shirt lifting to reveal a slice of pale midriff. The sight feels like a hook, pulling me closer without any real thought.

“You don’t—” Her eyes flare as she turns back and realises how close I am now.

“I don’t what?” I take the glass from her hand because if I don’t, I’m going to rub my thumb along that slice of skin. Press my mouth to hers to steal her gasp.

“You really don’t have any boundaries, do you?”

She pulls a face that I’m beginning to think is reserved for me. But, little love, it’s a good thing you can’t read minds, though I think you already know it’s not the contents of your fridge I’m interested in. “I do have boundaries, as it happens.” Because I want to take my hands and frame your face, press you back against the kitchen sink, and kiss you until we’re both breathless. Behold the powers of my restraint. “I’d usually never touch wine from a box.”

Her face is a mirror of responses: surprise, amusement, consternation, concern, but then she puts her game face back on as she appears to remember how close I am. And I am close, just like in the alleyway, I’m close enough to enjoy the taunting freckle some divine deity thought to place above her top lip. Close enough to enjoy the midnight floral scent of her, to watch the colour rising in her cheeks as she wonders if I’m going to kiss her.

And I am. Just not right now.

“S-So you’re a wine snob.”