Especially when I don’t know exactly where Eva and I stand. I’m getting a pretty good idea—she wouldn’t have invited us over if she weren’t leaning toward giving us a chance—but it’s still a conversation we need to have.
All kinds of delicious smells crowd the air, and I startle at the spread Eva’s got set up in her kitchen. The butcher block island is covered in a neatly arranged assembly line. There’s a cutting board at one end dotted with plump rounds of dough. Colorful bowls filled with all kinds of toppings sit next to it—three kinds of cheese, sautéed mushrooms, sausage, and what appears to be some kind of pulled pork.
A pot of red sauce bubbles on the stove. Judging from the smell of sautéed garlic and oregano, the sauce is homemade. So is the pulled pork and dough if I had to guess.
“Eva,” I say, stomach dipping. Heart swelling. “This is way too much.”
Guiding Bryce onto a stepping stool at the island, Eva waves me away. “I wanted to cook with y’all. Thought it’d be fun to make our own pizzas. Bryce did ask me to teach her how to cook. Do you remember that, Bryce?”
Bryce is positively glowing getting all this attention. She smiles and nods.
“Daddy says my mommy’s favorite pizza topping was olives. Isn’t that weird?”
Eva grins. “Not so weird. I like olives.”
“I do, too. Daddy says I get it from mommy. But I only like the black ones, not the green ones.”
Eva turns her grin on me. I grin back. One of the many ways I’ve tried to keep Rebecca’s memory alive—sharing these little anecdotes with my daughter.
“I like them all. Here, I think I have a can of black olives we can snack on while we make our pizzas. Does that sound good?” Eva asks.
Bryce’s eyes light up.
“Girl, you are spoiled,” I say, setting the whiskey on the counter beside the sink. “Can I make y’all a cocktail?”
“Cocktails are for adults only,” Bryce says, eyeing the balls of dough.
I uncurl the plastic from around the mouth of the bottle. “That’s absolutely right. What did I tell you the drinking age is?”
Bryce holds her hands up to her face solemnly. “Thirty years old.”
“Same as the dating age. Good girl.”
Eva laughs, busy at the sink unwrapping the flowers and putting them in a mason jar. “Phew. I almost missed the cut off. Ford, I’ve got some cherries and vermouth in the fridge if you wanna stir up some old fashioneds.”
“On it.”
I tackle the drinks while Eva and Bryce don aprons—oh my God, Eva even got one in Bryce’s size, and it’s so fucking cute I can’t even get mad at her for going above and beyond with tonight’s dinner when she should be focusing on her cookbook—and tackle the pizzas.
Predictably, Bryce makes a big freaking mess of herself and the kitchen. By the time I’m stepping outside to help Eva cook the pizzas in her smoker—yep, that’s a thing, and yep, it’s delicious—she’s stained Eva’s shirt with marinara sauce and is smuggling grated cheese in her own shirt and pants, bits of it falling out onto the floor whenever she moves.
“I’m so sorry,” I say, doing my best to pick up after my daughter. “I spend way too much time playing Hansel and Gretel, following a trail of crumbs to wherever this kid is.”
Eva just shakes her head and smiles, sipping her cocktail while she winks at Bryce. “I’m very good at making messes in the kitchen, too.”
Now my skin feels three sizes too tight. Inside my pocket I curl my hand into a fist. Can’t touch her. Not the way I want to.
This just feels…cozy.
Right.
Exactly what I needed after a really long fucking week.
Bryce shyly asks if she can sit on Eva’s lap while we eat. Of course Eva says yes, and of course my daughter only eats half a slice of the “cheesy pizza pie” that Eva made from freaking scratch.
We have ice cream—yep, Eva thought of that, too—and then I set Bryce in the family room to play with the toys we brought while I help Eva clean up.
I wash the dishes and she dries them, our elbows brushing as we move. The urge to kiss her deep and hot, to undress her slowly right here in the kitchen, pounds inside my skin in time to my thumping heartbeat.
Thank you.
What. The Fuck. Do I Do. Here.
Please. God. Let this. Be real.
“Yes.”
I blink at the word, spoken softly. Wiping down an enormous, scary looking chef’s knife, Eva looks at me. “The answer to the question I asked myself about parenthood. I decided my answer is going to be yes. Well. I’m going to try it on, anyway. But know I’m open to the idea of an ‘us’. As in the three of us.” Her glance cuts to Bryce, who’s closely inspecting her baby doll’s crotch area.