Annelise had decided against making anything she could ruin by paying too much attention to Malcolm.
The chicken was in the oven. The potatoes would take care of themselves for another twenty minutes. There was a salad to finish and bread to cut, tasks that allowed for lapses in concentration without threatening dinner. At six fifty-five, she changed out of the shirt she had worn while cooking and put on the soft dark one she liked against her skin.
Then she changed back.
The first shirt was clean except for a tiny splash near the hem, and she felt more like herself in it. She was not trying to stage an evening in which a woman exactly like her, but better dressed and less inclined to check the oven, invited Malcolm Dade into an immaculate apartment.
She was trying to feed him and, if the opportunity arose, put her hands on him again.
The buzzer sounded at seven.
He came upstairs carrying a bottle of wine and a paper bag. She opened the door before he could knock. For a moment he looked at her without speaking, and she felt every sensible dinner plan lose a little authority.
“Hello,” he said.
“Hello.”
He kissed her, one hand at her shoulder, the bag rustling between them. She leaned into him before remembering the objects he was holding.
“What have you brought?”
“Wine. And peaches.”
“Peaches?”
“They looked good.”
She took the bag. “They do.”
“I didn’t know if you had dessert.”
“I have ice cream.”
“Then I’ve contributed to a system.”
She laughed and stepped aside.
He took off his jacket and hung it on the hook near the door. The movement was ordinary enough to make her stare. Two evenings ago he had visited briefly; tonight his jacket would remain there through a meal she had planned with him in mind.
“Something smells good,” he said.
“Chicken. Unless it’s the potatoes burning, in which case the smell is misleading.”
She checked through the oven window. They were fine.
“Can I do something?”
“Wash the lettuce?”
“Within my abilities.”
She gave him the bowl and showed him where the colander lived. He rolled his sleeves up and went to the sink. Her kitchen was narrow enough that moving behind him required a small negotiation of hips and elbows. On the second pass, she put a hand briefly against his back to let him know where she was.
He looked over his shoulder.
“What?” she asked.
“Nothing.”
She smiled and took the bread to the counter.
For several minutes they worked beside each other. He washed the lettuce carefully, shook water from the leaves, and asked whether she wanted them torn smaller. She said yes. He did not offer a superior method. She sliced the bread and put it in a basket she had owned for years without remembering buying.
“What happened to the chilies?” she asked.
“The ones I bought or the ones I’m disappointing?”
“Both.”
“The bought ones are nearly gone. The plant has one fruit that may be a threat rather than a promise.”
“Are you going to eat it?”
“If it survives long enough.”
She handed him a clean towel for his hands. He dried them, then looked at the small jar on the counter.
“Dressing?”
“Yes. Could you shake it?”
He checked the lid before doing so.
“Experience?” she asked.
“Once. Expensively.”
“What happened?”
“White wall. Tomato sauce. A lid I trusted.”
She laughed. “Did you repaint?”
“Eventually. For a while I moved a picture.”
The admission delighted her. She could imagine the younger Malcolm doing the same thing, but this was a story from years she had not occupied, a small domestic failure that belonged to him alone.
He shook the jar and handed it back. Their fingers touched. She let hers linger for a second, then turned to check the oven because dinner still required them to eat it.
The chicken was ready before the potatoes. She set it aside to rest and increased the heat, refusing the small panic of imperfect timing. Malcolm poured wine while she found two plates.
“Is this where you usually eat?” he asked, looking at the little table beside the window.
“Usually. Sometimes the sofa.”
“What determines it?”
“How much I want to pretend I’m a person who always uses a table.”
“A complex calculation.”
“Very.”
He moved the choir folder from one chair only after asking where she wanted it. She pointed to the bookcase. He set it on top, then paused to look at a paperback beside it.
“You read this?”
“Half of it.”
“And?”
“Everybody was miserable in very beautiful sentences.”
“Did they improve?”
“I didn’t stay to find out.”
He laughed. “Reasonable.”
“What do you read?”
“Mostly things I can put down when I’m tired. Some history. Crime novels. Camera manuals I pretend to understand.”
“I like a book where somebody eventually says what they mean.”
“An ambitious requirement.”
“I know.”
The oven timer interrupted them. She took out the potatoes, tested one, and felt a disproportionate satisfaction when it broke under the fork exactly as she wanted. Malcolm carried the salad to the table. She followed with the rest.
They sat facing each other, the window dark enough now to reflect the room. Annelise could see them faintly in the glass: two people at a table, one leaning forward to listen. She looked away before the image became something she tried to preserve instead of live inside.
“This is good,” Malcolm said after the first bite.
“Thank you.”
“Really good.”
“You can have more without increasing the compliment.”
“I was going to have more anyway.”
“Excellent.”
They ate. She discovered that feeding him was satisfying in a way she had not expected, partly because he enjoyed it without making her responsible for his enjoyment. He asked what she had put on the chicken. She told him. He asked whether she would give him the rough method sometime, and she said it was mostly the oven doing its job.
“My oven has ambitions of its own,” he said. “One corner is much hotter than the rest.”
“Do you compensate?”
“I rotate things.”
“Have you tried fixing it?”
He looked at her.
“The cupboard handle,” she remembered. “Right.”
“There’s a pattern.”
She smiled. “I won’t offer to organize your repairs.”
“Thank you.”
“Unless the oven becomes dangerous.”
“Then you may express an opinion.”
He told her about a job at the workshop that had finally gone out that afternoon, a set of shelves for a room with no two walls that seemed to agree. The customer had sent a photograph after filling them with books.
“Did that feel good?” she asked.
“Yes. Tobin said we should frame it to look at the next time someone asks whether we can do the same thing cheaper.”
“Will you?”
“Probably not. He was mostly hungry.”
She liked the affection in his voice when he spoke about his partner. There were people who knew his bad moods and his working habits, things he had built and obligations she had no part in.
She told him about the overtime error, then about Cecily’s request.
“I’m checking the readings and putting out two or three signs,” she said. “That’s the whole assignment.”
“Do you want a larger one?”
“Part of me always wants a larger one. Then nobody can say I wasn’t useful.”
“Would Cecily say that?”
“No. She’d say I wasn’t listening.”
He nodded, and let the answer stand.
“She wants less help than I keep offering,” Annelise said. “I’m trying to believe her.”
“What are the readings?”
“I haven’t got the final versions yet. She said she’ll send them when they’re settled.”
“Good. No premature proofreading.”
“An enormous strain.”
He grinned. She leaned back in her chair, full and comfortable, and realized she had not thought about how to make the evening successful for several minutes. It was already happening without a supervisor.
When they finished, Malcolm stood and began carrying plates to the sink.
“You don’t have to wash up.”
“I can carry a plate.”
“I know.”
“Then let me demonstrate.”
She laughed and followed with the salad bowl. They put away the leftovers, rinsed the dishes, and left the pan to soak. There was no graceful way for two adults to work in the kitchen without touching. His elbow brushed her arm; her hip met his thigh when she reached past him for a container. Each contact felt increasingly deliberate even when it was not.
At last he stopped with a dish towel in his hand.
“Annelise.”
She turned.
He set the towel down and kissed her.
She had expected it and still felt the shock of pleasure. His hands settled at her waist. Hers went to his shoulders, then behind his neck, where the close-cropped curls were soft beneath her fingertips. He drew her nearer, and she made a small sound she would have been embarrassed to hear if he had not answered by deepening the kiss.
The counter pressed against the back of her hips. She did not mind. His body was warm and solid against hers, familiar only in the broadest sense. There was so much she did not know yet: how he slept now, what made him laugh when he was tired, whether he still went quiet when concentrating on something difficult.
At this moment she wanted to learn several less conversational things.
He drew back just far enough to look at her. “Dessert?”
She laughed, breath unsteady. “That’s a terrible question.”
“I can ask a better one.”
“Please don’t. I may forget the ice cream exists.”
He smiled and kissed her once more, briefly, before stepping aside.
They cut the peaches together. They were ripe enough to release juice across the board, and Annelise caught a slice with her fingers before it slipped. Malcolm watched her eat it, and she became aware of doing an ordinary thing under extraordinary attention.
“Good?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“Then I chose well.”
She handed him a slice. He took it from her fingers, carefully, and the care did nothing to reduce the effect.
They brought the bowls to the sofa. Annelise put on music through the small speaker on the shelf, low enough to talk over. The first song was one she had forgotten was in the queue, cheerful and slightly ridiculous. She reached for her phone to skip it.
“Leave it,” Malcolm said.
“You like this?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“What did you say?”
“Leave it.”
He set down his bowl and stood, holding out a hand.
She stared at him. “Here?”
“Unless you have another room hidden somewhere.”
“There isn’t space.”
“We can investigate.”
She took his hand. He pulled her gently to her feet, and they stood between the sofa and the kitchen with almost no room for dignity.
“I don’t know how to dance to this,” she said.
“Neither do I.”
“That seems relevant.”
“Only if we’re being scored.”
He put one hand at her back. She rested hers on his shoulder, laughing before they had moved at all. They managed two steps, a turn that brought her elbow against the cupboard, and a correction that put his foot directly in the path of hers.
“Sorry,” he said.
“That was mine.”
“I’m claiming responsibility.”
“Generous.”
They tried again, more slowly. The song did not require slow dancing, but neither seemed inclined to obey it. Annelise rested her forehead briefly against his shoulder and laughed into his shirt.
“What?” he asked.
“Nothing. I’m happy.”
His hand moved a little higher on her back.
“Good.”
She lifted her head. His face was close, his expression open in a way she had seen only in flashes so far. She touched the edge of his beard with one finger, curious and affectionate, and he turned his mouth into her palm.
The song changed. They remained where they were.
Outside, a car door closed in the street. Somewhere upstairs, water ran through a pipe. The apartment held them without becoming anything other than the place where she lived, and the ordinariness made her want him more.
They returned to the sofa before the ice cream entirely surrendered. Malcolm took one bite, considered the softened result, and said it had improved by waiting. She accused him of excessive optimism. He said he preferred to call it adaptability.
They finished the bowls and put them on the table. His arm went around her shoulders. She leaned against him, her legs folded beneath her, and let the next song play.
For a while they talked quietly about the weekend ahead. He had some work to finish, though not all of Saturday. She needed groceries and had no desire to spend both days doing things simply because they were available to be done. The conversation was provisional, the sort people had before deciding whether their plans might overlap.
Annelise felt herself holding back from the obvious question.
She knew what she wanted. That was the unsettling part. Not an entire future, not a guarantee that they could never hurt each other, but the right to stop pretending this was casual when she was thinking about his mouth during payroll corrections and setting out two plates with unreasonable pleasure.
He turned toward her. “What is it?”
“I’m thinking.”
“I noticed.”
She could make a joke. She could ask about Saturday first and work around the subject until it became safe through exhaustion. His hand rested on her arm, warm through the cotton of her sleeve. She covered it with hers.
“I’ve liked this evening,” she said.
“So have I.”
“And Sunday. And Tuesday.”
His mouth curved. “A good week.”
“Yes.”
She sat up enough to look at him properly. Desire made her less interested in sounding untouched by the answer. Whatever he said, she wanted to hear the actual words.
“Are we seeing anyone else?”