We both laughed. She always knew how to cheer me up.
Because, well, the worst was pretty bad, but then we’d both been through bad. What Shelly meant was that bad things happen, but we couldn’t let them rule us. Living was a choice.
Colin slammed the tailgate shut and turned to me.
He raised his eyebrow. You still in?
Yes, I answered silently.
Bailey dug through my box of clothes while I hung them up in the closet. The room had two closets, so this one had been empty when we got here. Still, it was already stocked with hangers, and that had to count for something.
Colin stepped in. “I’ve got the last of it downstairs.”
“Thanks.” I wiped my palms on my jeans.
Christ, how awkward. Why had no one ever given me lessons on how to handle moving in with a guy I barely knew? Suddenly that seemed like a vital life skill.
“So.” I took one of my high heels out of Bailey’s hands and replaced it with an innocuous sweater. “It’s official.”
“Yeah.” He had an almost cautious expression, as if I was freaking out.
Was I freaking out? Possibly a little. “We’re cool, right?”
Humor glinted in his eyes, turning them from glacial to just chilly. “We’re good. But listen, I’ve got to head out.”
Alarm streaked through me. “You’re leaving?”
He frowned, just a crease of his forehead, but I didn’t think it was directed at me. “It just came up.” He shook his head as if to negate the importance. “I’ll be back by dinner.”
“Right, okay.”
He gave me a speculative look. I strove for casual and failed. With a grimace I took as an attempted smile, he left the room. A few minutes later I heard his truck bump out of the driveway.
“Bye-bye,” Bailey said.
“That’s right!” I winced as my feigned cheerfulness came out louder than anticipated. “He’s gone bye-bye. But he’ll be back soon, promise!”
Back by dinner, apparently. Should I make dinner? I made dinner for Bailey and myself every day, of course, but I wouldn’t feel right serving Colin spaghetti from a can. He probably thought I could cook, seeing as I baked, but it wasn’t the same. Give me flour and sugar over turmeric any day.
I quickly finished up with the clothes; then Bailey and I forged into the kitchen. I expected a barren refrigerator, save for lumpy milk and beer. There’d be stale chips in the cupboard for sure. Instead what I found was a chef’s paradise. A fully stocked fridge with vegetables. A pantry with buckets of grains I couldn’t even name.
He did own a restaurant. I was so fucked.
But I didn’t have a choice. Most likely he did expect dinner, and besides, it seemed fair and right. Even with my income from the bakery, I couldn’t cover a fraction of the costs of this place. Of course I should contribute this way.
I rummaged through the fridge, past fancy cheeses and free-range eggs and vegetables that just reeked of organic, when I heard the crash behind me. Bailey had helped herself to the pantry, her chubby arm jammed in a box of whole wheat graham crackers. She fished out a still-wrapped plastic package and held it up triumphantly.
“Crackers,” she said with a baby chuckle.
“Glad one of us is already at home.”
She fussed at the plastic until I pulled it open for her. That pantry would need reorganization—namely, the entire bottom shelf should be empty—but that would wait for another day.
I foraged for something easy, like pasta, and came up empty until I found the lasagna slices. Sure enough, there was marinara among the sauces, ricotta among the cheeses, and grass-fed ground beef in the freezer. Hell, I’d eaten lasagna before. Mostly frozen, but it was self-explanatory, what with those layers.
I even got fancy, sautéing onions and chopping parsley, while Bailey built a sand castle on the once-gleaming kitchen floor. I did a double take. Yes, she had crumbled what was probably an entire box of graham crackers into some sort of sandlike state. She sat in the middle, gleefully trailing her grubby fingers through the layer like it was her personal zen garden.
“Oh, Bailey,” I groaned.
She sucked on her crumb-coated fingers, but I couldn’t even be upset about the mess when the state of the entire kitchen smacked me like a frying pan. It was a disaster. The counters were piled with food in varying states of cooked.
I laid the layers of lasagna and stuck it in the oven, then set about cleaning. First I put away all the produce and ingredients. Then I grabbed the pan to wash it and burned my hand in the process.
Ouch. Leave it to some fancy brand of cookware to actually have fewer features than a cheapo knockoff, like say, plastic handles for safety. Probably they were expecting rich people not to be idiots and spring for pot holders. Fair enough.
Bailey watched me curiously as I ran my hand under the cold water, and I realized I’d been making monkeylike sounds in my pain.
A smile slid across my face. “Mommy silly?”