It’s cute how he phrased that as a choice. “Please, Will, would you like to arrange my kitchen?”
“I’d be happy to. How is it you two have no cooking utensils? Not even ...” He opens and shuts a few more cabinets. “A single pan? You two are pathetic. Love alone won’t feed you, Chloe.”
I make a pan and hold it out. “Voilà!”
He won’t even take it from my hand. “Don’t insult me. This is a shoddy dime-store pan. If you’re not going to let me go with you to a proper kitchen store, at least let me show you some photos of what you really need so you can make the right ones.”
The pan is gone in an instant. “Fine.”
Over the next few hours, he and I construct a kitchen worthy of a professional chef. It’s hilarious, considering I can’t cook to save my life. Too bad cooking can’t be learned through osmosis. In the end, though, it’s beautiful: all clean, white lines with yellow and turquoise Italian accents.
Now that the groceries have arrived, and I’ve sufficiently begged him, Will is hard at work making dinner for us. “You’re a handy woman to have around, Chloe Lilywhite.”
“I could say the same about you.” I lean against the counter and smile up at him. I like watching Will cook; for months, when I was in Alaska, I’d spend hours just hanging out with him while he did his thing. “When you finally get your own place, I’ll return the favor and make you whatever you like.”
“Ah yes.” He grins ruefully as he minces garlic. “When Will finally becomes a big boy and moves out of his Daddy’s place and all.”
“That’ll be the day, right?” And then, sincerely, “I’m glad you two are nearby, though.”
His knife scrapes the garlic into a new pan already heating on the stovetop that meets his exact specifications. “I would have expected you to want us far away by now.”
“Don’t be stupid. I’m always going to want you guys nearby.” I lean over and kiss him on the cheek. “You’re my family. I love you two.”
Even though he jokes about this, I know it pleases him. He loves me, too.
Because I love him so much, I ask carefully, “How are you doing, anyway?”
Delicious smells waft up from the sizzling pan. “Brilliant, thanks.”
Liar. I pass over an onion I’ve recently peeled for him. “Tell me the truth.”
A sharp knife slices through the onion’s skin as he considers our long standing game. Tell me has gotten us through rough times in the past, allowing us both avenues to express ourselves we might otherwise have closed off. I have to wait nearly a full minute before he says, “I’m at a loss right now, if you want to know the truth.”
I get to work on cutting up pieces of chicken as I wait for him to finish.
“History is a complicated thing,” he continues quietly. “It makes us who we are today.”
Agreed.
“History defines much of our actions, good and bad. It also shapes the way we see our world.” His knife flies across the brand spankin’ new cutting board I made just an hour before. “It’s funny how we often look at our past and the actions therein with rose colored glasses, even if we know better.”
He’s talking about Becca, and of the rich and complicated history they share.
“Sometimes, it’s hard to reconcile the present and a possible future you never expected with the past and all the wishes it held.” Tiny bits of onion join the garlic sizzling in olive oil. “Tell me: how did you know Jonah was the one for you?”
It’s a complex question, to be sure, but also deceptively easy. “Our history.” I shove the cut chicken toward him. “And what that meant and still means to me.” His mouth opens, but I continue, “But more than that, my heart told me its truth. It told me that, when I looked to the future, I wanted him by my side.”
“And yet you still love Kellan.” It isn’t a question, though.
“I do,” I admit readily. Gods, how I do. “And there’s history there with him, too. But as wonderful as that history is, it doesn’t lead to the path I want to look back on when I’m old.”
His head tilts to me as he adds the chicken to the pan, along with a dash of Astrid’s wine. “If Jonah weren’t here, though. If it’d just been Kellan ...”
I don’t take offense to his questions. This isn’t about him questioning whether or not I chose the right man to stand by me in my life. “The thing about history,” I tell him, “is that sometimes it’s best to carry it over and continue forth, and other times it’s best to leave it in the past.”
“That’s incredibly unhelpful. You’d make a terrible counselor.”
I playfully swat his arm. Then, more soberly, “You need to decide what makes you happy, Will. Only you can do that.” I nudge his shoulder with mine. “For what it’s worth, I do have an opinion. But that’s all it is—an opinion. Yours is the one that matters.”
He’s quiet for a long moment as he places a lid on the pan. “What about hers?”
“One person’s opinion does not a relationship make. It takes two to tango.”