“Can you cut this?”
I nod and let our silence fill the space between us. A pot sizzles on the stove. My knife snicks against the cutting board. Beckett mutters under his breath about piss poor celery quality.
“For the record,” I offer, in between chops. “You’re being a little weird.”
A smile quirks on his mouth and his eyes cut to mine. It feels like a peace offering, like a step in the right direction.
“For the record, I’m not trying to be.”
We find our rhythm.
Beckett spends his days on the farm and I spend my days in town, wandering in and out of shops, watching tourists get ice cream, helping Ms. Beatrice curate content for her one hundred and thirty seven passionate followers. I disconnect my email and all my social accounts and let myself breathe … for the first time in a long time.
No plan. No schedule.
Just me and whatever strikes my interest for the day, whether it’s helping re-shelve new paperbacks at the bookstore or learning how to clean the espresso machine at the cafe. I hold myself to absolutely no productivity standards. I let myself be.
In the evenings, I find my way back to Beckett’s cabin and wait for him at his kitchen table, an abandoned book of crossword puzzles I’ve claimed as my own at my elbow. He declares what he’s making as soon as he sees me, and silently hands me a cutting board or a mixing bowl or a potato peeler to help. Every day is exactly the same and there’s a comfort in that. In the way his smiles slowly get a touch wider. In the low rumble of his voice over the hiss of the frying pan.
We sit at his table and we eat our meal, and I wash our dishes after.
It’s nice, if not a little confusing.
Tonight, I decide to upset the rhythm.
I’m waiting on the back porch with two steaming bowls, nestled in the chair I’m starting to think of as my own when I hear him pull up in the driveway. The front porch stairs creak, the third one from the top making a sound of protest as he clambers his way up. The door shuts behind him and his steps stutter to an abrupt stop in the hallway.
A hesitant voice. “Evelyn?”
“Out here.”
I listen as he moves around the house, a comfort in the sounds of him settling. Water from the faucet. His jacket on the hook. The back screen creaks open and I tilt my head back.
Standing there like that, fingers curled loose around the neck of a beer bottle, face angled down towards mine—a bit of dirt on his brow and on the back of his hand—he looks like every flicker of a warm thought I’ve had in the past six months.
A soft and steady glow, burning under my skin.
“You made dinner?” He leans over slightly to get a look at my bowl. I nod towards the empty seat next to me and the dish that’s waiting for him on the table in between.
“Mmhmm,” I hum. “One of my mom’s recipes. I hope you like spice.”
His eyes flare into something heated and sharp. A recollection, a shared memory. His mouth below my ear and his big palm at my thigh. I watch as he tucks it away, settling his face into something flat.
He might not be in that tiny shed anymore, but he’s still hiding from me.
“You’re in my seat,” he tells me.
I take a long pull from my jam jar wine glass and hold eye contact. I have no intention of moving. Just like the crossword puzzle book and the extra-soft towel I have hanging in the spare bathroom, I’ve claimed these things as mine. He’ll have to fight me to get them back.
He snorts a laugh and moves around me to collapse in the chair to my left. He lets out a groan as he does, his long body stretching out in a lazy curve, one leg kicked wide. He drops his head against the back of the chair and reaches for his bowl, looking at me with a hazy sort of softness.
“Thanks for this,” he rasps. “It’s nice to come home to dinner.”
“You should feel honored,” I tell him, forking a bite of food in my mouth. “I’ve made this dinner for exactly two other people.”
His eyes narrow. “Who?”
I swallow and reach for my glass. “What do you mean?”
“Who did you make this for?”
“Josie,” I offer slowly. I think for a second. “Josie’s mom.”
He relaxes into his chair and grabs his bowl, poking around at the rice. “Thank you,” he mutters again, barely looking at me.
“It’s no problem.” I keep watching him, at the way his jaw works when he takes a bite. “It’s the least I can do.”
I had offered to pay him rent on my fifth night here. Beckett had given me a look so affronted I didn’t bother bringing it up again.
We eat in silence and I let myself wonder if this is what he does every night after a long day in the fields. Sunsets on the back porch in his socks. His flannel sleeves rolled up and a beer at his elbow. I have the sudden, confusing urge to smooth his hair back from his forehead. Get up from this chair and go to his, slide onto his lap and tuck my head under his chin.
That was the problem, I think, in that little room in Maine. It was way too easy to imagine being with Beck. To want for more.
I clear my throat and decide to tackle the reason for this little meal. “I don’t know for sure how long I plan to stay.”
He looks up at me, eyebrows raised. “Okay.”
“Probably a couple of weeks, I think.” That should be enough time for me to get my head on straight. If it’s not—well. I’ll cross that bridge when I get to it.
He rolls his head back to look out over the trees. “That’s fine.”
“You sure you don’t mind?”
He shakes his head, fingers flexing on his fork. “Not if you keep making chicken like this.”
I hesitate before my next question. I feel like an idiot for asking, but I don’t want any surprises. It’s something I should have asked sooner, honestly. “There isn’t anyone that would be upset about me staying here?”
He turns to look at me again. “Who would be upset about it? Stella and Layla obviously know you’re here.” He spears another piece of chicken. “Didn’t tell them why though.”
That’s good, because I don’t even know the answer to that. I only know that it feels good to sit on this comfy chair on his back porch with my knees tucked to my chest. “I’m asking if you’re seeing anyone, Beckett. And if this will complicate things for you.”
“Oh.” A brush of color dances over his cheeks, the same exact shade as the sun melting into the horizon. “No.”
No. That’s it. That’s all he says. He tips his beer to his mouth and swallows heavily. One, two, three gulps in a row.
“What’s your plan for tomorrow?”
Alright, then.
“I don’t have one,” I answer honestly. I stretch out my legs and flex my feet back and forth. Back and forth. I squint my eye and touch my toe to the very top of the greenhouse. “I thought it was pretty apparent I don’t have any sort of plan.”