The timer buzzes, and I hustle over to the kitchen, grab an oven mitt, and slide out the grand gooey goodness. Cheese bubbles expand and pop. The crust is a perfect gold. Feckin’ deadly. I place it on the counter and start cutting up the slices.
I glance over my shoulder. Sure enough, she’s set two plates—two paper towel napkins are folded and tucked under the rims, with forks and knives on top. She’s poured the cola-flavored fizzy drink we purchased into tall glasses. I frown—the formality of the table setting doesn’t fit with the tough girl, captain of the camogie team, I’ve always seen.
“You didn’t have to be doing that up. I’d have been perfectly happy to eat sitting on the couch.” I don’t say that I normally eat standing up in the kitchen.
She glances up. “I like to make meals an event. Doing this helps me savor it, be conscious of it instead of rushing through it unnoticed.”
Huh. Okay. “Grab your plate then and be savoring this, yeah.” I shove the oven mitt back on and hold up the pizza.
She picks up both plates and brings them over, and we load up. She sets her plate down at her spot. “Is it okay if I turn off the TV?”
I shrug. “Sure. Why not?”
She walks over and turns off the telly and settles herself, placing her napkin on her lap with some care.
Now I’m watching in fascination. I mean, I’ve seen people eat before this. But she’s treating it as if this is some grand do, even though it’s just heated-up frozen pizza. She probably was doing the same thing at breakfast, and I wasn’t noticing.
She cuts the tip off a slice, purses her lips, and blows on it.
Fuck if my lad doesn’t pop my zipper just then.
She takes a bite, the cheese stretching across to the rest of her slice, and closes her eyes. She looks…she looks happy. And then she moans. Now I’m after being seriously chubbed up.
“Mmm, so good,” she murmurs.
I look at my slices, which I haven’t even touched yet. I bring my plate to the other place setting and pick up a slice, biting into it. It’s better than your average frozen pizza, but it’s still fucking frozen pizza. So I chew a little more thoroughly and try to taste what she’s tasting.
By my third bite, I’m picking out more flavors that I’d normally miss—a hint of some spice, the deep tones of the tomato sauce. Damn, this pizza’s deadly.
We eat in silence, but it’s not awkward. She picks up her second slice and asks, “Is there anything I can do to help you prep for your presentation?”
I stare at her in surprise. “Yeah, thanks, got it done, not that I don’t appreciate the offer.”
“Do you want to practice it in front of me?”
For some reason, the thought’s making me squirm. I’ve already shared more about my past with her than normal, and this feels like even more, though it’s just a dry presentation.
Maybe because it’ll be solidifying that I’ve not much going on in my life for this presentation to be taking up so much space in it. Like a bleeding placard I’m waving, yeah, that says, “Tech nerd: nothing interesting here. Move along.”
A memory surfaces of Brianna at the pub back home. I’d known her all my life, and we’d been dating seriously for several years. Everyone assumed I’d be marrying her. I think I did too.
It was like any other night we spent at the local, but that night she told me she was giving up on me. That made a right bags of it. I panicked and said we could get married, and she rolled her eyes.
“You’re beyond understanding,” she said.
“Why don’t ya tell me?”
She waved a hand at me, as if searching for words. “You’re just…empty. You’ve got no weight to you.”
“Weight?”
“Yeah, you’re sitting there like a lump, but you’re not taking up space here, yeah.” And she tapped her fucking heart. “There’s not a lot to ya, Conor.”
I sat back in my seat, feeling like the lump she’s describing.
“I need more, Conor, and you don’t have it in ya to be giving it.”
And all I could think as I stared at her was, Brianna was knowing me our whole fucking lives, and she felt like I was lacking?
The electricity blinking out brings me back to the present.
“Shit,” we both say.
Chapter 7
Conor
With the electricity out, we’re washing up old school, and Claire’s manning the drying towel. We don’t have loads, so we make quick work of it. Though it’s bucketing outside, we’ve light enough to see with the drapes open.
Ever since our supermarket trip, I’ve been hyperconscious of her—where she is, how close she is to me, things like that. Right now her hip is hovering close to me, and I’ve an insane urge to put this last plate down, reach my hand around her, and tug her body flush to mine. I’m even getting a fine whiff of her scent—clean, feminine, with a citrusy tone, but that last is probably hanging about me too since it’s the hotel’s shampoo.
All of which adds up to something I never thought would happen—chubby up time doing the washing up. Jaysus. “What is it you might be wanting to do now?” I ask as I carefully hand her that last plate.
“You could give me your presentation.” She bumps her hip against mine.
The residue lingering on my skin and on my mind of reliving that moment when my ex-girlfriend and lifelong friend dumped me hangs about. There’s a good chance I’ll get to know Claire better, and she’ll find me lacking too.
Bloody hell. What’s it matter if she’s discovering I’m a tech nerd and that’s about all there is to me? Better for her to be knowing now.
“I’ll take a chance on it. Don’t be forgetting you asked to hear me present.”
“Awesome.” Her excitement pushes against me, transforming my anxiety into dread. The presentation can’t possibly live up to that.
But like a criminal walking to his execution, I make the steps, slow and dragging, to my laptop and turn it on. She settles herself on the couch, and I sit on the overgrown footstool so she can see the slides on the small screen.
Conor
Finishing the presentation, I stand abruptly, flipping the cover down on my laptop to hide it. A nervous energy is skittering through me, making me want to put some distance between myself and Claire. As if by moving away, I’ll dilute the effect of that dry shite presentation.
Unlike how I thought it’d go, she listened intently. And at the end, she gave up some good tips to try. Some of it on the visuals, some of it on my body language and how I was projecting myself. And not once did she give the idea that she was wanting to be elsewhere. The crackling tension between us is still there as well, so that didn’t up and disappear as a result.
“So what do you want to be doing now?” I ask as I make myself busy over by the dining table.
Claire reaches over the far end of the couch, which gives me a perfect view of her toned arse underneath her workout shorts. She has no idea what she’s doing or how that looks to me.
I’ll not be enlightening her.
She’s practically draping herself over the couch arm, fine as a cat, her elbows moving. We put a basket there of things to keep us entertained in case the lights went out.
She rises, her face tomato red from being upside down for a few minutes. She holds up the pack of playing cards. “Spit?”