He glances at me. “You hungry? I’ve got some leftover shawarma, and half a pizza.” He opens a drawer in the island at the center of the kitchen and withdraws a stack of carryout menus. “Or I could get some takeout. Up to you.”
“What’s shawarma?” I ask.
“Middle Eastern food. Garlic sauce, chicken, rice. It’s amazing.”
I hate to admit that my diet has always been somewhat . . . limited. “Either is fine.” Mostly because I’ve never had either, and I don’t want Logan to leave, and I don’t want to have to leave this house again any time soon.
He lifts an eyebrow. “How about I heat up both, and you can try them and pick. I’ll take whichever you don’t want.”
He rummages in the refrigerator and comes out with a plastic container and a big white square cardboard box. Dumping the contents of the container onto a paper plate, he puts it in the microwave and warms it up, and then transfers the contents of the larger box onto another plate. As the shawarma heats up, the smell begins to permeate the kitchen, and my stomach rumbles. I don’t remember the last time I ate, and suddenly I’m ravenous. The microwave beeps, and he slides the plate to me across the island, setting a fork on it as he does so.
“Give that a try,” he says, and sets the pizza to heating.
The shawarma is possibly the most delicious thing I’ve ever eaten. Spicy, flavorful, tangy, garlicky. I moan as I take the first bite, and then the second. And then the third.
“So you like shawarma,” Logan says, grinning. He pulls a piece of the pizza off the plate and carefully hands it to me, a string of cheese stretching between us.
The pizza is also delicious.
“I’m not sure I can choose,” I admit. “They’re both so good.”
There’s a stool under an overhanging part of the island, and I pull it out and sit down. Logan takes the stool beside me, setting down two sweating green glass bottles with white labels near the top.
“So we’ll share,” he says, and steals the fork out of my hands to take a bite of the shawarma. I watch him eat, because he’s gorgeous even doing that.
“What’s in the bottles?” I ask, eager to try something else new.
“Beer. Stella Artois, to be exact. Try it.” He hands me one of the bottles, and I gingerly try the first sip.
I’m not convinced at first. It’s bitter, and a little sour. But there’s an aftertaste that hits my taste buds in a pleasant way, and I try a second, longer sip, which goes down easier. Before I know it, I’ve drunk almost half of the bottle, and my head is feeling a little loose and a little fuzzy.
Logan laughs. “Whoa, okay. I guess you like Stella. But then, how can you not?” He gestures at the pizza. “Try the pizza, and wash it down with the beer. You’ll never look at cuisine the same way, I promise.”
“I already don’t,” I say. “I’ve always been on an all-organic, super healthy diet.”
“Vegan?”
“What’s that?”
“No meat, no animal products of any kind. Like eggs, milk, cheese, if it came from an animal, vegans don’t consume it.”
“Why?” I ask. “That’s kind of weird.”
“Protesting animal cruelty in the food industry. I don’t know. Good for them if that’s what they believe, but I like meat.”
“Me too. So no, I eat meat, just usually salmon and free-range chicken and turkey, along with salads and fruit. Mostly vegetarian, I suppose. Not a lot of red meat.”
“I’d go easy on the pizza then. If your body is used to cleaner foods, the grease in that might sit heavy in your stomach.”
This is so weird. Bizarre. Surreal. Just sitting in Logan’s kitchen, drinking beer and eating normal food.
I have a normal name.
I’m not Madame X anymore.
I’m not with Caleb anymore.
My heart twists at that last thought, and I shut that line of thought down. I will not go there, not now.
Except Logan speaks up, casually, not looking at me, through a bite of shawarma. “What happened, Isabel? With Caleb? What made you leave, finally?”
I sigh. “He—we . . .”
Logan interrupts before I can work out what I’m going to say. “I don’t want to pry, and I’ll respect your privacy if you don’t want to talk about it. But it seemed to have messed you up.”
I finish a slice of pizza and wash it down with a swallow of the beer. And Logan is right, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to eat my normal fare again without thinking of this meal. Indulgent, unhealthy in the extreme, but so, so good. I take a bite of shawarma, trying to formulate what to say.
“He brought me back to his place. The penthouse? It’s the entire upper floor of the building. Anyway, he brought me up there, and at first it was . . . fine. But not normal. He kissed me, which he doesn’t usually do. That was a little strange. And then . . .” I sigh again, closing my eyes. Just say it. Just put it into words. “But then he pushed me down to my knees. He put . . . himself—into my mouth.” It’s so hard to say it out loud. Why? It feels as if saying it makes it more real. More than real. “At the end, he finished on—on my face. And then cleaned me up with his tie, kissed me as if nothing had happened, and just . . . left.”