“No fucking way! Well, I guess your dad was a pretty big guy.”
“Yeah, he was almost six-five and weighed nearly two-eighty when he was fighting.” My dad was a beast. He dominated his weight class in two different boxing leagues and probably would have kept going if the aneurysm hadn’t killed him. It came out of nowhere. One minute, he was pummeling his opponent in the ring, and the next, he just stopped and dropped to the mat. He never got up again.
“What can I help with?” she asks as she watches me move around the kitchen, getting the things I need.
“In the bottom drawer of the fridge is stuff for a salad. You want to pull it out and make it?”
“Of course.” With an adorable little skip, she moves to the fridge and bends down to slide out the crisper drawer, her already-short dress riding up until I almost glimpse the sweet dip of her ass cheeks.
Damn! This woman has a body that won’t fucking quit. Down, boy!
I return my attention to the sauce that has been simmering on the stove for several hours and give it a stir. She sets something down behind me on the counter and then, in my peripheral vision, I see her grab a knife from the butcher block. Anticipating her next question, I turn around and reach into one of the cabinets below the island, pulling out a cutting board and setting it on the counter in front of her.
She grins at me, and I see some of the tension and unease leave her body. My heart thuds irregularly in my chest, and I have to turn back to the stove and unnecessarily stir the sauce again so she doesn’t see how much she affects me.
“What are you making?” she asks as she begins chopping the salad ingredients.
“Chicken parm. I hope you like it.”
“Oh, I love chicken parm. It’s one of my go-to orders whenever I go out for Italian.”
“Well, I hope mine stands up.” I pull the glass baking dish that contains the already breaded and pan-fried chicken breasts from the fridge and set it on the counter next to the stove. I can feel her eyes on me, following me as I move around the kitchen. She isn’t saying much, and that worries me.
What’s she thinking? Does she want to leave and is just too polite to tell me? Should I push her into talking to me about what she’s feeling about all this?
I top the chicken with sauce and cheese and slide it into the oven before turning back to see how Danika is doing on the salad.
“How’s it coming?”
She drops sliced tomatoes into the large wooden bowl and smiles at me. “Done.”
“Good, let’s open a bottle of wine while we wait for it to finish cooking.”
“Okay.”
By the time the food is ready and we’re at the table, we’ve almost finished a bottle. I’m not a big drinker. I enjoy a whiskey, or beer, or glass of wine, but tonight, just like at Angelo’s, drinking seems to ease some of the tension between us. Tension I caused.
Shit. I have some serious making up to do.
She picks at her food, complimenting me on how good it is but barely eating anything. Her eyes flicker over to me every couple of minutes but she doesn’t say much, and I can sense her unease returning.
It’s only natural but it’s so different from the last time we had dinner. It saddens me to know I caused this. I’m the only one to blame for her discomfort and confusion, and I wish I could kick myself for not just telling her from the beginning. I might have saved both of us some heartache, and from having a really uncomfortable dinner tonight.
An awkward silence settles over the table and she fidgets with her napkin and glass, avoiding eye contact again.
She’s thinking. She’s making her list of questions. She’s too afraid or embarrassed to ask.
“Why don’t you take another bottle of wine and the glasses out onto the deck, and I will clean up and then join you?”
Her eyes flicker up to mine and the corners of her mouth turn up into a half-hearted, fake smile.
Shit. She is really uncomfortable. What the hell did you expect, dropping it on her like this?
She slides her chair back from the table and approaches me slowly. Stopping in front of me, she pauses as she reaches for my wine glass. “Are you sure you don’t need any help cleaning up?”
“Nope, I got it.” I give her a reassuring smile and hope it helps her relax, but she grabs my glass and the bottle of wine quickly and disappears toward the living room without even glancing back.
Double shit.