Sitting on his counter in his kitchen after having sex with him four times in eleven hours, it occurred to me very belatedly I didn’t know a thing about him but his name, he drove a truck, he lived in a house with a water wheel in the middle of some woods and he was an exceptional lover.
Uncomfortably, I sipped my coffee, casting my mind frantically out for a conversational gambit that might actually work.
In the midst of failing at that, he answered, “Three years.”
I looked to him not because he answered but because it sounded torn from him.
“It’s a great place, Johnny,” I said quietly.
“Been in the family generations,” he shared, cracking eggs into the bowl. “Dad kept it up so folks who came to visit us had their own space. Wasn’t like this though. When I moved in, cleaned it up, fixed it up, updated some shit. Now it’s home.”
“It’s very attractive,” I told him. “And peaceful.”
“Yeah,” he agreed.
“The water wheel is cool,” I remarked.
“Yeah,” he repeated.
“Is it still being used for something?” I asked.
“Place was a gristmill. Now it’s not,” he answered in a way that was that and there would be no more.
Time to try something else.
“You don’t have pets,” I noted.
“Nope.”
And that was that too.
He turned the bacon. Got out another skillet. Put it on a burner. Walked to the double door pantry at the edge of the kitchen and got out a loaf of bread.
He brought that to me and set it by my thigh on the opposite side of the counter from his mug. He pulled a toaster from the wall.
“You wanna be in charge of toast?” he asked, his gaze finally coming back to me.
I nodded. “I think I can manage that.”
His head tilted to the side. “You know how to cook?”
“I was a latchkey kid. My mom worked and I was the oldest. So yeah, I know how to cook.” I smiled at him. “And I definitely can make toast.”
His impassive face softened before he reached up beside me and pulled down a plate.
He gave me a knife and the butter.
I grabbed the bread.
“How many pieces do you want?” I asked.
“Two,” he answered.
He reached across me to grab the butter, shoved a huge pat of it in the empty skillet, then reached back across me to replace the butter.
I slid the lever down on the first two slices of toast just as a cell phone rang from somewhere in the vicinity of his bed.
“That’s my tone,” I said.
“Mine too.”
Another sliver of information about Johnny, he had an iPhone.
He moved into the room and I watched him toss his jeans aside and come back with my purse, which was ringing.
He handed it to me.
I dug out my phone.
He took the purse from me and set it on the island as I took the call and he went back to the stove.
The call was from Deanna.
“Hey there,” I answered.
“Where are you?” she replied.
“I’m, well . . . still with, uh . . . Johnny,” I stammered.
“Okay, then, just so you know, went by your place and took care of your menagerie. All fed and watered, including Serengeti and Amaretto.”
Serengeti and Amaretto, my palomino and bay horses, respectively.
“I’m still here,” she went on. “Letting the dogs have a good roam. I’ll bring them back in before I go, but could you call me when you get home?”
I suspected, since this was not my done thing, and she’d lived through my last nightmare with me (and others besides), she just wanted to make sure I was not only okay right then, but that I got home okay.
“Sure,” I replied. “And thanks.”
“Not a problem, babe. Later,” she said then rung off, which I found a little odd.
I mean, she knew I was there with Johnny so she couldn’t have a girlie gab at that particular moment about my hookup, but she seemed matter of fact to the point of being blunt.
Maybe it was a problem I asked her on a Sunday morning to go look after my babies.
I made a mental note to bring over some treats as a show of gratitude some time that week and definitely call her when I got home as I brought the phone down and saw the notifications had come up after the call.
Three texts from Deanna that came in unnoticed sometime during the activities last night (or this morning).
Call me.
Babe, call me.
As soon as you can, call me.
Oh God, maybe she really couldn’t look after my babies but had to because she hadn’t heard from me.
I engaged my texts, typed in, I’m so sorry. I didn’t get your texts. If it was an inconvenience to look after my zoo, I apologize. I got caught up in things. It means the world you took care of them anyway, I can’t thank you enough and I’ll totally make it up to you.
I sent the text with a whoosh and Johnny asked, “All cool?”
“I think so,” I answered uncertainly.
“What’s the thinking part of that?” he queried.
“I don’t know, but it might be that Deanna had something on and I didn’t get her texts after I’d texted last night so she went over, but still, it seems like something’s up.”
My phone binged and I immediately looked down to see Deanna’s response of, No, no, it’s cool. Totes cool. All good. No worries. Just call me when you get home. No biggie. Just want to chat.
I relaxed.
“Okay?” Johnny asked.
I looked at him and nodded. “Read it wrong. She’s cool.”
“Good,” he muttered, turning his attention to pouring the eggs in the skillet.
The toast popped up.
Johnny finished up the eggs and bacon and I finished up the toast. He served up and I hopped off the counter to toss my phone in my bag and warm up our coffee. He took the plates to a small, round dining room table with highly polished wood that radiated out beautifully from a center circle and space-age angled legs that had four scoop-backed chairs around it.
My mind screamed when he didn’t get a placemat before he put the plates down on that wood but I kept my mouth shut. I brought the mugs over. He returned to the kitchen and came back with the toast, a bottle of ketchup and a jar of grape jelly.
“Sit,” he ordered, putting all that on the table and going back to the kitchen.
He’d set the plates on the curve next to each other and he’d dished up equally, so I just picked a seat and sat.
“No, Iz, other plate,” he said, coming back with cutlery.
“Sorry,” I muttered self-consciously, shifting to the other chair.
“Better view, baby,” Johnny murmured close to my ear as he set a fork and knife next to my white plate.
I looked from the flatware to the room to see I was positioned facing it, and the windows, so he was right.
It was a better view.
I felt my chest warm as he took his seat.
Johnny grabbed the ketchup and squirted it all over his eggs.
I picked up my fork and stuck in.
I ate, alternately looking to my plate to get food and chewing it while staring out at the lush leaves dappled in sunlight beyond his wall of windows.
“Quiet,” he remarked suddenly and softly.
I looked to Johnny.
“Sorry?”
“You’re being quiet,” he noted.
“These are good eggs,” I told him.
His lips hitched. “Eggs are eggs, babe.”
I nodded, though they were actually good. Fluffy and light and well-seasoned.
Then I said, “Thanks for letting me have the chair with the view.”