Nuts

I watched him twirl a forkful, lifting it to his mouth. He chewed, once, twice, a third time before his eyes closed in bliss. That was The Look—the look that every chef craves. What I’d made, crafted with my own two hands, was bringing him pleasure. The rumble from deep in his throat, which I’d heard only an hour before when my tongue did something he really liked, matched the look on his face. He liked my linguine.

I sat down in my chair, already satisfied, and I hadn’t even tasted it yet. To be fair, I’d been satisfied more times than I could count already this evening. The aglio olio? Was just icing on this very sexy cake.

We ate in silence, no sounds but the clinking of forks and slurping of noodles. My mother always used to say the test of a good meal is how quiet the guests are: if they’re quiet, they’re enjoying. I’d found that to be true time and time again. Leo sighed through a mouthful here and there, smiled if I caught his eye, but otherwise just ate. It was nice, sitting in a darkened kitchen with him, my knee brushing his occasionally. His foot tapping mine. In the middle of the night, in the middle of the kitchen, sharing a quiet meal was as intimate as what we’d shared one floor above.

Twirling one last bite around his fork, he stared mournfully at it. “There was a chef in the city who used to cater a bunch of my parents’ parties; he used to make something just like this.” He studied the fork. “Not exactly the same, I don’t remember any green in it.” He ate the last bite and moaned out loud. “Fucking hell, that’s good. His was good, but this is better. His had a slightly different taste, almost, I don’t know, a little nutty? Does that make sense?”

“It probably had anchovies in it,” I said, sucking down my last noodle.

He made a face. “Nah, I don’t like anchovies.”

“No one thinks they like anchovies, but you’ve probably eaten them more times than you think. I put them in pasta dishes all the time.” He didn’t look convinced, so I continued, “The trick is to put them in the pan early, right before the garlic. They’re so tiny and thin, they dissolve right into the hot oil. That’s the nuttiness you were talking about.”

Still looking a bit disturbed, he poked at the little bit of garlic left on the plate. Checking to see if it was a tiny fish perhaps? “Anyway, yeah, the chef. He’d come over, make some super fancy stuff for the guests, but once things were under way he’d make a pan of pasta just for me. Sometimes he’d throw in something extra, if there was lobster or crab, something like that. But good god damn, it was incredible.” He smiled a little at the memory.

“Did they have a lot of parties?” I asked, thinking about what a party at the Maxwells’ must have been like.

“All the time,” he said, his expression changing a bit as he moved away from the pasta memory and onto something else. “There were always people in town on business, or families who were on holiday, deals to be brokered—some kind of bullshit. My family hardly ever ate dinner together. They were either out with friends, or we had friends over, but just our family? By ourselves? Not often. A lot of nights, it was just me and my sister, Lauren. And Angela.”

“Another sister?”

“Nanny. Gabriela was there in the morning, but Angela was there afternoons and evenings.” He smiled as he said it, but there it was again, that fleeting sadness. Maybe there was something to the “poor little rich boy” cliché.

“Where’s your sister now?” I asked.

“She’s still in the city, works with my dad. She heads up our international division. I don’t see her much.” He looked lost in thought.

“When we had parties at my house we made ice cream out back with a hand crank, and whoever my mother was dating grilled hot dogs or sausages. Someone brought potato salad, we’d bring coleslaw from the diner, and the adults would play horseshoes until everything was ready to eat. It was all sticky fingers and mosquito bites and half-burned hot dogs and enough Kool-Aid spilled to bring every ant east of the Hudson into our backyard.”

“Sounds fantastic,” Leo replied.

I thought back to those lazy days. The sun baking down and everything as bright as a crayon box, and the entire world boiled down to a skinned knee or a stubbed toe. And I realized something all of a sudden. “You know what, it kind of was.” My gaze traveled around the well-worn kitchen: the scratched linoleum, the little bit of peeling paint, the height chart that was still on the doorframe from when I grew up. I slid my foot across the floor under the table and covered his foot with mine.

We sat in silence again, this one a little different, heavier. We each seemed lost in our own memories. He, perhaps thinking of a childhood filled with nannies and fancy. Me, thinking of a childhood filled with nothing fancy and full of love, not knowing how rich my life had been.

Now my world boiled down to a warm foot tucked under mine. And when he rose and pulled me into his arms, then led me back upstairs to my creaky twin bed, I didn’t even think about giving him my standard speech about my insomnia and not being able to sleep with someone else in my bed. I just let him tuck around me and spoon.

And color me the most surprised when I slept five whole hours that night.

Chapter 14

Five whole hours was luxurious. Equally luxurious was the way those hours ended. Soft lips tracing a path across my shoulder, a deliciously callused hand pulling me back against a warm chest, and then—oh!—as Leo thrust into me from behind.