╰ ᶜᵒᶰᵗᵃᶜᵗ → ᵍʳᵃᵈʸ, ᵒʷᵉᶰ⋅ ╮
ENDURING FAMILY can feel like pulling teeth. Owen empathizes. But this? This is more like kicking his teeth in with his own feet. Claire Dearing’s voice pitched high and panicked through his flip phone’s receiver, needs a cook, needs him. And he wants her to. Likes knowing she does. Need him.
They fucked; after a bad blind date and a handful of tequilas, lacquered nails carving into the slope of his back and their hips rutting and bruising and heated. So what? And then she tells him it never happened, he should act like it never happened. Didn’t want a second date. So what?
He’s bitter. More than that, even. It doesn’t matter. Owen still arrives at her doorstep less than thirty minutes later, regardless, because he’s stupid. She makes him stupid. Her kitchen’s big, sleek, and it’s convenient that she has the groceries spread out over the marble island, waiting for him. Six hours later, the table is set, presents Provencal potato gratin, stuffed turkey, creamed cornbread, cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes, melt-in-your-mouth roast beef.
Claire’s mother eyes him as soon as she steps through the door, doesn’t stop looking even as she’s pushing a bottle of chateau wine into Claire’s hands. The look of a soldier, she says. He pretends he doesn’t know what she means, feigns a certain kind of self-assured humility. Owen is quiet, for the most part, except for introductions. The nephews are nice—- the youngest one asks him a lot of questions. He’s watching them from the kitchen as he makes dessert, his mouth twitching. If he’s smiling, he doesn’t realize it.
A glimpse of red hair teases his vision’s peripherals. Owen blinks, glances at Claire as she approaches him, and he wants to say, everything okay? Because her face is flushed. Her eyes seem bluer over the deep, mottled pink skin of her cheeks. She doesn’t give him the chance to ask—- and something slows, makes the words hard to process. Incredulity. His jaw goes slack.
“Claire—” He starts, suddenly inarticulate, suddenly flustered. His eyes drop to the glass of wine in her hand, nearly empty. “Are you— okay, how about you give me that sifter?”
HAD SHE BEEN COHERENT, perhaps she would have taken the opportunity to bask in a surprised owen. that she had been the cause would have been that much more delicious. instead, there’s glittering eyes and warmed cheeks and loose lips. loose lips, indeed. mortification is three glasses earlier. now, claire flirts. claire flirts poorly.
“ mr. grady. ” she sings his name, open voweled and terribly flat ( “ don’t quit your day job, ” teases a seventeen-year-old karen on a haphazardly planned road trip to the beach. claire leaves caroline to neil diamond. ). “ you don’t think i can hold my drink? ” ironic, as she sloshes contents of glass over the rim when she sets it down between them. she tells herself she releases it because she wants to, not because he asked.
there’s a bowl on the counter full of something orange. pumpkin puree. claire reaches, index finger extended, to scoop a dollop. transfers it to pretty pink lips, sucks it clean audibly with eyes keen on the chef. keeps finger caught on the sticky lip gloss at her bottom lip as she smiles. “ tastes good. i like your cooking. like you here, too. ”
she looks at him like dinner, something far better than turkey or cranberry sauce or potatoes. far better than dessert. there’s too much space between them, she decides, and she rounds the kitchen island to stand beside him, drops her gaze to his hands so that she can watch him work. “ did i tell you thank you? ” her voice is softer now, truly, a touch of shy.
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