I snort. “Yes.”
He walks over, a hand under his chin, then nods gravely. “What was it supposed to be?”
“An empadão de frango. It’s basically a Brazilian potpie. The crust should be buttery and flaky. The chicken and vegetables inside should be moist and perfectly seasoned. Instead, we have this monstrosity.”
“Is there any point in keeping it?” he asks.
“Only as a reminder that I’ll never be able to re-create the dishes my mother makes. Otherwise, no.” I blow out a harsh breath, holding back the tears that always threaten to fall whenever I get even a tiny bit emotional. “I can’t even bake a fucking pie.”
Max raises a brow. “Hey, hey. Watch an hour of Nailed It! and you’ll see you’re not alone. It’s just a pie.”
I plop onto a stool by the island. “It’s not just a pie, Max. I wanted to make a special dinner. Share something from my culture. That didn’t go well, obviously. I don’t know how I’m supposed to pass on family traditions if I can’t follow a basic recipe.”
He takes the stool next to me and folds his hands on the counter. “Is it your mother’s?”
I jerk my head up. “What?”
“The recipe,” he says. “Is it your mother’s?”
“God, no. She doesn’t write anything down. Says the best way to learn is to watch and assist. I don’t understand how it comes so easily to her. I ask how much I should add of something—flour, tomatoes, garlic, whatever—and she says, ‘a little bit of this, a little bit of that.’” I turn to him. “Max, my mother doesn’t even own measuring cups.”
Most people might laugh off that fact, but in times like these I want my mother’s recipe in printed form and I want things like a quarter cup of oil—not eh, about this much, filha—to be reflected in it.
“Maybe you could try forcing her to do it your way. You know, show up one day with measuring cups and spoons and a notepad. When she says, ‘a little bit of this,’ you say, ‘show me using the cup.’ Then write every step down so you can work on it here.”
I tilt my head in his direction, envisioning how that would work. “You know, that’s not a bad idea. And maybe I could record her making a dish. Might be nice just to have it for posterity’s sake.” I briefly close my eyes, upset with myself for revealing how even the smallest things set me off. Max must be regretting this dinner as we speak. I wave my hands as though I can erase the last few minutes in one motion. “Anyway, enough about that. You didn’t come here to listen to me talk about this stuff.”
He turns his body sideways, placing his feet on the bottom rung of my stool, and then he gently turns my chin in his direction. I swivel my body to face him.
“I came here to spend time with you,” he says, “and if that means we talk about something that’s bothering you, then I don’t have a problem with that. Keeping it casual doesn’t mean I won’t care about you as a person. That would be impossible. And I suspect it would be impossible for you, too. I mean, I get the sense you don’t share what’s bugging you with just anyone.” He caresses the sides of my face and presses a kiss to my forehead. “So thank you for letting me be more than just anyone.”
Is it possible for your heart to expand in your chest? I don’t know enough about anatomy to say for sure. But it feels like my heart’s making room for Max to come inside even though I don’t want him there. Well, heart, we certainly can’t have any of that. Obviously we both need to be reminded why we’re here.
I take his hands in mine, lean forward, and kiss his neck, burying my nose in his skin and breathing him in deep. He smells like a mix of earth and citrus, as though an orange fell from a tree and someone plucked it up from the rich soil and packaged it on the spot. “The salad will keep, and the carrots can be reheated. Care to skip to the main attraction? I wore a skirt for the occasion.”
His eyes darken as he considers my invitation. “Dinner wasn’t the main attraction?”
Dinner can’t be the main attraction. That’s not what flings do. Rather than answer his question, I rise from the stool and tug on his hands. “Come with me.”
Max stands reluctantly, his gaze returning to the ruined pie on the stove. He opens his mouth, closes it, then opens it again. Whatever he was going to say is now tucked away, hidden behind the wicked curve of his lips. “You mean that literally, don’t you?”
I nod as I lead him to my bedroom. “I absolutely do.”
When we cross the threshold, Max says, “More throw pillows and candles, I see,” and he gets a slap on the ass for that one.
He turns to me and puts up a hand. “Listen, I know you’ve been dying to touch my ass, but you don’t need to pretend you’re doing it to punish me for making a valid observation about the state of your room.”
My gaze narrows on him. “I really hurt you when I mentioned Crate & Barrel, huh?”
He throws his hands over his chest and lifts his chin. “Maybe. It’s just that it’s where my mother shops, and I’ve always regarded her style as . . . nothing like mine.”
“Aww, I didn’t mean to make you self-conscious about it. Forget I said anything.” Without fanfare, I pull my short-sleeved top over my head and toss it behind me. “Will this help with the memory loss?”
I’m standing before him in a highly impractical powder-blue bra. The demi cups are good for absolutely nothing other than making my breasts look like they’re being presented on a platter. I call it my cosmetic harness, a scrap of material made solely to, one, enhance my cleavage, and two, be removed.
Max raises two fingers to his lips and takes a slow breath. “Who are you? Where am I? What year is it?”
I settle my hands on his chest and step forward, forcing him to retreat until the backs of his knees hit the bed and he drops onto it. I’m on him with the speed and dexterity of an Olympic athlete. Meanwhile, he fusses with the front clasp of my bra as though he’s performing the “Itsy Bitsy Spider.”
“Need help, partner?” I ask him.
He grits his teeth. “This is like picking a lock. Do you have a safety pin or something? Credit card, maybe?”
I slap his hand away. “Let me. Watch and learn. See, you need to flip the clasp outward and pull up.”
His mouth drops open. “Genius.”
I love that we’re comfortable together. I love that I don’t have to guess what he’s thinking. We just fit. There’s no artifice between us. We’re just two people enjoying each other—in bed and out.
He raises his hands. “May I?”
I nod and he slips his hands under the bra straps and slides it off.
“And these are beautiful,” he says.
“Go ahead. Touch them. You know you want to.”
He cups my breasts, the tips of his fingers ghosting over my skin as he fondles me. He looks up, observing my reaction. But my face can only tell part of the story. I’m shamelessly undulating on his thigh, unable to remain still. And I want to speed things up because I know what awaits me near the finish line. When his thumbs brush against my nipples, I fall forward, rocking into him.