Last night he arrived home just as I was stepping out of the bathroom wearing only my towel. We ended up doing an awkward dance in the narrow hallway, each of us stepping aside to let the other pass at the same moment, thereby prolonging the impasse.
Meanwhile, his eyes roved my bare chest. All my blood rushed south as I remembered the rush of his skin against mine, and the vibration of his moans against my tongue. Back in the safety of my room, I had to read the political headlines for ten minutes to get my dick under control.
But I don’t regret my newfound self-discipline, because my life is on the upswing. My reputation at the bakery is on the mend. Zara is finally starting to trust me again. Those cheddar biscuits are a permanent fixture on the menu, too.
What’s more, I’ve used my screw-up—when I was late on that fateful day—as an opportunity to rethink the way we prepare each morning’s offerings.
“Hey guys, can I show you a couple of ideas?” I ask after work one day, when Audrey and Zara are both present. “I think we should create a three-day plan for yeasted breads. On Monday afternoon, we’ll stir together Thursday’s dough and put it into cold fermentation. And Tuesday we make Friday’s, and so on. If I’m careful, there’ll be enough refrigerator space.”
“What’s the benefit?” Zara asks.
“Two things—better flavor development and a shorter turnaround time in the morning.”
“You think we should come in later?” Audrey asks, tilting her pretty face toward mine. “I could get behind that.”
“Not really,” I say hastily. This isn’t a plan to let me sleep in. “I just think we’ll have an easier time of it in the morning. We’d be shifting some of the work to later in the day, when we’re often standing around. Like we are right now. We can also freeze a couple of batches of biscuit dough for unexpected traffic during the morning.”
“I like it,” Zara says, cracking her gum. “This is good work, Roddy. This is the kind of thoughtfulness I’d hoped we’d get by hiring a full-timer.”
“Thank you,” I stammer. Honestly, it’s not rocket science, and I didn’t invent cold fermentation. But I sure don’t mind hearing praise. It makes my situation feel less precarious.
The next Thursday afternoon I wake up from a nap to discover that the house smells amazing. I can hear Kieran whistling in the kitchen. I wander in, yawning, to find that he’s roasted a chicken all on his own, with the compound butter that I taught him to make. And he’s made a pot of rice in the rice cooker I found at a yard sale for eight dollars.
“Damn, look at you go!” I enthuse, rubbing my hands together.
“There’s enough for two, so long as you tell me when our next cooking lesson might be.” He hands me a plate of food.
“Soon,” I stall. “I need to find you another go-to main dish. A pork roast maybe.”
“Sounds good.” He licks the chicken fat off his fingertips and gives me another hot look.
I should probably start looking around for another rooming situation. Kieran doesn’t press me for sex. He doesn’t bring it up or pressure me. But his hunger feeds mine, and I trust myself far less than I trust him.
“Beer or water?” He asks, turning to open the fridge. “That’s all we’ve got.”
“Water,” I say huskily. My tolerance for alcohol isn’t great, and it probably gets even worse when he’s around.
“Suit yourself.” He grabs a glass and fills it for me out of the refrigerator’s dispenser. He hands it over, and I leave the room to put some space between us.
The respite is short-lived. I hear the fridge open and then shut again. Kieran arrives a moment later with his plate, a beer dangled between two fingers, and my phone in his other hand. “Roddy, I know that cold fermentation is one of your favorite tricks. But I’m not sure your phone could benefit from any time in the refrigerator.” He sits down on the sofa at a respectful distance away from me and hands over the phone with a smile.
“Oh, my phone and I just needed some time apart,” I explain.
His beer pauses on its way to his mouth. “You put it in there on purpose?”
“I once had this friend who did this thing where he’d freeze someone out of his life. Literally. He’d write their name on a piece of paper, put it in a baggie with some water, and put the whole thing in the freezer. But baggies are bad for the planet, and I’m lazy.”
Kieran’s sideways glance doesn’t know whether to be amused or skeptical. “So you decided to refrigerate your contacts list?”
“Something like that.” Plus, there was a danger that I’d throw my phone across the room. “My ex has been texting me again.”
Kieran goes very still beside me. “Are you getting back together?”
“Oh hell no.” I startle both of us with the volume of that statement.
Kieran relaxes and takes a bite of his chicken. And, whoa, was Kieran jealous? “What does your ex want?” he asks.
“Well, I didn’t tell him where I was going when I left. And he says he’s been looking for me.” That doesn’t mean it’s true, though. He wouldn’t actually exert effort. “I was ignoring his texts. But this morning I finally responded and told him that I wasn’t coming back. That’s when he got ugly.”
I tap the screen and see that he hasn’t stopped, either. You stupid little fuck. You’ll come crawling back. This is so manipulative. You wanted me to come chasing after you, don’t you? Just gonna string me along now?
That’s not even a little bit fair. I’ve always been honest with him. More honest than I was with myself. The point of leaving was leaving, I type. Then I erase it and sigh. I know better than to prolong the conversation. You can’t negotiate with terrorists.
I hand the phone to Kieran. “Look. It’s embarrassing to me that I put up with this man for so long.”
Kieran wipes his hand on a napkin and then scrolls up, reading Brian’s vitriol. “What a turd,” he says gruffly, and his choice of words makes me laugh. He doesn’t think it’s funny at all, and says, “This is abusive. Was he always like this?”
“No.” I shake my head quickly, so that Kieran doesn’t think I’ve always been a doormat. “He can be the most charming man in the world. People love him. Sometimes when we fought, he would get this way. But the next day he would always go crazy trying to make it up to me. And I know that’s how abusers operate. But I swear we had a whole year before he started acting this way. I just kept hoping it would get better.”
When his last album didn’t do very well, his mood tanked for good, and I finally realized that things weren’t ever going to get better. And I still hung around too long, because it seemed so mean to desert a guy whose career was in a downward spiral.
“Do you think he might do something crazy?” Kieran asks suddenly.
“What do you mean? Like what?”
He gazes at me with those big brown eyes that I like so much. “Would he try to hurt you physically?”
“No,” I say quickly. “In the first place, he doesn’t know where I am, and he’s not likely to come to Vermont. Also, violence really isn’t his style. He’d rather bruise my self-esteem than my face.”