As his lettuce dried, he returned to the stovetop to add some salt and pepper and lower the heat on his chicken concoction. He raised his eyes to watch me as he stirred.
“Drama of the week?”
I sighed and quickly reflected on how my very deliberate transparency from just moments earlier had been replaced by natural, involuntary vulnerability.
“She, um . . . she struggles with some mental health issues. Depression chief among them. My dad and grandmother always did all they could for her, but she never really knew how to accept the help, I don’t think. That’s what I tell myself, anyway. That’s a lot easier to deal with than thinking she just didn’t want it.”
“Hadley,” he whispered, and I made the mistake of looking at him. I was the entire focus of those beautiful, stormy eyes, and that realization caused another flutter—this time from head to toe.
“It’s okay,” I said dismissively with a forced smile.
“No, it’s not. It sucks.”
“Yeah. It does.”
“So where is she now, if you don’t mind me asking?”
“Wish I knew. She was in and out when my dad got sick, and then when he died, she took off. We tried to track her down for a long time, but the trail went cold pretty quickly.”
“They were still married? When your dad died, I mean.”
“Oh yeah. He always told me that before I ever got serious with any guy, I needed to think real hard about the ‘in sickness’ part of ‘in sickness and in health’—he said not to even bother with the ‘in health’ part. Sickness or health. Richer or poorer. Better or worse.” I scrunched up my nose and shook my head, remembering my dad’s words. “He used to say, ‘Before you get married, you need to make sure you love him enough for a life of sickness, poorer, and worse. ’Cause that’s what you’re committing to.’” I was once again drawn to the other side of the island, drawn to the irresistible scent of our lunch, and I knew that if it tasted even near as good as it smelled, I was going to be eating crow for a very long time. “That was the legacy my dad left me, I guess. Renowned, Julia, an aversion to alcohol, and impossible standards.”
“Oh, I don’t think they’re impossible.”
“Maybe not. But it kind of takes the fun out of the thought of just dating someone, you know? Just casually getting to know someone, when all you can think is, ‘Is this person worth it? The heartbreak? The pain?’”
“So that’s the real reason why you don’t date?”
I shrugged. “I guess it has played a role. But I meant what I said last night. Who has the time to date when you lead lives like ours?”
His eyebrows rose slowly, and a sheepish grin completely transformed his face.
I shrieked with laughter. “Yet somehow you’ve always found the time!”
He chuckled. “I used to, that’s for sure. You know, at Tranquility Peaks, Buzz would always say—”
“Buzz?”
“My counselor. He would always say that the key to healing is self-realization. And that the key to self-realization is allowing yourself to embrace nothing.”
I thought over the words as I watched him stir. I didn’t want to be disrespectful, but the longer I sat there, trying to figure out a way to respond, the wider his grin spread.
“I’m sorry, but what does that—”
“I have no idea!” He laughed. “I was hoping you could tell me what it’s supposed to mean. And then I could stand here and act all deep and philosophical, like I’d understood all along.”
“Well, pardon me, but I think it’s all a bunch of hooey.”
He shrugged and continued to smile. “I do too. And yet, it helped. I mean, I haven’t had a drink in however long, I’m not out at clubs, I’m not posing for pictures with different women at different events every night . . . and I don’t miss that lifestyle. At all.”
“Seriously? Different events every night?”
He nodded. “Pretty much. And do you know what else? I’ve been sleeping. I mean, not a lot. Still not enough, probably. But I never used to sleep.” He shrugged again. “So maybe Buzz’s hooey wasn’t hooey after all.”
I scrunched up my nose. “Well, there’s usually some truth to be found in everything, I guess. I mean, Jesus talked about the last being first and the first being last long before Buzz ever said . . . whatever that was. And I think they’re basically, in a weird way, maybe saying the same thing.”
“You think that’s what it means?” he asked.
I buried my face in my hands and giggled again. “I have no idea. But I’ll tell you something I do think. I think going away to that place gave you the time you needed—maybe the quiet you needed—to drown out some of that noise. So sure, it helped. Of course it did. Because somewhere in there you were probably able to start hearing yourself again.”
He took a deep breath and nodded. “How about you? Are you able to drown it all out and hear yourself?”
“Ah. See . . . my problems are different than yours, Chef Cavanagh. For me, hearing myself is never the problem. The voice in my head is just running nonstop—sometimes telling me the worst things. The challenge for me is shutting myself off for a while and listening for that still small voice that will only tell me the truth.”
He stared at me—not unpleasantly, but I couldn’t quite make out what he might have been thinking. I wasn’t sure if he had any idea what I was talking about or not, but I wasn’t out to preach to him. It was such a fine line. I wanted to be unapologetic about my faith, but it was sometimes tricky to keep people listening to you if every time you reached the end of a sentence, you clarified, “I’m talking about Jesus, y’all!”
“Can we eat yet?” I asked instead, dismantling the seriousness with my whimpers.
He held up his finger. “Almost. First, come here.”
I was only about four feet away from him, so I wasn’t sure what he meant. “Where?”
He gestured in front of him, between him and the stove. “And close your eyes.”
My eyes, apparently, didn’t like being told what to do, and flew open. “Why?”
He tapped the tip of his nose, as he had the first time we sat down for a meal together. “Every chef’s greatest tool.”
“Oh. Well, I can already smell it. It does smell really good.”
Laughing, he gently pulled me in front of him. He stepped to my side and faced me. “Will you please indulge me for one minute?”
I groaned and said, “Fine,” the short little word as long and drawn out as I could make it. “Okay, what am I smelling for?”
“Good grief, Hadley, just your nose.”
He was behind me again and his hands were gently covering my eyes. I instinctively raised my hands to his. And the thing is, I meant to brush his hands away. I meant to chew him out for making me feel uncomfortable. But I didn’t feel uncomfortable. And I sure didn’t brush his hands away. Instead I gripped his wrists and wondered what in the world was happening.
“Now,” he said softly beside my ear, “what do you smell?”
I smelled him. All him. Soap and shampoo and fabric softener. Clean. Masculine. But I was pretty sure that wasn’t what he meant.