Thinking about Esmé, I toss some vegetables into a marinade and season a couple of salmon filets. I actually have no idea what she eats. If she doesn’t like this, I’ll make her a salad or a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
It doesn’t really matter what we eat, anyway. She’s not coming here for my fine cooking and I haven’t invited her to experience her scintillating company. As far as I know, we have one thing in common and that’s Fran. If she can’t help me sort out my head, I don’t think there’s anyone who can.
Chapter Seventeen
Esmé shows up promptly at six. I already have the coals going on the grill, so I offer her a drink and we step out onto the deck. The sun is starting to do its brilliant show in the western sky. My deck is the perfect place to watch it. It occurs to me that if I wasn’t so fucked up, I would be a total chick magnet. I’m decent looking, I have a decent income, I cook, and I have a phenomenal house. Of course, I don’t have a car, I’m middle-aged, and I’m in the midst of some sort of weird psychic meltdown. Other than that, I’m a great catch.
Perched on one of my patio chairs, Esmé is idly stroking Frank who has claimed her lap. Traitor. She smiles up at me. “So, Dana,” she says. “What do you want to talk about?”
I’m fully aware that she has dressed for this evening without wanting to look as if she’s dressed for the evening. She’s wearing nicely shaped jeans and a peasant blouse that shows just a hint of cleavage. Her hair still has that dampish, fresh out of the shower look, and she smells amazing. She isn’t wearing makeup, but her lips are shiny, like she put on lip-gloss right before walking in my door. Despite myself, I feel the bit of stirring from inside that comes from being close to a pretty woman who has made an effort to make herself attractive to me.
Throwing the filets and the vegetables on the grill, I smile at her, but don’t answer. We both know why she’s here, but I don’t want to address it yet. We need to eat. Besides, I don’t think it’s going to be a pleasant conversation and I haven’t completely decided if I’m ready to have it. Esmé has offered to help, but I don’t need it. I’m in my element, flipping the fish and making sure the vegetables are done to a perfect texture.
“If you want to refill that glass, now’s the time to do it,” I tell her. She goes into the kitchen and mixes herself a drink. When she returns, she hands me a glass of water and resumes her place on the chair, apologizing to Frank for having disturbed him.
“He can’t sit on your lap while you’re eating dinner anyway,” I say, sternly.
Frank turns his head, blinks at me, and then pointedly turns back to Esmé, launching himself back onto her lap. She laughs, delighted. “He is so obedient!”
“Cats are never obedient,” I growl. “I sometimes kid myself, but we both know who’s in charge of this household.”
Laughing, she pets Frank until I can hear his motor across the deck. The remaining sunlight is picking up the gold flecks in Esmé’s hazel eyes. When she smiles, my stomach flips a bit. Shit. Forcing my mind back to the mundane, I finish cooking our meal and set the plates on the outdoor table. There’s no sense in going inside when it’s still eighty degrees. Esmé divests herself of the furball and joins me at the table. She closes her eyes at the first bite of fish and makes a soft, almost inaudible moaning noise under her breath.
“This is ridiculously good,” she says, smiling. “Maybe the best fish I’ve ever had.”
Chatting lightly throughout the meal reveals next to nothing about her. She has an amazing ability to entertain without telling me a single thing about her. But two can play at that game and I can keep my cards close to my chest when I need to do so. Consequently, we spend the meal laughing and casually flirting without addressing the real reason we’re together tonight. After dinner, she offers to do the dishes, so we clean up together. Coming up behind her where she’s standing at the sink, I wrap an apron around her and tie it in the back. Turning her head slightly puts us eye to eye.
“Thank you,” she says.
“I didn’t want you to get your beautiful shirt wet,” I answer.
Smiling, she turns back to the sink and resumes washing dishes. I put the leftovers away and go back out to the deck to clean up the grill area. Esmé is just finishing the dishes when I come back in to check on her.
“Shall we put these away?”
“No,” I say. “They can air dry.”
“Good,” she says. “Then maybe we should talk about why I’m really here.”