Everett steps in front of her. “Or now? Now would be good.”
“If I talk to him now, will you leave me alone for the rest of the night?”
He looks up, considering. “Turn something on for me, talk to Charlie, and you won’t hear a peep from me till morning.”
Now, that’s too good of an offer to pass up.
After setting up Everett with anNCISmarathon in the living room, she finds Charlie in the kitchen. He stands at the stove, stirring something in a pan. Delicious food smells fill the air, and Gretchen’s stomach rumbles.
“You’re cooking,” she says stupidly.
“I am,” he responds without looking at her. “Why do you sound so surprised about it?”
“Everett told me you eat a lot of frozen meals, so I figured...” It’s frankly embarrassing how little she knows about this man despite unprecedented access to his life. She has a spy who isliterally invisible, and yet she would probably have to turn Charlie Waybill away were he to come into her spirit medium shop, she has such an incomplete picture of what he values and needs from her. It’s like his ability to see through her has given him some boon that makes him extra opaque when she tries to do the same to him.
“Mm, right, the ghost told you. Not that you looked inside my freezer and saw them all stacked in there.”
She sits backward in one of the chairs around the table, folding her arms over the back so she can rest her chin there and watch Charlie move about the kitchen. “I didn’t look in your—well, I did, because I made myself a Marie Callender’s last night for dinner since you left me here alone, but that was after Everett told me that’s what you eat. Seeing them only corroborated what he said.”
Charlie shrugs, choosing to ignore the parts about his ghostly relative. “Sometimes it’s easier to pop something in the microwave after a long day than make a whole meal from scratch. Especially since it’s just me here now and I get tired of leftovers.” He grabs a cutting board piled with asparagus and dumps it intothe pan, then scoops up something that looks like a pile of pale yellow ribbons from the counter and drops them into a pot of boiling water.
“But tonight, you cook.”
“Tonight, I cook,” he agrees. Gretchen suspects he’s smiling, but he still doesn’t look at her, so it’s hard to tell for sure.
She leans forward to get a better view of what he’s doing. “Give me the play-by-play. What’s happening here?”
“I’m sautéing the asparagus from the farmers market with some garlic, butter, and lemon juice to go over the fettuccine I made.”
“Sorry, that youmade?” The man makes his own pasta! Gretchen isn’t sure what she could have done with this information had she had it earlier, but she’s still annoyed that Everett didn’t bother telling her about Charlie’s talents in the kitchen. That frozen potpie she had to eat last night feels like even more of an insult now.
“My grandmother taught me,” he says. “She was a great cook. She loved trying new recipes. Watched a ton of Food Network shows.”
“Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives,” Gretchen says quietly, almost to herself.
“Um, yeah.”
“Well, it smells delicious,” she says, changing the subject before he can accuse her of a good guess. Her stomach growls loud enough that she’s sure he hears it. “I suppose I better select my dinner from the freezer and get out of your way.”
“You— We— I figured we would share this? Unless... Do you have any allergies? Or, uh, plans? Guess I should’ve asked before, I shouldn’t have assumed—”
Gretchen smiles at the way Charlie stumbles over his words.“No allergies. Or plans. I just didn’t expect you to want to share your dinner with me, given, you know, your general dislike of my presence.”
He gives the pan another stir. “Your presence isn’t what I dislike about you, Acorn.” She’s still trying to decipher if that’s a compliment or an insult when he continues, “Besides, I made too much. You might as well have some.”
“Thanks. Um, can I help with anything? Keeping in mind my kitchen skills are extremely limited.”
“Think you can handle zesting a lemon?”
Said lemon, the grater, and a bowl are sitting on the counter on the opposite side of the stove, so she walks over and gets to work. This might be the longest interaction Charlie and Gretchen have had without one or both of them resorting to name-calling. Progress! Now, if they can just keep it going through an entire meal, then—
Ah, fuck, shit.
“What happened?” Charlie asks. Gretchen must have said that aloud.
“Grated myself.” The blood wells up into a tiny dome on the tip of her index finger. “I don’t think it’s too bad, though?” She holds it up for his inspection and he takes it between his own fingers to study the injury.
“You’ll likely pull through,” he says, releasing her. He turns back to the stove. “Clean it off and wrap a paper towel around it for a minute.”
