“Chef Alice Sullivan, will you marry me?”
It was surprisingly hard to extricate a ring from a Rice Krispies treat, but Sullivan managed.
“Did she say yes?” someone whispered.
“Yes!” Sullivan projected over the crowd. She helped Kia up.
Kia hadn’t shown her the ring. She’d said it was a surprise. It was surprising. The ring screamed,I bought this at gay pride in Vegas. It was a large, emerald-green crystal set in a circle of smaller, rainbow crystals. It looked like you’d need an oven mitt to handle it.
From across the room, one of Opal’s rugby mates, called out, “Kiss, kiss.”
“I guess we covered this in our rules,” Sullivan said quietly. “If we get bullied by a rugger… I get to kiss you?” She left it a question in case Kia wanted an out.
“I always follow the rules, Chef.” Kia put her arms around Sullivan’s neck, looking up at her. “I’m a very rule-following person.”
Cooking a tursnicken at the Jean Paul Molineux School of Culinary Arts. Trudging through a stormy forest to ask a woman to marry her to thwart a multibillion-dollar company.
“You so aren’t, and I love that about you,” Sullivan said. “Butmaybe this time you should follow them.”
In that moment, Kia exuded an irresistible allure that captivated Sullivan completely. The subtle, enticing scent of her perfume wafted through the air, the soft shadows on Kia’s face, accentuating the delicate contours, her eyes sparkling with an intoxicating blend of intelligence, humor, and passion. Her smile was like a secret invitation, and Sullivan felt her heart skip a beat as she moved closer. And it hit Sullivan like a match to sweet liquor: She wanted Kia. She wasn’t just attracted to Kia. She wanted to hold her, touch her, comfort her, talk to her, laugh with her. Suddenly it felt like she’d always been… infatuated? Enchanted? Just a little bit in love with Kia Jackson? If she rolled all the passion she’d felt for her hookups, her dates, and for Aubrey, she’d been picking up crumbs at the bottom of a bowl compared to the intensity she’d felt for Kia.
Kia pulled back just enough to cup Sullivan’s cheek. She met Sullivan’s eyes, but she seemed to be looking beyond Sullivan at some future they might or might not have together. She stroked Sullivan’s jaw with her thumb. Sullivan was vaguely aware of the crowd going wild with enthusiasm. Kia didn’t seem to notice them.
“Kiss me, Chef?” Kia asked, and her expression was so earnest it brought tears to Sullivan’s eyes. To hide them and because she desperately wanted to… she kissed Kia Jackson again.
Sullivan touched her lips to Kia’s in a light but lingering kiss. Kia’s lips were soft. Her hands curled in Sullivan’s hair the way they had all those years ago on the graduation stage. Sullivan wanted to run her hands through Kia’s hair too, but a little voice in the back of her mind told her not to mess up such a remarkably symmetrical hairdo. Instead she placed her hands around Kia’s waist, pulling her closer. She let their hip bones touch. She restedher hands on Kia’s lower back. If she’d sensed the slightest resistance on Kia’s part, she would have broken the kiss instantly, but Kia let out a soft moan of pleasure that filled Sullivan’s body with the colorful, bursting feeling of spring.
Still, when they pulled away, Sullivan whispered, “Was that okay?”
“Only if you say it was point six percent better than any kiss you’ve ever had,” Kia said, turning to capture Sullivan’s lips for one more second.
“Yes, Jackson,” Sullivan murmured. “It was more than point six percent better.”
chapter 18
The small stainedglass window in the center of Sullivan’s front door glowed from the foyer light within, her concession to seeing the front steps without adding another light bulb to the city’s light pollution. She held the door for Kia. After living in the house like a ghost—not even a toothbrush in the bathroom—Kia had started to leave a few things around: AirPods on the kitchen island, a sweet-smelling hair cream in the bathroom. It was hard to remember that this fun wouldn’t last and that a lawsuit was hanging over their heads.
Sullivan should go to bed with a quick good night.
“You want a glass of wine?” she asked instead. “Red or white?”
“Got anything pink in a can?”
Sullivan glanced over her shoulder. Kia grinned. She was cute.
“Ugh. I’ll Grubhub you some.”
“I’ll have red.”
Sullivan poured two glasses and picked up the bottle. She gestured to the living room. She opened the slider to the porch, letting in the cool night air.
“This will be wasted on you,” Sullivan said as they sat at opposite sides of a love seat.
They should have sat on the sofa. But they sat down at the same time, as if they always sat a few feet apart on the comfortable furniture, Kia with her feet tucked under her, Sullivan with one arm draped over the back of the sofa.
Kia dabbed her lipstick on the back of her hand before swirling the wine and taking a sip.
“Bordeaux. Late 2010s. You should have kept it another five years. It’s too young.” Kia reached for the bottle Sullivan had set on the coffee table. “Château Cazauviel 2017. I’m right.”
