Page 37 of Coming for You


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Sloan is already ahead of us, rushing to catch up to her grandfather. “Are there still donuts?”

“You had ice cream,” I call out from behind her.

“She needs something with her tea,” my stepfather reasons.

“How about butter cookies,” my mother offers. “They’re barely sweet enough to be a cookie. More like a cracker. To have with tea.”

“Right.” I mean, who can argue with logic like that? “She can have one tea cracker.”

“Deal!” Then Sloan swings open the front door and dashes inside, probably to go find the largest fake cracker in the bunch.

“Do you even like tea?” I whisper as we near the entry.

“Who doesn’t like tea?” he counters. “I love tea. Drink it all the time on the road to soothe my throat and keep my vocals strong.”

That actually makes sense. “Then you and my mother are going to get along great. She’s been an avid tea drinker since I was little and she became close friends with an English woman who called out, “Is the kettle on?” every time she walked into our house. Until eventually, the answer was always yes.” I don’t know why I just told him that. Except I seem to have a compelling need to tell him all sorts of shit about myself whether he cares to hear it or not. And he does, oddly enough, seem to care.

The visit over tea goes smoothly and much like his previous interactions with my family, Knox blends in seamlessly with my parents. While Sloan would be more than happy to keep filling up on cookies, my stomach is starting to beg for real food. So, after we’ve emptied our cups, Knox and I excuse ourselves to head back to Frieda and my own kitchen while Sloan stays behind to continue her visit.

“It’s the best part of living here,” I tell him as we make our way across the yard, “how much time she gets to spend with her grandparents.”

“I bet.” He wraps his arm around my shoulders and together we start walking up the small pathway to the next front door. “So, I guess it’s just you and me in the kitchen then.”

“You cook?” I guess I’m not really surprised. But now I am curious.

“I’m a grown-ass man who’s been living on his own since he was eighteen and likes to eat. Yes, I cook,” he says dryly. “I know how to do laundry, too.”

“Dishes?” I ask. Since we seem to be doing a thing here.

“Yeah. Those, too.” He holds the door for me to go in. “Though we should make use of a dishwasher if you have one. I’m not very good at doing them by hand.”

“Noted.” I don’t have a dishwasher. Haven’t had one for years, not the whole time I was married. It was one of thosethings my ex liked making me feel inadequate about. Every once in a blue moon, he’d come home after work and decide to do the last round of dishes. Then he’d make a big thing about it, making sure I was appropriately grateful, since I clearly hadn’t gotten around to doing them yet, like those same dishes had been sitting in the sink all day and hadn’t just accumulated repeatedly after every meal I made from scratch and fed our daughter from breakfast straight through to dinner. Didn’t matter that I knew I’d done dishes three different times already. Hell, it didn’t matter if I told him. Somehow, he always managed to make me feel like my kitchen was a disastrous mess and it only ever saw the light of redemption when he came around to cast his superior glow upon it.

Anyway. I still don’t have a dishwasher, but I don’t mind. Even if I had one, I doubt I’d use it. Just to prove that I can keep up with the dishes myself.

It’s another bit of bad wiring in my brain, leftover from the years I was married.

I’ll get to it eventually.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

KNOX

We’ve been in the kitchen together a while, washing and chopping veggies, both of us standing on opposite sides of the small kitchen island, facing each other. It’s quiet, but comfortable. Natural even, the way we work together without having to say much to communicate.

But it’s also been giving my thoughts time to wander and something I stuffed away this morning is nagging at me now.

“Today,” I start, not entirely sure how I want to say what I want to say, but knowing it needs to be said, needs to be asked. Because I’m going to need to know moving forward.

“Today?” she prompts when I leave the single word hanging without follow up for too long.

“When your ex grabbed you and shoved you out the door.” Maybe there’s no milder way to put that because it’s not supposed to be subdued or played down. The man put his hands on her and physically overpowered her. It should sound as ugly as it was.

“Yeah?” She keeps chopping away at her carrots, as if I’m casually mentioning the traffic today, not pointing out that she was physically assaulted.

I put down the knife I’ve been using to dice tomatoes, half of one I leave uncut on the board. At least one of us should take this conversation seriously. “That wasn’t the first time he’s done that.”

“Why do you say that?” She still doesn’t look at me, but I notice her chopping efforts are slowing down.