“Late night house visits typically call for something stronger than water, but okay. Water it is,” he says.
He pours two glasses from a pitcher in the fridge while I look around. The kitchen is almost as big as Mom’s house. The length of one wall, there’s a huge range with an overhang mantle, two ovens, a gigantic double stone sink, a microwave, and old-style wood cabinets. Off one side, a door leads to the garden, if I have my bearings right. On the other side, a double door fridge commands a large, empty space.
In the center of the room, eight chairs line one side of a massive island boasting a grill and a second sink. My gaze is drawn upward to the pots and pans hanging from the ceiling like this is a freaking cooking show. Except, of course, for a cooking show they’d get rid of the cobwebs, but hey—who cares?
This is the real deal.
I would hate—hate—to see this house bulldozed down in favor of vacation cottages or a motel.
Noah hands me a glass and is about to clink his to mine when Lane pads in.
She rubs her eyes, clearly blinded by the overhead lights. “Don’t!” she whisper-screeches.
We halt mid-air. “Don’t what?” Noah asks.
“Unless it’s vodka. Don’t clink with water. Hey, Willow.”
“Hey, Lane.”
Turning to her brother, she adds, “Clinking with water brings seven years of bad sex.”
“How d’you know that?” I ask while Noah says, “You shouldn’t talk about S-E-X. Or Vodka. Why are you up?” He asks this while Lane pours herself cereal, then adds milk a little too quickly, the white liquid swirling partly out of the shallow bowl.
She rolls her eyes behind her brother’s back, winking at me.
I bite my lip to avoid giggling.
“Let’s take this to the office,” Noah tells me.
Lane laughs out loud. “Oooh, brotha.”
He squeezes her nape playfully and smiles at her. “Go back to bed.”
“Isn’t she like… twenty-two now?” I ask as we walk down the dark hallway.
“Precisely,” he answers as we enter the office he was occupying when I interrupted him.
He closes the door softly behind us, then gestures to a pair of deep leather armchairs, the kind that has little holes with push pins in the creases. He sets his glass of water on a table between the two chairs, then presses on a button and—voila! nice roaring fire in the fireplace. Just like in the movies.
“You don’t like real fire?” I ask. “Or is it like—a hazard or something?”
“Look, Willow, I’m really tired,” he says, stifling a yawn. His chest expands and trembles, his eyes water behind his glasses as he struggles to keep his mouth closed. The man isn’t tired.
He’s exhausted.
And I just threw a handful of pebbles right in his face, and notlike a girl. There are a couple of red blotches on his cheekbones. Then I denied him the drink he clearly was craving.
He lifts his water to his lips.
“Sorry.” I gather my hands on my knees and take a deep breath. “Okay, I’ll do it. I’ll marry you.”
He full-on chokes on his water, liquid spurting from his mouth. “Sorry, sorry,” he says, wiping his mouth and setting the glass down. “I—I just wasn’t expecting that.”
I frown. “Why d’you think I’m here?”
He shakes his head. “Y-yeah. Nothing. I wasn’t thinking anything. It’s been a long day.”
Clearly. “Okay,” I say, standing. “So we’re good? You wanna hash out the details later?”
