Chapter Fifteen
“I can’t believe this.” Holden called to Avery from her kitchen later that afternoon.
She was lounging on the sofa, the way she had since they made their deal. A stale bag of sour cream and onion chips was nestled between her legs as she stared at the television, watching yet another cooking show.
“Shhh, this lady is talking about how to make cheese by hand.” Avery’d been poised over a little pad all afternoon, jotting down notes from time to time. It was a new experience for her, to say the least.
After seeing her stunts in high school, he was half convinced she would try to hire Alton Brown and claim right of proxy.
“How can you function with all this crap in your system?” He gestured to the dining room table. He’d cleaned out every cupboard and cabinet in the place, and what he’d found was basically the stuff of nightmares.
Cans of ham, pickled cactus, and bags upon bags of junk food, all either half eaten or expired. He hadn’t had the heart to explore the fridge yet. The battlefield he could manage, but that frozen tundra was sure to be filled with food only fit for the mouths of the damned.
“I’m a survivor.” She shrugged.
“Even that bag of chips is expired.”
“I prefer the term ‘aged.’ Besides, it has a delightful mustiness. The discount grocery store is too good to pass up.”
She turned off the TV, tossed the bag to the side, and brushed the crumbs off her legs. Without another word, she disappeared into her bedroom.
Lucky her.
She had home-field advantage in Siberia. He didn’t even have a damn jacket.
He crossed to open the fridge, but as his hand reached the handle, he decided he could use a break from the emotional upheaval. Instead, he’d survey his utensils. That couldn’t be so bad.
He pulled open a small drawer beside the stove. Where he had expected metallic jingling, he was greeted with the scraping of plastic utensils trying to escape the crowded compartment.
Not a great start.
In the drawer, he found a replica of a wiener dog with a slicing compartment that cut hot dogs once they were inserted into the puppy’s body.
And the hot dog slicer was the least of the peculiarities. Somehow, Avery had also come to own an ice cream scooper sporting a handle covered with sprinkles, an object that looked like a plastic shiv with the words “cookie hook” emblazoned across the long-pointed handle, and an item which promised to separate egg yolks from egg whites.
He slammed the drawer shut and leaned against the countertop, trying to configure a plan, but nothing other than Dorito sorbet came to mind.
There was nowhere left to go but the refrigerator of doom, and he wasn’t sure his heart (or his stomach) could handle it.
Luckily, Avery interrupted his plans.
She stepped out of her bedroom wearing nylon stockings and tall white pumps. Nothing to complain about for sure, but the rest of the outfit? Well, he wasn’t sure whether to laugh or to tell her how completely beautiful she looked.
Either way, he knew he’d better take a picture, because there was no way she’d ever dress that way again.
She was wearing a baby-blue dress with chocolate-brown polka dots. The cut of the dress was like something out of the fifties, and her thick blond hair was nestled at the base of her neck in an elegant knot. But the pièce de résistance? The thin string of pearls circling her throat.
“Where’s the bridge game?”
She stuck out her tongue and reached down to fluff her skirt. Then she bent over, and he realized that even if the style of the dress was old-fashioned, it sure didn’t do anything to make her ample cleavage any more modest.
“I look nice.” She half smiled as she leaned against the table, glancing toward the crooked clock above her stove. Ten more minutes until the showdown.
“Nobody said you didn’t.” Nope. That was the furthest thing from his mind. At that moment, all he wanted to do was make sure she made the best damn meal on the planet so that he could get a look underneath that skirt…
“I thought if I’m going to play house, I may as well rock the hell out of it.”
“What exactly do you think a relationship is? Do you think you’d have to fetch my slippers every night or something?”
She shrugged. “And stoke your pipe, that kind of thing.”
“Don’t you already do that?”
She hit him, but it didn’t stop him from smiling at the way her nose wrinkled when she was angry. Like a ferocious kitten. A ferocious kitten who could kick him in the balls at any time.
“You know this is ridiculous, right?” he asked, looking her up and down as she opened up the expired gallon of water that was sitting on the table.
“We’ll see who’s ridiculous when I’m crowned the winner, fool. It’s six o’clock. Let’s get this party started.” She kicked off her heels and sifted through the pile of groceries on the table. He was too afraid to search for specifics. Instead, he reached into his pocket to double-check for his phone. Yep. Still there.
“Hey, I’m going to use the bathroom, okay?” He began to inch himself out of the room, but Avery blocked him in a whirl of fabric.
“That’s hardly the most competitive move, ace.”
He grasped her shoulder before pushing past her. “All part of the strategy.”
When he closed the bathroom door, he searched on his phone for the closest delivery place in a ten-mile radius, and found the phone number of a restaurant a few blocks away. He thumbed the link and dialed.
After the usual pleasantries, the guy on the other end asked, “That going to be the usual, then?”
“The what?”
“Usual. For that address. Large number two, extra sour cream. Small number four, extra guac. Week’s worth of forks?”
“Yeah, that sounds good. Thanks.”
“All right, man. It’ll be there in twenty minutes.”
Holden hung up, and a pit lodged itself in his stomach. He knew the smart thing would be to accept defeat, especially when this was the freaking Kobayashi Maru of tasks.
And since it was, he’d have to play it like Captain Kirk.
The only way to win was to cheat.
Now his lone task was pretending to like the monstrosity she was sure to serve him.
For the next twenty minutes, he bustled about the kitchen while she worked. Her hair had come completely undone, and the string of pearls had been abandoned near the trash can.
She pulled a gallon of milk out of the fridge and inspected the perimeter before twisting off the cap with a struggle that looked a little too intense. A putrid smell filled the air, worse than old skunk or seventh-grade-dance sweat.
“That’s bad, right?” She shoved the container toward him, and it was all he could do not to retch.
He grabbed the container from her. The contents didn’t slosh around. In fact, they didn’t bother to move at all. The consistency was somewhere between yogurt and gravel. Absolutely horrifying.
“Why is this solid?”
“I can’t answer that. I’m working.” She turned to dig around in the fridge, and he put the cap back on the container before tossing it into the trash.
When she turned back around, she was opening a package of hot dogs.
“You think you’re going to win this thing with hot dogs?”
“No, I think I’m going to destroy this thing with hot dogs. You’ve never had wieners like these. Besides, I can’t see any real action over in your court. What’s your deal? You just want to surrender to my sexuality? It’s pretty overwhelming, I know—”
“Yeah, it’s definitely that.” He chuckled.
She popped her hot dogs into the toaster oven and sprinted back to the fridge, emerging with a mushy object in hand that looked mysteriously like vegetation that had survived a nuclear holocaust.
“You’ve got, like, five minutes until this is on the plate, you know. There’s no time for dillydallying.”
She was pouring all sorts of things in containers, mashing other objects that couldn’t have possibly been edible, and all while avoiding placing a single pan on the stove. She must consider herself quite the culinary savant.
By the time she’d set a drink and entrée in front of him, there was a light sheen of sweat along her hairline, but she still presented the concoction with a proud flourish.
“Now where’s my plate?” She collapsed into a chair opposite him, rubbing her hands together.
“Let’s not worry about that.”
“I’ve got a pretty good feeling anything you do at this point is cheating, so I hope you’re prepared to do the weird stuff, sir.” Her bright white smile lit up her face. “Still, my dish was going to win anyway, so I don’t know why you’d even bother.”
He prodded the concoction with his fork.
It was certainly…something. Even if he couldn’t exactly identify what any of the particular ingredients were. Or what they’d looked like in their original state. Either way, he doubted that anything in front of him could have been found in nature.
On the plate was a crumble of something that looked worryingly like graham cracker crumbs. Over that were little, burned crescents of pink something. The dish was garnished with a thick, chunky red sauce in the shape of what appeared to be a penis.
At least there was water in his glass to wash it down.
“Today I’ve prepared for you a hot dog hash over a Bugle crostini, served with a ketchup-and-relish gastrique and finished with a drink of my own creation. I call it Hobo Tears.”
He stared at her, gauging whether she really expected him to eat it.
“So, they, uh, they still make Bugles, huh?” He scraped his fork along the dish, trying to catch a few morsels without trying the charred pink mass.
He failed.
Little tidbits of blackened, processed meat were mixed into every crevice of her crispy crust.
“Well, yeah, but that brand was recalled a couple weeks ago. I’m pretty sure I bought it before then, though.”
He tapped his fork against the plate, not sure whether he was willing to go gently into this particular good night, but the pleading pout of her lips could only get her so far. He reached for water, took a big swig, and promptly sprayed it back out in shock.
“Is that grain alcohol?” he sputtered.
“Um, what did you think hobo tears would taste like?” She used her massive skirt to dab some of the alcohol from her face. “And no offense, but if this is your big first-date wooing, I have to tell you, I’ve been seduced more successfully by strippers.”
He cleared his throat, but a sticking sweetness clung to his tonsils. “What is that aftertaste?”
“Oh, I added a little bit of white Mountain Dew. You know, for flavor. Don’t you like it?”
“I—” He didn’t know what to say, but thankfully the doorbell rang to save him from either lying to her and dying—or telling her the truth and still probably dying.
Avery shuffled to the door, and her face lit up at the sight of the delivery guy. Before she could reach for her purse, Holden nudged her out of the way and paid for her meal.
She lifted a tin out of the paper sack and tucked in, chowing down on a giant pile of nachos, one chip at a time. “This is my absolute favorite. It goes great with Hobo Tears.”
“I’ll bet.” Holden sat on the couch and patted the seat beside him. So what if she couldn’t cook? He liked it better that way, even if he couldn’t explain why. Plus, that meant he would never have to live through dinner parties.
It was perfect, really.
She was perfect.
“So, what do we do now on our awesome first date?” Her plate was nearly empty. What a difference it made when the food was edible.
“Anything you want.”
“I already got what I wanted.” She winked.
“So, you think you won with ketchup sauce and grain alcohol?”
“I didn’t phone it in. Literally.”
He stole a chip from her container, then added, “A person can’t cook with exclusively discontinued or recalled items. Cooking in your kitchen is like trying to amputate a limb with a rusty fork.”
“I can’t help it if you’re not as versed in the culinary arts as I am.” She tossed him a haughty grin.
“Well, I think we have to call it a draw,” Holden said. He paused, reclining into the lumpy couch cushions. “So, do we both win? Or do we both lose?”
“We both win, I think.”
His heart leapt, though it wasn’t necessarily due to excitement. Because she’d won, there would be sex. And it was sure to be amazing.
No, he felt something more like…fear. It was the promise of everything else that had his blood pounding, heart racing.
“So how does this work, now?” Her voice was a little softer than usual.
“I hadn’t thought it over. I was distracted, what with trying to avoid getting food poisoning from your pantry.”
“Ha freaking ha. Enough with the kitchen jokes, all right? We need to figure out how to, like, date each other. Or whatever.”
“Well, what do you usually do on dates?” He hated asking the question. Every word clung to his throat, his teeth, his tongue, until he was forced to rip them out.
It was fine that she dated.
That wasn’t it. He wanted her to be happy. But picturing it, knowing how other men treated her? Well, that made him want to shove the question back in his mouth and hope it never pawed its way out again.
“It kind of depends. You know, sometimes we go to dinner. Other times, I steal his gun and pretend I’m an international spy.”
“That’s a thing?”
“Well, no. Not really. Actually, I—” She swallowed hard and fixed him with that same expression he’d only glimpsed before. Vulnerability. “I don’t really date much. Or, um, at all.”
“What do you mean? I’ve seen you go out with tons of guys—”
“Before our agreement. After that, I never really found someone I wanted to be with. That way.” She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “I know. Shocking. Crazy Avery and all.”
“But what about Fred Fitzgerald?” he asked.
“Who?” She looked momentarily confused, and then she threw her head back and laughed. “Oh, that was a huge disaster. Myla set me up with him, and I may have…embellished a little. Or a lot.”
“Myla set you up?” Holden asked.
Avery nodded. “After I’d told her you were coming to town again. I think she thought… Well, I don’t know what she thought. Probably that if I found someone else I wouldn’t…” She stopped. “You know what, it doesn’t matter. What do you usually do with your women? Long walks on the beach? Shooting range?” She rushed on, probably hoping to distract him.
It didn’t work.
“What? What do you think she was hoping for?”
“It doesn’t matter.” She smoothed her hands over her skirt.
“Avery, please. Just tell me.”
She sucked her bottom lip into her mouth, then released it. Slowly, she stared down at her folded hands. “I think she thought if I had someone else to think about, I wouldn’t be so…upset. You know, when you left again. For your next tour or whatever.”
“Upset?”
Avery laughed, then shoved an errant strand of hair behind her ear. “I know, me? Upset? But Myla doesn’t understand, you know, how I handle things—”
“I think she understands better than you think she does. And I do, too.” He wanted to cup her chin and pull her lips to his, to kiss away every little piece of hurt she’d held on to over the years. But just as he considered it, he thought of her sitting here alone once he left again. He thought of what exactly he was asking her to sign on for.
Before he got the chance to think on it anymore, though, Avery was shifting in her seat, a smile returning to her full lips. “Anyway, enough about that. Come on, you must have had a move or something.”
“A move?” Holden raised his eyebrows.
“You know, that you use on the ladies.” Avery shrugged.
“I never had to seduce much. So…I don’t know. I was never looking for a girlfriend. I didn’t care enough to find one.” His whole body urged him to stop there, to lie and not freak her out, but the words kept coming, incontrollable. “Nobody was as funny or smart or…or completely gorgeous as you are. You’re a tough act to follow.”
Slowly, she nodded. Her eyes moved back and forth, as if trying to read him, and he didn’t know what else to tell her.
It was the truth, all of it.
His walls were down. And, finally, so were hers.