The shower turns into a twenty-minute-long affair complete with getting pieces of beef out of Ellie’s hair. She had it pulled back and still it worked its way in there.

“What a waste of sauce,” she says as she steps out and wraps a towel around her, but she has a little half-smile on her face.

“What else is on your mind?”

She flicks her glance down toward the front of me. “You. For starters.” Her smile gets sultrier. “But I bet you’re more concerned with finishing.”

I laugh out loud. “I don’t know. Shouldn’t we give it a few minutes? Make sure the angry mob doesn’t come back?”

It was a shocker, opening the door to find a few old men on my doorstep spoiling for a fight. I probably should have done something else—offered to sit down with them, something—but they’d woken Rosie from a sound sleep. That’s what I’m most angry about. Of course it is. The blowjob I’d only begun to get is a distant second.

“I don’t think they’ll be back,” says Ellie. “They’ve got to be up bright and early tomorrow.”

“To plan how they’re going to bring down my business?”

“To be at mine,” she says, needling me. She lets the towel slip down an inch and my breath catches in my throat. “You know...” She looks down at her feet, then back up at me. “We could get in some real trouble.”

I laugh out loud. “How?”

“By consorting with each other.”

“Consorting—” I can’t stop. “Ellie, that is the funniest thing I’ve ever heard. Why would they care if we’re sleeping together?”

“We’re not,” she says. “Not yet.”

* * *

She insists on cleaning up the kitchen first, wearing a pair of my boxers and one of my t-shirts. “We can’t leave it,” she says, going past the kitchen to the laundry nook off the entryway. “That’s going from great to terrible.”

“What?”

“You and me together?” She puts in detergent, tips the clothes in after it, and lets the top down gently. “That would be great. And then to come out and clean up spilled sauce? Terrible. Terrible. We can’t.”

I open my mouth to argue, but she has a point. So instead I get the mop.

Her stomach growls loudly mid-scrub. “You didn’t eat before you came, did you?”

“No.” She wipes down the front of the cabinets.

“You have to be starving.”

“Look, I don’t like to complain,” Ellie laughs. “But yeah, I am.”

“I have enough to start over.”

She dismisses me out of hand. “You don’t have to do that. That would be insane. You already spent enough time cooking this, and look what happened.”

I lean the mop against the countertop and cross the distance between us. 

It’s one step.

Then I wrap an arm around her waist and pull her in close. “Listen carefully,” I say, and her body relaxes in my arms. “I have enough to start over. It’s not a long process. In half an hour I can have a delicious sauce. The noodles only take half that long.” I let my fingers play over the curve of her hip. “I won’t spill the sauce this time. I promise.”

“Challenge accepted,” Ellie whispers.

We both dissolve into laughter.

* * *

I start with the half green pepper and half onion from before, dicing them as fast as I can and getting them to sizzle in the pan. Ellie scrubs the counters, straightening up the already straight stacks of mail I have left to deal with. When she’s exhausted herself, she leans against the counter and watches me.

“You have good cooking hands,” she says, after a minute.

I flex and lift the spatula I’m using to break up the rest of the meat in the pan. “What about my arms?”

“Those are multi-talented.”

“Oh, and my hands aren’t?”

“I would never say that.”

It’s so easy standing here with her. It reminds me of working behind the counter at Medium Roast. We danced around each other then. I never had a moment’s worry that she’d spill hot coffee on me, even though we were in tight quarters.

It never felt this easy with Serena.

Then again, I never really knew Serena.

You don’t really know Ellie, either. 

There is no way I’m going to entertain that thought right now. Not when I’m cooking her my second batch of spaghetti today and she’s standing there in my clothes. 

Say something. I’ve got to say something.

“Did you grow up in Lakewood?”

“In a way.” She shifts her weight from one foot to the other. “We lived in the city when I was a kid, but we moved here after I finished middle school.” Ellie scoffs a little. “My mom wanted me to live in a safer environment.”

There’s something different in her tone. “It isn’t safer here?”

“Oh, it is,” Ellie says, and she sounds almost wistful. “It’s a hell of a lot safer here than most places. You don’t have to worry about...” she trails off for a moment. “People care about each other here. Not so much in the city.”

“I didn’t mind it.” I put the spatula down and switch it out for a heavy-duty plastic spoon.

“I didn’t mind it either. At least not when I was in college.”

I steal a glance over at Ellie. She’s looking out the window to the dark of the backyard. The moon shines over the lake, its reflection scattered in the ripples on the surface. “What happened?” 

She doesn’t say anything.

“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”

Ellie shakes her head slowly. She doesn’t speak until I’m looking into her eyes. “Are you sure you want to go this far?”

The hair on the back of my neck stands up. I don’t hesitate for a single moment. “Yes.” I put the spoon down on the spoon rest, freshly cleaned, and turn to face her.

“You have to promise me something.” She crosses her arms over her chest.

“I promise.”

That makes her crack a smile. “You haven’t heard what it is yet.”

“I still do.”

Ellie takes a deep breath, gathering her damp hair in both hands. “Promise you won’t think I’m fucking pathetic afterward.”