CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Olivia
I’M FIXING MYSELF A PLATE OF spaghetti when a loud knock comes at the door. I glance at the clock. Six p.m. Kelsey isn’t home yet, though she told me this morning she was going to the gym and then to run some errands after work.
I wipe my hands on a towel and go into the foyer. My heart thumps when I peer through the peephole and see Dean standing on the doorstep.
“Let me in, Olivia.” He sounds as if he’s trying to control his tone of voice.
Better to deal with this alone than when Kelsey is here. I unlock the deadbolt and open the door. Nervousness floods me at the sight of him—the scowl on his face, the flop of hair over his forehead, the corded muscles of his neck.
What…
“Is Kelsey here?” he asks.
“No.”
“Good.” He pushes past me, slamming the door behind him before stalking into the living room. The controlled anger radiating from him unnerves me. I know he’s mad, but the past few days should have given him time to calm down.
“Dean?”
He turns and tosses a bundle of white material at me. I hadn’t even realized it was clenched in his fist. I catch it.
My heart plummets. The word Julienne embroidered on the front sears into me, the lingering smells of dill and chocolate clogging my throat. I drop the chef’s jacket at my feet.
“What the fuck, Liv?” Dean spreads his hands, his eyes flashing. “What was that doing in your car? Under the seat?”
My stomach pitches, as if I’m standing on the edge of a huge, black abyss. As if I’m about to fall, knowing the descent will be endless.
“What haven’t you told me?” His voice is tight enough to break.
“I… I went to…”
“Is that his?” he snaps.
“No. I mean, yes, but… God, Dean.” I cover my face with my hands, unable to look at him. I know I can give him nothing but the truth. “I was… I was in Forest Grove one afternoon, picking up some signs for the museum, and I stopped at his restaurant. He showed me around the kitchen, and then he gave me a cooking lesson.”
I feel like I’ve just said “… and then he gave me an orgasm.”
I force myself to lower my hands. Dean hasn’t moved, his gaze dark, his chest heaving with the force of his contained anger.
Guilt splits my heart in half.
“It was nothing,” I say, but the words come out weak, as if I’m trying to convince myself as much as him. “I’m sorry.”
He just stares at me, his hands on his hips. “I remember that day.”
“What?”
“When you came back from Forest Grove. You got into the shower with me. Tasted like chocolate. Then you wanted me to fuck you rough.”
Heat and embarrassment fill my throat. “Dean…”
“What, Liv? Am I wrong?”
I shake my head. He’s not wrong. That is exactly what happened. Exactly what I’d wanted.
“You know…” I swallow hard. “You know you’re the only person I’d ever ask for anything like that.”
“I knew that once. Before you spent the afternoon with another man, then came home and asked me to fuck you.”
“For the love of God, Dean. I cooked! I didn’t engage in foreplay.”
His mouth compresses. “Didn’t you?”
I can’t even respond. He knows better than anyone that foreplay doesn’t have to involve touching. He’s the one who taught me that.
A sudden sense of foreboding fills me, the precipice beginning to crumble beneath my feet.
Dean is silent for a long minute. The air between us stretches thin.
“All right, Liv.” He drags a hand through his hair, his breath expelling in a hard rush. “You can come home. I’ll move out for a while.”
I stare at him. “Wait… what?”
Some of the anger drains from him, but his jaw is tight with tension as he meets my eyes.
“Whatever I’m not giving you is fucking us up,” he says. “If we’re apart, maybe I can figure out what the hell it is.”
My stomach rolls with queasiness.
“We’re… separating?” I have to shove the word past the bile rising in my throat. Separating? Us? “Are you punishing me? Is that what this is about?”
“Why did you leave the other night?” he asks. “Were you punishing me for not telling you about Helen?”
Was I?
“What about counseling?” I ask.
“Would you have told a counselor about this?” He shoves the chef’s jacket with his foot.
I have no idea. The self-admission makes me sick.
Dean’s eyes harden. “We need to stop lying to each other before spilling our guts out to a goddamn counselor.”
“Why do you think separating will help anything?” My fingernails dig into my palms.
“You said it last month. Being together is lousy right now.”
“But we can’t work anything out if we’re not together,” I say. “I’m not… I won’t come home unless you’re there.”
Dean looks at me, his expression unreadable. Then he closes the distance between us. The familiar scent of him, soap and maleness and winter air, floods my senses in a wave. For a second, I think he’s going to touch me, but his hands stay shoved into his pockets. His eyes are shuttered.
“I don’t want to punish you, Liv. But you were right to leave. We need to be apart.”
I feel so brittle, so icy, that I can’t even let the tears fall. I watch through black-edged vision as Dean steps back, his gaze still on me. Then he turns to leave.
The front door clicks shut with a hollow echo. I can only stand there staring at the empty space my husband’s departure has left.
A torrent of memories chokes me. Before Dean, I was so alone, tight like a piece of paper crushed into a ball. With him, my entire being smoothed out, all the secrets cocooned in the pleats of my soul finally opening.
Now I can feel myself crumpling again. Shutting down.
The nausea surges. I make it to the bathroom before I throw up.
Christmas is less than two weeks away. I don’t return home. I can’t stand the thought of being there without Dean.
I send him an email telling him I’ll stay with Kelsey and that he doesn’t have to leave the apartment. He responds with a short “okay” and tells me he’s had snow tires put on my car and will leave it at Kelsey’s the following day.
A week passes, slow and sluggish. My heart aches. I try and ignore it by getting out as much as possible—the Historical Society is putting on holiday tours, so I help out with preparations and decorating. I volunteer at the library and have lunch with Allie a few times at Matilda’s Teapot, which is planning to close for good in February.
Dean and I don’t contact each other. Kelsey says she’s seen him at the university gym several times, but he doesn’t say much to her and declines her offers of racquetball. For once, she hasn’t pushed him to tell her anything else.
She also told me about their kiss, which was one of the few things in the past two weeks that has made me laugh. I could only imagine Dean’s shocked reaction.
I work every day at the Happy Booker, but don’t put all my hours on my time card because I don’t want Allie to think she has to pay me when I’m mostly trying to keep myself busy. During the day, interacting with people and working, I’m able to keep my emotions in check.
But lying in bed alone at night, my mind floods with thoughts and memories of Dean. Several times I find myself reaching for my cell phone, my finger poised over the speed-dial to call him. Somehow I manage to stop myself, even though I want nothing more than to hear his deep voice.
I miss him, of course. I want things to be the way they once were, when we couldn’t wait to touch each other, when our kisses were so warm and easy, when he’d press his mouth to my temple and pull me into the place by his side where I fit perfectly.
I dream about us too, those hot, sexy dreams I used to have after I’d first met him. Except this time I know the breathless truth of those fantasies—I know exactly how his hands feel on my breasts, the taste of his skin, the way his cock pulses heavy and smooth in my palm. I know how our bodies arch together, how his fingers dig into my hips, how his breath heats my neck and his chest rubs against mine.
I wake in the predawn hours, restless and throbbing, and press my fingers between my legs to bring myself to a sharp, hard orgasm. Just as I used to do early on, before the days when I would roll over in bed and encounter his warm, muscular body.
Then I would slide my hand over his chest and down to his half-erect cock, stroke him into full readiness before he was even fully awake. Then I’d move my leg over his thighs to straddle him and ease his shaft into me with one slow glide.
Then I would thrust up and down, arching my body, squeezing and pressing his cock, until his groan broke through the air and his hands clutched my bottom and we both spiraled over the edge in a collision of bliss.
I want him so badly I ache. And worse, I have no idea what will happen now. I don’t know if he’s going to call me, if I should call him, if he thinks we’re done for good. I don’t know how either of us plans to spend Christmas.
“You want to come with me to visit my mother for Christmas?” Kelsey asks one morning at breakfast as she peers at me over her coffee cup.
I must look awful for her to be gazing at me with such sympathy.
“No, thanks.”
“She’ll go all Russian Betty Crocker on you and spoil you rotten with her blinchiki or tea cookies or whatever,” Kelsey cajoles.
I smile. “No, really, but thanks.”
“What’s Professor Marvel doing?”
“I don’t know.” I wonder if Dean will visit his parents in California, but I doubt he’d go with this mess still piled up between us. God knows he’d never explain any of it to his family.
After Kelsey heads off to work, I clean the house and do a load of laundry. I have a day off from both the museum and the bookstore, which means hours of blankness stretch out in front of me.
I drive downtown and park the car. I cast a glance at our apartment as I walk along the snow-encrusted sidewalks bordering Avalon Street. The curtains of our living room are pulled shut, no light shining behind them. The plants on the balcony are withered and frozen, ice piling over the potted soil.
I see Dean as he’s entering a coffeehouse on the corner. My heart jolts at the sight of his tall, familiar figure clad in a black peacoat, his hair ruffled by the cold wind, a scarf winding around his throat.
I watch him through the window as he approaches the counter to order a coffee, then walks to a table where a young, pretty redhead is waiting.
My chest tightens as I recognize his graduate student, Jessica. She smiles at him in greeting and gestures to a chair, and they sit there conversing for a few minutes.
Jealousy surges through me. He’s mine, I think, even as the deepest corner of my soul—the one that knows, even now, the truth of my husband—remembers that Dean would never betray me.
My trust is confirmed when two young men and another woman approach Dean, balancing coffees as they unload their backpacks and laptops onto the table. Soon they’re all immersed in a discussion, exchanging books and papers and scribbling notes into their notebooks.
Part of me wants Dean to look up and see me standing here. I imagine this great, romantic movie moment when our eyes meet and he pushes his chair back and runs out to haul me into his arms.
But he doesn’t. He’s busy talking with his students about their essays and research. He leans forward, listens, looks each person in the eye when he’s speaking. I can almost hear the steady, measured cadence of his voice, underscored by confidence and authority. Even outside of class, he’ll take the time to meet with a group of students and provide whatever help they need. His dedication is boundless.
Just one of the many reasons I will always be in love with him.
The week before Christmas, I arrive at the Epicurean cooking class half an hour before the last class starts. Tyler Wilkes is at his station, getting everything ready for tonight’s demonstration. I watch him for a moment, noticing the confidence of his movements, the way he organizes his knives and pans with purpose. He makes it all seem so easy.
“What’s on the menu, Chef?” I ask.
His head jerks up at the sound of my voice. “Liv!”
“Hi, Tyler.”
He approaches, then stops and glances behind me. “Uh, is your…”
“Dean didn’t come with me. He sends his regards, though.”
“Oh.” He looks perplexed.
I almost smile. “I’m kidding. He won’t bully you again, but… well, he’s not going to mail you a Christmas card either.”
“Understood.” Tyler gives me an abashed grin and clears his throat. “So, hey, I never had a chance to ask you how your hand is. Charlotte’s been emailing us all with updates, so I knew you were okay but… well, I wish I could have contacted you myself.”
“No. I’m glad you didn’t.” Really glad. “I’ll be fine. The doctor is a little concerned about nerve damage, but I guess that can heal in a few months.”
“Good. I was… I was pretty worried. I’m glad you’re okay.”
I reach into my satchel and remove the clean, folded chef’s jacket. “I wanted to return this.”
“Uh, thanks.” He scratches his ear. “So what happened with the class? I’m sorry you couldn’t finish the semester.”
“I talked to Natalie, and she offered me a prorated refund,” I explain. “Or she said I can put the money toward next semester’s class.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know yet.”
Tyler looks at the floor. “Did she tell you I’m not teaching the class next semester?”
“She did.”
“The instructor is a great chef,” Tyler says. “Lila Hampton. She owns two restaurants in Rainwood and one in Chicago. She’s a four-star chef. You’d learn a lot from her.” He pauses, then adds, “I wish you’d take the class again, Liv.”
“You do? Why?”
“You just… I don’t know. You seem to have changed so much since that first day. Kind of… kind of blossomed, you know?” He flushes. “And even though I… well, I guess it’s obvious I’m attracted to you, but even if I wasn’t, I’d be impressed with how you’ve improved. You’ve gained confidence. You should have seen the way your face lit up when you made the perfect soufflé.”
That was a damn good feeling.
“You should take the class again, Liv,” Tyler says. “Not for anyone else. For you.”
“I’ll think about it,” I promise. “And if everything you said is true, then it’s also because of you. You’re a great teacher. I’m glad to have known you.”
He smiles faintly. “That sounds… final.”
“It is. I came to thank you, Tyler.” The tension around my heart loosens a little. “And to say good-bye.”
Tyler nods, rubbing one finger against the counter. “I wish…”
Before he can say more, I step forward and take his hand in mine. “Thank you. I wish you nothing but the best.”
“You too, Liv.”
Our hands tighten for an instant, and then we both let go. I leave the classroom and head through the kitchen store toward the parking lot. Racks of stainless steel pots and pans gleam around me, stacks of white dishes, shiny expensive blenders and mixers.
My breath is easier now, knowing this closure is final. That Tyler Wilkes is in my past.
I stop before a display of baking equipment and pick up a large porcelain dish with fluted edges.
“Can I help you, ma’am?” A salesgirl looks at me expectantly from behind the register.
“Yes,” I say. “I’ll take this, please.”
I walk to the counter and hand her the soufflé dish.