next meal or where she might sleep or how she’d pay her rent. But the stuff that was further up Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs—belonging, love, esteem—was sorely lacking.
Cora went to splash some water on her face. Oh, and she had to get the flour out of her hairline and her ears. It looked like she’d rolled in the damn stuff. No wonder Trent had given her that amused little smirk the second he’d laid eyes on her.
She stared at herself in the mirror. By New York standards, Cora wasn’t exactly a knockout. But she wasn’t unattractive, either. Her best assets were big blue eyes inherited from her father’s side of the family and high cheekbones from her mother’s side. She had pretty decent boobs, if she did say so herself. But her hair…well, there was not much that could be done with it in summer, and it was too damn hot in this house to plug in her flat iron. So, it was scraped back into a poofy blond-brown ponytail for now. Her eyebrows also had a tendency to go from normal to overgrown shrub overnight. And her nose was a little on the big side.
She was…normal. Despite her mother trying to push her to be more, despite the expectations placed on women to look as good as the touched-up photos on Instagram, Cora was totally and utterly normal. Not amazing, not terrible. And after a lifetime of sucking it in and fluffing it out and turning it up, she was happy to be here with a bottle of wine and a cute guy and some yummy food and to just be herself.
In a world selling perfection, it felt almost rebellious.
You’re going to enjoy every single second of this, no matter what comes of it.
She wasn’t going to let herself get tangled up by Trent, she wasn’t going to place any expectation on whether it should or shouldn’t lead anywhere, because that was going to make her stress about how many times she’d been rejected before.
They had plans to eat and drink and enjoy the evening. That was it.
Easy, simple, normal stuff.
“Be cool,” she said to her reflection. “You’re making something out of nothing.”
She stripped off the clothes that she’d been in all day and pulled on a breezy green dress. The fabric was rumpled, because who wanted to iron on their vacation? It was cool against her skin, and with her hair up and away from her neck, the heat felt a little more manageable. At the last minute, she reached for a slender gold necklace.
“The pasta will only take a few minutes,” she said as she walked barefoot through the house, the cool tile a pleasurable contact to her warm skin.
Trent appeared a few minutes later as she was sprinkling salt into the bubbling water on the stove.
“Wow, you went all out.” Trent watched as she grabbed the freshly made pasta.
“I really enjoy cooking, and it’s not something I get to indulge in very often,” she said. “Hardly seems worth the effort for only one person.”
The words slipped out before she had a chance to assess whether they gave too much away. But Trent bobbed his head, a knowing look on his face, and she felt a sense of camaraderie. Maybe he’d been hurt, too.
“Most of the time I eat at the pub or have dinner with whichever one of my siblings is home.” Trent grabbed plates and silverware and set the table.
“What are you planning to do when Liv comes back?” she asked, stirring the pasta with a wooden spoon.
Trent shrugged. “I’m going to build a house, but I haven’t found the right design yet. It’s a big decision.”
“Absolutely.” Cora watched the water bubble away in the pot, her eyes flicking to the timer on the stovetop every few seconds. “But you still have to live somewhere, right? Do you think you’ll stay here until you find a place?”
“You sound like Nick.” Trent nudged her with his elbow and, while the gesture was playful, Cora got the impression she’d hit a nerve.
“It’s a reasonable question, isn’t it?”
“Sure. But I’m not always in search of answers,” he replied with a cavalier lift of one shoulder. “People get too hung up on wanting to know how everything will turn out. If we already knew everything, what would be the point to living? I thought you’d agree with that, what with your caterpillar theory.”
“I think we should embrace the process of changing, but there’s a big difference between being okay