She wanted to say that of course she locked her door except for those times when she was expecting company, but that made it seem like she had company often, which she didn’t. So she ignored the comment and summoned him into the kitchen.
“What is happening in here?” He prefaced the question with an appreciative sound that she took at first to be a comment on her, but then he rubbed his hands together as if someone tied a napkin around his neck and presented him with a plate of ribs. “Coffee?”
“Right there.” Though the kitchen was so small he couldn’t miss it.
“I am so glad to see that you are a good old-fashioned Mr. Coffee girl. Keurigs are ruining the world.”
“Right? It’s my own blend, so I hope you like it. And I have other creamers in the fridge, I think.”
“I’m good, thanks. Take it straight.”
He filled the SeaWorld souvenir mug she handed him and took a sip, his eyes popping with appreciation before taking another.
“That is really, really good.” He was talking at a rate that made him sound like he was already three cups in, but then Dini realized he might be nervous too, given…everything that happened the night before. As a kindness, and a chance to keep them both distracted, she instructed him to wash his hands and take up the task of rolling out the tortillas while she manned the stove.
“You’ve used a rolling pin before?”
“It’s my job when we have biscuits for Saturday morning big family breakfast. So, yeah.”
“Same principle. Pressure, but gentle. You want to spread them out but not flatten them.” She watched, approving, before jumping in. “So, what’s the big conclusion you hit upon last night?”
“Nope,” he said, not looking up from his task. “No important talk before we eat, right?”
“You remember that?”
He paused in his rolling. “I remember everything.” A beat or two fell between them, and if he was remembering the same moments, they might have chosen to stay embedded in that silence. “I never knew,” he said, finally breaking the spell. “I mean, didn’t really know anyone made their own tortillas.”
Nudged into motion, she put the newly cooked tortilla on the stack of finished ones and dropped a fresh one on the pan. “I had a stretch of time between gigs last winter, so I took a two-week Mexican cooking class. It’s perfect for someone like me who loves the food but hates to drive.” She approved his work, and he set out to roll the next.
“So, tell me about this house. This kitchen? It looks like you should be wearing a little apron and pearls. Is everything original?”
“All but the fridge. Either original or replicas. It’s been in the family for generations—like Carmichael’s, I guess. I was only sixteen when my parents died, and I inherited it. It was still in good shape, but we didn’t live here much of the time, you know? It was a stopover place. So, until I could take full possession—I was in the hospital for, like, six weeks, then Arya fostered me—we found a guy who was a professional handyman-slash-restorer who did all the work in exchange for living here rent-free. Labor of love—for the house, I mean. And it got Arya interested in real estate. Every year for my birthday she presents me with the tax assessment and offers to get me a million dollars so I can buy a condo downtown and hang out with the cool kids.”
“This isn’t a cool kid neighborhood?”
“Not really. More older people, like my parents would have been. But I don’t want to sell anytime soon. I own this. The title was transferred to Arya while I was a minor, and we’ve kept it that way, but it’s truly mine.”
“It’s a great investment.”
“It’s a home. When I was little, I never wanted to leave. I felt like I was on some old TV show when we were here.”
He twisted his neck, looking around. “I can see that.”
“I’ll give you the grand tour after breakfast. Plot twist, you can do the whole tour from the living room.”
They worked together for a while after that in a silence that was far more comfortable than the initial coffee conversation. Dini stole the occasional look at his forearms, thinking she’d never known that to be a sexy part of a man’s body, but nearly jumped away when he caught her eye as if she’d been peeping at him through a window. For her part