the food?”
“Pretty sure poisoning you would be a violation of the truce. And the law. And I did tell you how much I like the law.”
“Yeah.”
“Nothing fancy,” she said. “Grilled cheese.”
Her sister Iris was an accomplished cook, but Pansy had not followed in those particular footsteps.
“Why do you love law and order so much?”
He got back down on the ground, tools in hand, getting ready to attack the disposal again.
“My dad,” she said, finding it easier to tell the story while she busied herself getting cheese and bread out of the cabinet and fridge. She grabbed the block of butter off the counter—something Iris said made her a heathen, keeping her butter out of the fridge, but she found it convenient, since it meant that it was always soft.
And she was always running late in the morning and she wanted immediate butter on her toast, not to struggle and tear the bread. Same went for grilled cheese.
“I see,” he said.
“Yeah.” She had a feeling he did see all too easily. “He was the police chief.”
“Right.”
He was the police chief. And she knew that of all his children he’d have thought her the least likely to follow in his footsteps.
That she’d be the last one to take on his values, to put on the uniform he’d once worn and dedicate herself to the service of others.
So she’d become the one to do it.
“I just...” She spread some butter over the bread, and put cheese slices on it. And strangely, she felt her throat get tight. She didn’t usually...she didn’t usually get emotional about this. Not anymore. “I like feeling close to him. And I was young when he died. I didn’t feel like we had as much in common as I would’ve liked. This makes me feel like we do. And can.”
It was an abbreviated version of the truth. Close enough to it, anyway. Something that everyone understood.
The rest of it... That was a lot harder.
She put the first grilled cheese in the pan, and let it start to brown. Then she flipped it, waited for the cheese to melt and stuck it on a paper plate. “There you go,” she said. “There’s a beer in the fridge.”
He got up off the ground again, wiped his hands on the rag. Then he took the plate, and followed her instructions to acquire a beer.
She finished grilling her own sandwich, and then got herself a beer.
She wasn’t a big drinker. But her dad had always gotten himself a beer after work. It was one of her enduring memories of him. He would come home, start talking to their mom. His voice and laughter ringing out of the house. And he would pop the top on his beer, and go sit down in the living room. It was a strange, homey thing.
A sound that made her happy.
“I thought you didn’t drink,” he said.
“No, I said I didn’t want a beer at your place last night. I did have one. When I went home. I only drink one a night.”
“Why is that?”
She shrugged. “I don’t drink to be affected by it.”
He looked at her as if she had grown a second head. “That’s the point of it.”
“Not for me. I don’t like feeling out of control.”
She took a sip of her beer. He was looking at her still, his eyes seemingly glued to her lips. She didn’t like it.
It made her feel jittery.
He shrugged, and lifted his own beer to his lips, and she couldn’t help but look at his mouth when he took a drink. Strange, because she would have said that she had no interest in looking at a man’s mouth.
But he really was incredibly handsome, and his mouth was very interesting indeed.
She tried to breathe past the tightness in her chest, but found it difficult. Suddenly, he stuffed the last half of his sandwich into his mouth. Then took a swig of his beer. “Okay. I’m going to get finished up. Just a couple more adjustments and you should be good to go.”
He got down under the sink and finished. Then he flicked the light switch just there and the great beast roared to life.
“Good as new,” he said. He picked the beer up off the counter. “I’ll get out of your hair.”
She blinked, not sure why he had suddenly decided to finish and get out of here now, when he had clearly been a minute away from finishing the whole time, and could have just done so and gone home earlier.
“I...