Tempted

I moved to peer over his shoulder. The butter now had dark brown swirls that got larger and larger as Alex added more chocolate chips. After a few more moments the mix was a gooey, velvety liquid.

“Beautiful,” I murmured, not really meaning to speak, and he looked up at me.

This time I didn’t feel like he’d snared me with his gaze. I wasn’t prey. He assessed me, then turned back to the thickening batter.

“Is everything else ready?”

“Yes.”

I gathered the rest of the ingredients. Together we mixed and poured and scraped the bowl with my serviceable white spatula that was guaranteed not to crack or stain. The brownie mix smelled liked heaven and filled the baking pan exactly the way it was supposed to.

“Perfect,” I said, and slid it into the oven. “Thank you.”

“And of course it has to be perfect, right?” Alex leaned against the island, hands gripping the edge so his elbows bent akimbo.

I wiped my hands on the dishcloth and started putting utensils into the sink. “It’s nice if it is, isn’t it?”

“Even a flawed brownie still tastes damn good.” He watched me clean without offering to help.

I paused, mixing bowl in my hand. “Depends on the flaw. I mean, if it’s too dry or crumbly, it might not look right but will taste good. Or if the ingredients are wrong it can look perfect on the outside and taste terrible.”

“Exactly.”

I wondered if he’d been baiting me to say something he’d been thinking. “Well. They looked perfect. Unless they burn.”

“They won’t burn.”

“But they might not taste good, either?” I laughed at him. “Is that what you’re saying?”

“You never know, do you?” He shrugged and gave me an upward, sideways, roundabout glance.

Teasing. He was teasing me, judging me. Trying to draw me out. Trying to feel me out. Figure me out.

“I guess we’d better taste it then.” I held out the bowl. “You go first.”

Alex raised a brow and pursed his lips, but pushed himself off the island and held out a hand. “In case they’re vile?”

“A good hostess always allows her guests to have the first portion,” I said sweetly.

“A perfect hostess makes sure everything’s grand before she serves it,” Alex countered, but he scooped a finger along the bowl’s side. It came away smeared with chocolate.

He raised his finger, showing me. Being theatrical. He opened his mouth, tongue showing intimately pink. He put his finger in his mouth and closed his lips over it, sucking hard enough to hollow his cheeks before his finger popped out with an audible noise.

He said nothing.

“Well?” I asked, after a moment.

He grinned. “Perfect.”

That was enough incentive for me. I slid my finger along the small amount of batter left in the bowl and licked it with the tip of my tongue.

“Coward.”

“Fine.” I stuck the whole thing in my mouth and sucked as hard as he had, making a show of it. “Mmmm, that’s good!”

“Brownies fit for a queen.”

“Or James’s mother,” I said and immediately covered my mouth to pretend I hadn’t said anything so remotely derogatory.

“Even her.”

We smiled at each other again, drawn together by our mutual understanding about what sort of person James’s mother was.

“Well …” I cleared my throat. “I should go change my clothes and take a shower. And show you to your room. It’s clean and ready, I just have to bring you some towels.”

“I don’t want you to go to a lot of trouble.”

“It’s not any trouble, Alex.”

“Perfect,” he said, not quite a whisper and not really a sigh, either.

Neither of us moved.

I realized my fingers were numb from clutching the bowl too hard. I loosened my grip at once and put it in the sink. I had chocolate on my fingers from the bowl’s edges and I laughed, gesturing.

“What a mess.” I licked them, the pointer, middle, thumb. “I’m chocolate all over.”

“You have some just … there.”

Alex’s thumb traced the outer edge of my mouth’s corner. I tasted chocolate. I tasted him.

That was how James found us, touching. An innocent gesture that meant nothing, yet I backed away at once. Alex did not.

“Jamie,” he said, instead. “How the fuck’ve you been?”

They collapsed into a flurry of backslapping and insults. Two grown men reverted to the behavior of fourteen-year-old boys in front of my eyes, both of them rumbling and posturing. Alex grabbed James around the neck and knuckled his hair until James stood up, face flushed and eyes bright with laughter.

I left them like that, to their greeting. I crept away down the hall and into the shower, where I ran the water cold as ice and stood beneath the spray, mouth open, to wash away the taste of my husband’s long-lost best friend.

Mrs. Kinney often looks as though she’s smelling something bad but is too polite to say so. I’m used to it being directed at me, that carefully curled lip, those delicately flaring nostrils. I assumed it was meant for me this time, too, until I saw how her eyes had focused over my shoulder.

I had intended to nod and smile but not really listen to her commentary on the dinner, how it was being prepared, how much to serve, where everyone should sit. So when she stopped, stuttered, actually, like a wind-up doll whose key has rusted, I turned to follow her gaze with mine.

“Hi, Mrs. Kinney.” Alex had showered, too, and changed into a pair of black trousers and a silk shirt that should have looked too dressy but didn’t. Smiling, he came forward for the sort of hug and kiss to the cheek she insisted on giving me every time we saw each other, though I hate casual embraces.

“Alex.” Her reply was as stiff as her back, but she inclined her head to accept the peck he put on it. “We haven’t seen you in a while.”

Her tone clearly said he hadn’t been missed. Alex didn’t seem offended. He merely shook Frank’s hand and waved at Margaret and Molly.