Page 53 of Cut Off
“Yeah. With no bra. That drives him wild.” She breathes out. “Okay.”
“I love you.”
“Love you.”
She hangs up. I sit on the step for one more second, looking at the perfect sky over Jonah’s perfect yard, and I wonder if Brittany might be right this time.
Inside, Jonah’s already at the sink with his sleeves shoved to the elbow, wrist-deep in soapy water, and the kitchen smells like Claire’s coleslaw, lemon dish soap, and the warm scent of a house with people in it.
“Eli just lapped my dad three times in a row. Dad’s blaming the controller,” Jonah reports without turning.
“I knew Tom was bad, but not this bad.”
“My father’s never played one video game before. In his life.”
“Ah.” I grab a dish towel and start drying. We work in a rhythm. Wash, rinse, hand to me, dry, stack. He’s standing at the sink, and I’m standing at his elbow, and every time he hands me a plate, his fingers brush mine, and neither of us flinches, and neither of us mentions it, and the kitchen is quiet underneath the distant sound of Tom Holt swearing creatively at a banana peel.
“Maddie,” I say, halfway through the pile.
“Hmm?”
“My sister. She’s worried she’s about to get dumped by her fiancé.”
“That sounds bad.”
“Yeah. I mean, maybe it’s good. She can do better.” I bump my hip against his. “Move over, you’re hogging the sink.”
He moves over by approximately one inch.
I dry a serving spoon. My ears are warm.
“They’re good with him,” Jonah says, quieter. “My parents.”
“They’re amazing. Like they are with everyone.”
“They were good with you.”
“They saved my sanity,” I say before I think about it. I keep going. “Three years ago, my parents forgot my birthday. Again. Except this time we had a blowout fight. I was just… exhausted of being overlooked. The focus was always on my younger siblings, and I’d just had it. So I showed up at your parents’ house thinking Syd was there because it was time for Sunday dinner.”
“Right, she never misses that.”
“Exactly, except this Sunday she was out of town. Your mom fed me lasagna at the kitchen counter, and your dad lost three games of Yahtzee on purpose so I could feel like a winner. It was exactly what I needed.”
Jonah’s hands have gone still in the water.
“They never told me that,” he says.
“That doesn’t surprise me.” I shrug. “My parents came around and apologized, eventually. But they haven’t really changed, by the way.”
He looks at me. Soap on his forearms. Hair flopping over his forehead because it’s grown out a little, and he hasn’t had time to deal with it. This is a man who has no agenda with his looks, which is the most dangerous kind.
I look back at him.
“Spices,” I say because someone needs to say something. “Your mom wanted to borrow your paprika. It’s in the pantry. Top shelf. You’re tall; I’m not. Come on.”
We dry our hands and go.
The walk-in pantry in this house is an embarrassment of square footage.
