Page 41 of For the Record
Sounds great, I’ll see you soon.
Rachel: Oh, we don’t have anything to drink other than water, so maybe stop and grab something if you want?
Of course.
“You know?” Crew finished his tangent, and I looked up.
I nodded, despite my confusion over his entire argument about the girl and stood as I pocketed my phone. “Rachel’s home. I should go.”
Crew leaned back in his seat, his arms resting behind his head. “Ah, the honeymoon phase. Go on. I’ll be here basking in my bachelor life.”
I looked around at his living room. The discarded clothes and empty beer cans were a clear indication that he was, indeed, a bachelor. “Yup.” I nodded before heading straight to my car.
Homemade pasta and garlic bread. I was getting spoiled by this girl.
I had no idea how much I loved sourdough bread until she moved in. She made two loaves a week, but I wish it was four. I’d never been a carb guy. I’d always stuck to a strict diet and didn’t deter from it unless Mom was forcing me to eat her coconut cake. But when I came home to my house smelling of flour, honey, and butter, how was I supposed to resist? I was going to end up a hundred pounds heavier by the end of this arrangement, and I wasn’t even going to complain.
Even harder to resist was Rachel in my kitchen, wearing a short floral dress that swirled around her thighs and an apron tied around her waist while dancing in circles to “Hey Jude.” She’d see me come in and lean against the doorframe, watching, and she’d smile, spinning around faster, as if my presence made her want to dance more. An impossibly bright light in my cold house. A wildflower surrounded by weeds. I never knew how badly I needed that, how I had been stuck in survival mode without her. It made me wonder how many years I’d been stuck in that cycle, head stuck so far in the sand I couldn’t even appreciate my surroundings for what they were.
I connected my phone to the console, reaching for the playlist she’d made for me years ago and putting it on shuffle. Maybe it was pathetic to keep listening to it. Probably something my work friends or brothers would scoff at if they knew. But I couldn’t seem to give it up. It was the first piece of herself that she’d given me. That meant something, right? Even if it didn’t, it had gotten me through some rough nights in the past, and I wasn’t ready to give it up yet.
A couple of miles down from the house, I stopped at a corner store for a few drinks. I went to the back and looked at the long line of wines, not knowing anything about how they worked or what they paired with. Rachel was the most high-maintenance woman I’d met. She said so herself. She carried herself like royalty. I would assume that meant she probably knew something about wine and how much of an idiot was I going to look like when I pulled up to the house with some cheap fermented off-brand grape juice.
I did a quick Google search. What wine goes with pasta? I looked over the results, which made me even more confused, so I settled on the most expensive one. If she didn’t like it, I’d just come back.
Checking out at the front, an older man scanned the wine. Behind him was a box full of premade flower bouquets.
She liked flowers, right? Always wore flower-print dresses. Had them on her phone’s wallpaper and whatnot.
My eyes glanced down at the price. Assorted flower bouquet - $9.99.
I’d never bought flowers for a girl before. Never felt the need to. Hadn’t gone to prom or anything in high school, and the couple of girlfriends I’d had over the years didn’t seem to care for it. Or maybe I was just an ass and didn’t know it. It never really crossed my mind to buy them for any girl.
“Is this it for you?” the older man asked with a shaky voice.
I glanced at the flowers once more, feeling every kind of conviction to buy them. Imagining her wrapping her hands around them, dipping her nose in to smell them, and pulling them to her chest with that pretty smile I liked so much. My heart began to thud against my chest.
“One of the bouquets too.” I pointed behind the older man. It wasn’t like it had to be some kind of romantic gesture. Just a husband buying flowers for his wife.
Consider it a congrats you made it through three weeks of living with my grumpy ass present.
“Smart man,” the cashier laughed and then coughed into his elbow, reaching for the bouquet behind him filled with pink, orange, and light purple blossoms. “Happy wife, happy life.”
I nodded along, giving a grateful smile to the man. For once I did feel like I was living a happy life. A real one, right alongside her.
Walking into my house, my knees nearly gave out. It smelled of comfort itself. Like butter and Italian seasoning and a warm hug. Like when you were a kid, your mom had been cooking all afternoon and you were coming in after a long day of rolling around in dirt.
Rachel had her back turned toward me as she leaned down to take the bread out of the oven. “How was your day?” she asked without looking up.
She wasn’t in a dress today. Probably a good thing, considering she was bent over in front of me. But she was in her pajamas with little bows on them, the tiniest tank top straps that bared her shoulder to me. Even her pajamas were cute. Her hair was pulled back into one of those claw things that freaked me out but she seemed to love so I never say anything about them.
I looked down at the flowers in my hand, at the blooms falling out of place. “Uh, good.”
Waves of doubt rushed over me. She wasn’t making dinner for this to be some kind of date. The bouquet I’d gotten her wasn’t even that nice. Some flowers were like a hundred dollars. She wasn’t going to want some insignificant dyed daisies that looked like a Mother’s Day gift from a child.
What was I thinking?
For a brief moment, I pictured myself throwing the flowers out the window. I’d come back out and throw them into the trash tonight after she went to sleep, and she wouldn’t even notice. But I’d gotten them for her…thought she would like them. Thought the pink in them reminded me of those heels she’d worn the other day and how they had been stepping around in my mind all day.