Page 10 of Penn
“Thank you.” She takes off her hat, hanging it up on a hook by the door. “I’ll have to wear these from now on whenever I’m outside, even if it isn’t a super sunny day.” She shrugs.
“It’s cute on you.”
“Thanks. Wow, your place is really nice.”
She’s being sweet. My place is okay. It’s a place to come home to, but it isn’t quite home. There’s always been something missing, even knowing it’s not my permanent, forever house or anything. With Hearth here, it’s already somehow brighter, fuller.
“There’s two ribeye and some vegetables and jasmine rice and potatoes, I wasn’t sure which of the starches you would prefer.”
“Either, whatever you like,” I tell her as I take the bags into the kitchen, and she follows me in. “I can grill these up for us outside.” I take out the two perfect-looking ribeye. One thing about her, she definitely knows how to shop for good meat.
“What, no. I told you I was going to cook for you.” Hearth sidles past me with confidence and immediately takes over, dipping down low to peer into all the cabinets. She opens and shuts a few, then takes out a cast iron and sets it on the stove. “Besides it’s kind of cold outside. This’ll be perfect.” She spins around to face me. “You don’t mind do you?”
My grin is huge, and not just from watching her commandeer my kitchen like this. “Not even one little bit,” I say, backing off.
She smiles, amused, or victorious, maybe both. “Let’s do rice? It’s easier. I make it really good though.”
“Sounds excellent, babe.” My muscles tense up as the word slips out, but she keeps moving seemingly unfazed, like she didn’t hear it or she refuses to be affected.
Did I just say ‘babe’? I haven’t called anyone babe since, well, never. Relationships are a distraction I’ve never been super interested in until I met Hearth. I can’t fucking explain the shift, but it’s real. It’sfelt. Like I’d been holding my breath for too long and finally got to let it out. That exhaled, calmative release. That’s what it was to meet Hearth.
When the rice comes to a gentle boil, she lowers the heat and covers it. “I can’t believe how hot it was just…three months ago? Seems like two weeks ago.”
“I can put a fire on if you’re chilly?” I offer.
“No, it’s nice in here.” She looks over at me, smiling. “Cozy.”
That reminds me. “I have a bottle of sauvignon blanc if you’d like?” I make a face after I say it. “Er, sorry, I probably totally screwed up the pronunciation of that.”
“You didn’t but…you don’t strike me as a white-wine-with-steak kind of guy?”
I shrug. “I’m not usually. Thought I saw you drinking it that night.”
“I wasn’t drunk,” she says defensively. “That’s not why it happened.”
“I know. I just…noticed it. I can’t help it, I’m kind of trained to notice things.”
“And you just, remembered?” This time it’s her turn to make a face.
“Yeah,” I tell her. “Would you like a glass with dinner?”
“I’d love a glass with dinner. And one now,” she says, her shoulders relaxing again, and a smile in her eyes that feels like a small victory.
“Coming right up.”
I pour her a glass, and then one for me.Red wine with steak, white wine with fish—everyone knows that. Or there’s always beer. Beer is less complicated. Beer goes with anything. Am I questioning if I’m already pussy-whipped as I take my first slow sip of the white? Yes. And I am also answering it.Yes.
Maybe we’re a perfect pair.
Or maybe we go to together like white wine and steak.
Fire and water.
HearthandPenn. The writer who hides her writing and the fireman who has helped to put out one single fire.
Doesn’t matter, because one sure thing is I’ll do whatever she wants. I know it right here right now, looking at Hearth as she takes over my kitchen like it’s hers—that woman right there, she can call all the shots she wants.Nois no longer in my vocabulary when it comes to her.
Somehow, the rice starts to give off a buttery, sweet smell as it cooks, and the garlic and pepper fill the air as she sautés the veggies while the cast iron heats up. Jesus, she hasn’t even started the ribeye and my mouth is already watering.