Page 47 of After The Storm
Kate stood in front of the burner stirring the oil, butter, and garlic together in the pan, so he leaned over her and placed the bottle of red pepper next to the stove. She smiled at him and returned her attention to cooking, but he remained behind her just watching and enjoying the delicious scent of the meal as it filled the air.
After a minute, she looked back at him and smiled again. “Is something wrong? Why are you standing back there? Come around and sit on the other side of the island so we can talk like normal people do in the kitchen.”
Is that what normal people did? He honestly didn’t know anymore. He’d been on his own for so long that the kitchen was now merely the room that contained food of some sort and appliances to heat it up. Even at the estate he strove to be alone as much as possible, including meals.
Not that he’d found a lot of success in that recently.
Taking his seat again across from where she stood cooking, he watched her as she added the shrimp to the garlic mixture and stirred them around the pan for a few seconds before disappearing from sight to search the cabinet below. She popped back up a moment later with a large pan and filled it with water before putting it onto the burner to boil.
“Do me a favor and open the box of angel hair, okay?”
He did as she asked and handed it to her. “Here you go.”
Twisting her face, she studied him for a second before saying, “You look like a big pasta eater. A man your size needs a lot of food, I’m guessing. I think I’ll do the whole box.”
“What are you going to eat?” he joked.
Her face lit up with a smile. “I’ll keep a few strands for myself. So since we’re to the point where we can kid with one another, why don’t you tell me something about yourself, just Roman?” she asked, resurrecting the nickname she’d given him back at the fleabag motel when he wouldn’t tell her his full name.
Avoiding her gaze, he quietly said what he believed to be the truth. “There’s nothing to tell. I was a Ranger—am a Ranger—and now I work for Project Artemis watching women make shrimp scampi.”
Kate rolled her eyes. “I knew there was a sense of humor underneath all that seriousness, but there’s got to be more to you than your job for the past decade or so. What were you like as a kid? I bet you were all into sports and stuff like that, weren’t you?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know. Not so much. Just football and baseball.”
His answer made her stop stirring. “Not much? That’s two of the biggest sports. Did you play both in high school?”
“Yeah.”
The water in the pot began boiling, so she poured the angel hair into the bubbling water. “Yeah. So you played two huge sports in high school, which probably took up most of the school year. But you didn’t play much sports. I don’t get you, Roman. You don’t have to be so humble all the time. You were probably a BMOC and didn’t even know it.”
“BMOC?” he asked, repeating the letters she’d just said. “What’s that?”
As she turned off the heat on the skillet, she explained, “It means big man on campus. BMOC. I guess most people would say you were a BFD—a big fucking deal. Either way, I’m guessing it was a case of the girls wanting to be with you and the guys wanting to be like you.”
She had no idea how wrong her assessment of his high school days was. True, he had shined in sports and those years weren’t filled with teenage angst and misery like so many people’s were. But that was mainly because he’d kept to himself most of the time.
Kate waved the spatula in the air, as if she’d read his mind and didn’t believe he hadn’t been a BFD or a BMOC back then. “Let me guess. You don’t think you were, but if I met people you went to high school with, they’d treat you like some kind of minor royalty if they saw you again.”
“You done?”
The smile faded from her face. “I wasn’t trying to make fun of you or anything, Roman. I just wondered if you were a superstar back then.”
She turned her attention to the food and turned off the burner under the pasta pan. Taking a spoonful of pasta water, she dumped it into the skillet with the shrimp and then drained the angel hair. A minute later, he had a plate of shrimp scampi with angel hair pasta and a glass of white wine in front of him.
“Dinner is served,” she said, forcing a smile.
Roman didn’t want to cut off the conversation like he did. He never meant to stop things like that. He just always did. All that time alone had made him pretty bad at interacting with others.
He took a bite of the meal she’d made and couldn’t believe how incredible it tasted. With only a few items, she’d whipped up a shrimp scampi better than any he could ever remember having.
“This is delicious, Kate. You outdid yourself with this.”
She beamed at his compliment. “It’s nothing. Well, it’s my world famous shrimp scampi, but I’m trying to follow your example and being humble.”
Raising his glass, Roman made a toast to this woman. In the short time they’d been around each other, she’d injured him, nearly driven him crazy, and made him want more for the first time with a client.
“To Kate and her meal—both incredible.”