Passion on Park Avenue (Central Park Pact #1)(48)

“I used to. Not a lot, but in my midtwenties I got it in my head that I could be a pretty hot commodity on the dating market if I knew my way around the kitchen.”

“You’d be right,” she said. “So what happened?”

“Hmm?” He picked up the spoon and stirred the pasta sauce.

“You said you used to cook. You don’t anymore?”

A shadow passed over his face. “My mom got sick, and all my attention went to that. Then she passed. Then my dad got sick . . .” He gave a rueful shrug. “Pity party, I know.”

“A justified one,” Naomi said, turning to face him. “So did it work?” she asked. “Your grand plan of setting yourself apart on the dating scene by cooking?”

“Eventually. I made a couple of judgment errors early on.”

“Such as?”

“Such as shrimp scampi, while delicious, has copious amounts of garlic, which doesn’t necessarily make for the most amorous scenario. Also, I spent a hell of a lot of time perfecting a ragu with fettuccine before realizing that it’s damn hard to look sexy with noodles hanging from one’s mouth.”

“Well then, prepare to be thoroughly unseduced,” Naomi said, nodding toward the pot of boiling spaghetti.

For a moment Oliver’s eyes seemed to heat as they drifted over her, and foolishly Naomi wished she’d made something sexier for dinner. Something fancy and easy to eat, like seared scallops, or a cheese plate, or any sort of pasta that didn’t have to be twirled, or . . .

Nope. No. She was not going to start thinking about Oliver and sexy in the same sentence. Okay fine. She wasn’t going to continue thinking about him that way.

“Plates,” she blurted out, pointing at her cupboard. “If you can get plates, this will be ready in just a minute.”

Oliver gave her a knowing smirk as he set his wineglass aside. “Doesn’t get more friend-zoned than being ordered to set the table.”

“What if I added please?” Naomi asked. “Then it’s a request, not an order.”

“True,” he said, pulling down two plates. “But still friend-zone.”

“Better than enemy-zone, Ollie,” she said, dropping his childhood nickname she distinctly remembered him hating.

He went still, his eyes flickering as though with a memory, and for a second she froze, wondering if this would be it. The moment when Oliver reconciled nine-year-old Naomi Fields with twenty-nine-year-old Naomi Powell.

Instead he gave her a vaguely menacing stare. “I’m not answering to that.”

“What, Ollie?” she asked innocently. “It suits you.”

“Keep it up, and I’ll have to think of a nickname for you,” he said, setting the plates on the table.

You already have. Carrots.

“Did you ever watch Anne of Green Gables?” she blurted, and lifted out a strand of spaghetti to test the doneness.

“Sure, all the time. I used to have the guys over to my dorm room in college, and we’d just watch the hell out of it.”

Naomi gave a choked laugh at his sarcasm, even as she fanned her mouth at the too-hot pasta. “So that’s a no, then.”

“That’s a definite no. Never heard of it. Why?”

Naomi set a colander into the sink to drain the pasta. It’s a book, turned into a movie, about a redheaded girl and a little twerp of a boy named Gilbert Blythe, who used to torment her with the nickname Carrots.

“Nothing. Never mind,” she said, mixing the pasta with the sauce and bringing the serving dish to the table.

She looked up in surprise as he pulled out her chair for her. “Pretty manners, Ollie.”

“Had to do something to make up for the loss of my cooking skills. Figured I might as well learn how to be a gentleman.”

“You really never cook anymore?” she asked as he sat, reaching for the pasta bowl.

“No time,” he said, setting the napkin in his lap and taking a sip of wine.

Naomi reached over and dumped pasta on his plate. “To cook, or to date?”

She looked up at him when he didn’t reply, and he gave her a crooked smile, sitting back in his chair. “Is that your subtle way of asking if I’m seeing anyone?”

“Whatever gave you the impression that I’m subtle?”

He laughed. “Good point. But to answer your question, I date about as often as I cook these days, which is . . . well, let’s just say it’s been a while.”

Naomi sprinkled a liberal amount of cheese on her plate and pushed the container toward him. “Intentional? Or just the result of circumstances?”

“The latter. Alzheimer’s is sort of a twenty-four-seven situation. Janice already watches Dad nine to five and during any after-hours work functions. I can’t ask her to do it for social engagements as well—the woman would never get any time off.”

Naomi started to reply, then thought better of it, eating a mouthful of pasta instead. Oliver was giving her a knowing look. “Self-censoring looks physically painful for you. Spit it out.”

She set her fork aside and picked up her wine. “All right then. I was going to say that I understand. Really I do. But are you sure that’s sustainable?”

He shrugged. “What are my options? He’s my dad.”