When in Rome(47)

“With what? Gasoline?”

“Stop it.” She swats my chest with the back of her knuckles. At the same time, we both realize she’s just made contact with my bare chest. Her eyes drop and her voice softens, making me feel like she just doused me in lighter fluid and struck a match. “It was…” She swallows. “The butter in the pan. I must have left it in there too long.”

I feel exposed. I would not have come out here without my shirt on if I didn’t think my house was about to burn down to the ground. But here I am, standing in the kitchen with Amelia in my jeans and no shirt. Her eyes are eating up every inch of my bare skin. They linger heavily over my left rib cage where my only tattoo lives. It’s a pie nestled in a bouquet of flowers. Most people would think it’s a ridiculous tattoo to have, but Amelia sees it and her smile says, I knew you were obsessed with flowers. And now I feel doubly exposed because not only is she seeing my skin, she’s seeing my…damn, there’s no less sappy way to put it, she’s seeing my heart.

I step away and turn off the sink faucet so I can give myself a mental shake. Next, I survey the mess on my counter. It looks like a flour bomb activated in here. “So was this all an act to get me to feel sorry for you and teach you my pancake recipe?”

Amelia is near me in the kitchen again, and I swear I can’t get away from her even though I’m trying my damnedest to. “First of all, rude. I tried really hard to make these, but I couldn’t remember any of your measurements, and you don’t have internet so I couldn’t research a recipe. But! Before I added the second bit of butter to the pan, I made this whole batch!” Her voice is so proud and full of excitement that I have to clamp down on a smile.

“You’ve never made pancakes before?”

“Nope,” she says happily.

“Never?”

“Never.”

“Not even before you got into music?” I ask in a skeptical tone.

Amelia taps her finger to her lips giving the question a second thought. “Oh wait, yes.”

“So you have?”

She rolls her eyes lightly. “No, Noah! I haven’t. Ask me a hundred different ways. The answer will still be no. My mom was a terrible cook, so we usually just ate cereal or threw a bagel in the toaster for breakfast. I only ate pancakes when we’d go out on Saturday mornings to a restaurant. And before you ask, I have no idea if my dad is a good cook or not because he abandoned us when my mom got pregnant. So, would you like to keep asking me questions that remind me of my fractured relationship with my parents or try my pancakes?”

Hello, foot, meet mouth. I am such an ass. But also, I can’t help but love the way she bites back at me. Every day she seems to be coming out of her shell more and more, and I enjoy it that much more, too. It’s really becoming a problem.

“Point me to the pancakes.”

Amelia comes up beside me, arm brushing my abdomen as she reaches in front of me to lift a sheet of aluminum foil off a stack of pancakes. My stomach clenches and I press myself back against the counter to evade her touch. It’s like the game I used to play as a kid, the Floor Is Lava, except this time the game is called the Woman Is Lava. I can’t touch her or I’ll burn.

Amelia’s hair is down and long again today, looking wavy and wild around her. She’s still wearing my pajama set, but thankfully this time she’s wearing the baggy button-up shirt, too. For some reason, I love that her eyes are a little puffy from sleeping, and her cheeks are pink. I’ve never met a prettier woman.

Her pancakes on the other hand…

I squint down at them. “Did you add cocoa powder to these?”

“No.” She presses her lips together while poking the top pancake with a fork. “I think they might have gotten a little too done.”

“Just a little,” I say dryly, and this earns me a light elbow to the ribs.

And based on the fact that they have the texture of a wall, I’d say she used too much flour.

There’s nothing in me that wants to try one of these pancakes, but she looks so proud of herself for making something from scratch that I can’t help but take the fork from her hand, move a pancake from the plate, and cut off a sliver. Cut is maybe too generous of a word. More like I break off a chunk of the pancake. Amelia watches me closely as I raise the bite to my mouth. The second it hits my tongue, my body revolts and begs me to spit it out. But her eyes are lighting up and an excited smile is tugging her raspberry lips, so I keep chewing slowly and trying to think of anything nice I can say about her nasty creation.

“So? How are they?” She clasps her hands together under her chin. She’s a kid on her birthday waiting for her present.

I swallow the bite. “Oh, they’re shit.” Yeah, I couldn’t think of anything nice. “Like really, they’re bad. What the hell did you put in these?” I say, with a chuckle running through my voice as I try to bounce away from the dish towel she’s attempting to pop me with.

“Would it kill you to be nice?” She’s laughing, too, and chasing after me with that damn towel. The edge of it licks me on the back once and it’s for sure going to leave a mark.

I grab a pot and hold it in front of me as a shield. “You didn’t let me finish! I was going to say…but they’re your shitty pancakes that you made yourself, and for that, you should be so proud!”