An Optimist's Guide to Heartbreak (Heartsong #1)(65)

Just like he has right now.

Curling my fingers around his stiff bicep, I gently pull him forward, toward the kitchen. He relaxes beneath my touch. “Come on. You’re making pumpkin ravioli with me.”

“Am I?”

“Yep. I don’t eat turkey, so that’s my main dish. Mom prepped the dough this morning, so I left you the fun part of turning it into raviolis while I whip up the sage-butter sauce.”

“Sounds fancy. You make it all from scratch?” He glances down at me, one side of his mouth tilted up as we stroll through the foyer, still arm-in-arm.

“Does that surprise you?” My tone is flirtatious, my flash of teeth doing nothing to counter it.

His grin widens, just marginally. “I can’t promise my raviolis will be up to your standards, but I’m willing to be put to work.”

Warm candlelight and soft music greet us as we amble into the open kitchen. Mom has her back turned while she scrubs a dinner plate beneath the faucet, humming along to the Christmas music she always turns on at five a.m. every Thanksgiving. It’s tradition, just like I hope Cal making raviolis with me will become a new tradition.

As Cal stares at the pasta press like it’s a medieval torture device, Mom begins the interrogation I’d hoped wasn’t coming. “So, Callahan, tell me what you’ve been up to these past few years. Lucy has been talking about you nonstop, but I haven’t gotten all the details. How long have you been working at the auto shop?”

Nonstop?

Apparently, my mother has been taking notes from Alyssa on How To Mortify Lucy In Front Of Her Boss. I cringe, cheeks turning pink, and release his arm.

“Two years,” he says as I put a notable gap between us and shuffle over to the cabinets for a saucepan. “We moved just over the border into Illinois before I came back and bought the shop from the previous owner.”

“Your father would be proud,” Mom tells him, toweling off the dish. “Did you go to college?”

“No. Worked with some buddies right out of high school as a bike mechanic. We made custom motorcycles; fixed them up, too. I saved every penny to put toward the shop.”

My belly twists. I didn’t know that, but I suppose I never asked. Pulling a few sticks of butter out of the fridge, I glance over at him as he fiddles with the pasta press. “You did?”

“Yeah. Mom still lives in Illinois, in a town called Spring Grove. I don’t see her much. She’s a bit…” He stiffens a little, leaning forward on the counter. “She keeps to herself.”

Curiosity blankets me, but I don’t want to pry. Not now—not when Cal is in my mother’s kitchen on Thanksgiving day with Christmas music and the makings of a fragile kinship wafting around us. As I pluck the butter from the wrapping, I attempt to sound subtle as I say to Mom, “How’s the turkey doing? Should you check on it?”

She’s on to me, of course. I’ve been a lot of things in this life, but subtle has never been one of them.

“You know, you’re right. Millie and Dan should be here soon. Unfortunately, your cousins are celebrating with the other side of the family today, so it’ll just be the five of us,” she explains. “Why don’t you teach Callahan how to use that?”

“Just Cal,” he tells her.

He will never be “just Cal” to my mother.

Graciously, she leaves us, but not without a wink in my direction, which is also not subtle. I’m most certainly my mother’s daughter. I roll up the sleeves of my cardigan and glide over to Cal, who’s still staring down at the pasta maker and sheets of premade dough with a crease between his eyes. “The barrage of questions would never end, so I figured you might want some wine or spiked eggnog before we roll into round two,” I breeze, reaching for the ravioli stamp tray.

“Your mercy has been noted. How the hell do I use this thing?”

I smile. “First, you have to flatten the dough, then we pass it through the machine until it’s the perfect thickness. Once it’s pressed, we use this tray to make the ravioli shapes.” I sidle up to him, catching a whiff of his cologne that makes me borderline delirious. Snatching up the rolling pin, I flatten the dough into a circle, swiping a loose strand of hair out of my face. “Like this. It’s pretty easy. The hard part was getting the dough to be the perfect consistency.”

“Yeah,” he murmurs. “Looks good.”

When I glance up, he’s staring at me and not the dough. Cal lifts his thumb to graze along my cheekbone, sending a shot of heat through me.

“You’ve got some flour on your cheek.”

“Mmm. Common kitchen hazard.” He’s so close, too close, as we both weave the dough through the machine, our fingers brushing and teasing. “You don’t cook much?”

“Nah,” he says, collecting the dough as it slides out the bottom. “I’m a takeout man. Frozen dinners when I’m feeling frisky. Dad was always the chef in the family, so after he passed—” he falters for a moment, throat bobbing, “—Mom never really took over in that department. Any culinary potential I might have had died with him.”

His words are blue, bleeding with sorrow, coincidentally spoken in time with Elvis’ Blue Christmas—one of my least favorite holiday jingles. And that’s because it’s less of a jingle, and more of a psalm. “It’s never too late to learn. I can teach you if you want.”