“Karina?”
I couldn’t tell if I was imagining Kael shouting my name, but I made a promise to myself that if I was, I would eat a melatonin gummy, maybe two, and go to bed before my delusion got any worse. When I heard it again, I stood up, polish bottle in hand, and walked on my heels, trying not to mess up my toenails. He said my name again as I got closer to the door. When I opened it, he was holding his phone and it was ringing on speakerphone.
“The number you have reached—” The generic voicemail greeting began to recite a number. My number. I recognized it as it played between us. If I was a blabbering mess earlier, I couldn’t even imagine how I would seem now.
“Hey,” I said to him.
His eyes lit up again. “Hey?” He exhaled, and laughter followed.
I couldn’t help but smile. Half of me hated that I was already feeling so giddy, but I was also relieved that he came back.
“You’re here.”
He nodded. “I’m here.”
“Sorry for calling, I—”
“Nope. No sorrys.” He walked past me, his cologne leaving a trail behind him as he took of his shoes at my front door. I followed him. The knot in my stomach was loosening instead of tightening, quite the opposite of what I expected. I shut the front door behind us.
“What’s going on here? A party and I wasn’t invited?” Kael kicked his foot out to touch my red speaker with his sock.
“Hardly.” I waved my hand around, gesturing to the nail polish remover and my cup of hot water with honey. “I was enjoying having a night in. Pedicure, long shower. All that.”
He sat down on my chair, where he usually did, and leaned forward, resting his elbows on the tops of his knees.
“That sounds nice. Very unlike you, but nice. Am I crashing?”
I shook my head and crossed my arms over my chest, remembering again how sheer the fabric was that I had on.
“Did you eat already?” he asked me.
I shook my head again, causing some of my hair to come loose. My hair was nearly dry, wavy from the braid, and definitely wild. I ran my hands over the strands. Yep. Definitely frizzy. I sat down on the floor and reached for a pillow from the couch to put on my lap. “I don’t really have much in the fridge. Like borderline nothing. I need to go to the commissary again but I haven’t had the time. I didn’t get enough of the things I needed when we were there. I’m working on a grocery list for my next day off.”
I was rambling again. My explanation was long, but as usual Kael didn’t seem to mind.
“Are you hungry?” he asked me, clearly moving the conversation on.
I shrugged. I wasn’t, really, until he asked, and it reminded me that the only thing I had eaten today was a piece of toast on my walk to work.
“I am,” Kael added.
Was he offering to have dinner with me? I didn’t want to chance totally misreading this whole thing. I didn’t say anything and continued to let him lead. After about a minute, the silence between us settled. My gaze strayed toward the floor, staring at the spot where the carpet met the dark wood.
He spoke first. “We can order food. I’ll open Postmates.”
I somehow knew he wouldn’t ask me why I called him back to my house. Drama-free. No more kissing. No more boundary-crossing. He will order us dinner and act like nothing happened. I studied him as he scrolled on his phone, dissecting him the way I did everyone. He was hard to break down; he was much, much harder to understand than most people. He wasn’t simple, but he wasn’t messy. He was calm in that way, where I was tripping over words and thoughts.
“Italian or Indian?” he asked.
“Is the Italian a chain restaurant or family-owned?” I wanted something that was made with love and thought. That was the kind of meal I needed now for comfort.
He smiled a little. “It’s Olive Garden.”
“Indian, please. I can add my order and Venmo you for it if that’s cool?”
He shrugged and didn’t look up from his screen. About two minutes later, he set the phone next to my ankle. Indian food reminded me of my ex and the one month we spent eating it every weekend. I always got the same thing with Brien, whatever he ordered for me. I clicked back onto the cart and opened Kael’s order. His selections looked so good. Cauliflower and potatoes with a spiced sauce I hadn’t heard of, but it sounded great. With Kael, even something as simple as a food order felt intimate, revealing. But I knew that was silly; it was only a meal, after all. I added another order of the same dish to the cart and handed his phone back to him. He didn’t look at the phone longer than a second before he touched the screen and put it back into his pocket.
A few minutes later, Kael’s calm had taken over the whole house and I had that familiar urge to start talking about the most random things. I rechecked my little setup and looked at Kael. He seemed content as I made eye contact with him. His face didn’t change, he was staring at me, blank expression. No annoyance, no smile. Just content and still. I tried to let his ease wear off on me even more.
I opened the nail polish, wiggled the polish brush around the bottle, and started to finally paint my fingernails, swiping the brush over my thumb. Even though I took my time, half of the polish got on the skin around the nail. I sighed. I was so bad at this. One of the first things I would do when I made grown-up money would be to get regular manicures. It was a small luxury that I really enjoyed. One day, Karina, one day.
I grabbed the bottle of acetone and a half-used cotton ball to fix my mistake. I tried again, using my other hand this time. I could feel Kael still watching me, but I didn’t feel pressured or rushed. I went even slower, but the strokes were uneven. My hands were shaking a little. I definitely needed food. I was so glad it was on the way.
“I’m just hungry, so my hands are acting funny. I’m always bad at painting nails, but usually a little better than this. Do you know how long until the food will be here?” I was rambling. “Not trying to rush you,” I added, wishing I could clamp my mouth closed. But no matter the scenario, with him around, I couldn’t seem to do that.
“The app said it would be an hour, but sometimes it comes sooner.”
I reached for the cotton ball again, and Kael’s hand wrapped around mine, stopping it in the air. His touch was so unexpected that I thought I had spilled something on him, or the top had come off the polish. I looked up to his face and drank in his eyes, how far the corners of his pink lips were turned up, how set his jaw was. My fascination with him was all in the details. Nothing seemed wrong. I was confused.
Kael reached for the polish bottle. It was Marshmallow, a creamy white color from Essie. Their signature square bottle looked doll-sized in Kael’s free hand, the one he wasn’t holding mine with.
“Do you want me to do it for you?” he offered, and I let out a breath.
Blinking, I searched for a sign that he was teasing me but found nothing. I slowly pulled my hand from his and put them both in my lap.
“What?” he calmly asked, dipping the brush back into the small bottle.
I didn’t know what to say. It felt so binding, or like a big deal, but was it? Was the way my stomach danced because I couldn’t imagine any of the men in my life offering something like that? Or was it because the men in my life weren’t thoughtful and had firm ideas of gender roles? Kael lifted the brush, hurrying me along in my mental analysis.