He’s the kind of man who’d hold your hair back when you’re sick. Gran’s words echo in my ears and my heart nearly stops, awareness knocking the wind out of me:
I have real feelings for Jack. I may even be falling for Jack.
I think I’m gonna be sick right now. My stomach is seizing and my palms are slick with sweat, which I belatedly realize he must know since he has yet to let go of my hand. Frankly, the way he’s looking at me is enough to give me a hot flash.
He is lit from within. His smile is so dazzling that I briefly wonder if I’ve just confessed my feelings aloud before realizing that he must be able to see it in my eyes. He reaches up to cup the back of my neck, drawing me closer until we’re breathing the same air. His thumb strokes a featherlight path along my jawline and my nerve endings detonate like a row of fireworks. We’re a tinderbox ready to explode, and I’m holding a lit match.
And it’s in that moment—our faces an inch apart, our breath gone shallow—that we both notice the same thing at the same time.
“Do you—” I start to say.
“—smell something burning?” he finishes, and before the words have even left his mouth, we’ve bolted off the couch and made a mad dash for the kitchen.
I manage to get there first, only to find smoke billowing out the sides of the oven. “Oh, fu—” I start to say, until Betty jabs me with a cattle prod. “—dge.”
Jack goes to open a window while I throw on the oven mitts and pull out the now-charred bird, skin blackened and burnt to a crisp. To add insult to injury, the smoke detector starts blaring, and it’s so loud that I start panicking about fire trucks showing up. I imagine being frog-marched out of the building in disgrace by Cliff the kindly doorman and have to talk myself out of crawling into the oven myself and ending it all. Somehow I don’t think the FDNY—or Jack’s richie-rich neighbors—will be amused by my tale of Engagement Chicken gone wrong.
The Joy of Cooking, my ass.
Jack fans a dish towel in the direction of the alarm, his forehead creased with concern. “I thought you said it needed to be in for ninety minutes? It hasn’t even been an hour.”
“That’s what it said!” I say defensively. “I followed the recipe exactly.”
He abandons the dish towel and bends over the oven display, squinting at the screen and frowning.
“I don’t understand what could have gone wrong,” I insist weakly, inspecting the outer layer of char. Maybe it only looks ruined. Maybe I can skim it off like a Silence of the Lambs–style skinsuit. “This has never happened before.” It’s not technically a lie; the fact that I’m a poultry-roasting virgin is neither here nor there.
He makes a noise like hmph. “Well, I think I may have diagnosed the problem—it was set to broil, not bake.” He presses a couple of buttons and the screen goes dark.
Are you freaking kidding me? His stupid space-age oven conspired against me?! I don an appropriately sheepish expression, but inside I’m unleashing a stream of profanity that could rival a Scorsese movie. If karma is real, then this oven better wind up stripped for parts and rusting at a junkyard.
But almost as quickly as the anger burns me up, humiliation takes its place. Tonight wasn’t supposed to turn out like this. This recipe was supposed to be foolproof—so easy a child could do it—and like everything else pertaining to Jack, I’ve screwed it up royally. Suddenly, this still-smoking carcass symbolizes just how far this stupid scheme has gotten away from me, how out of control this situation has become. How much trouble I’m in with him.
What am I supposed to do now? What am I going to tell Cynthia? Is there a way out of this without hurting anyone? Can I even walk away from Jack? I feel the hysteria mounting—and to my utter dismay, my eyes start to smart.
Jack immediately senses the change in mood. “Hey, it’s alright. Really, this is no big deal.”
I squeeze my eyes shut and shake my head, refusing to look at him. I’m on an emotional tightrope and I’m hanging on by my fingernails.
“Hey. C’mere.” He tugs me over and gathers me into a hug, fitting my head into the nook of his neck—and I surrender, wrapping my arms around his back, oven mitts and all. “No sense crying over burned chicken.”
I let out a laugh-sob, furiously blinking back the tears pricking at my eyelids. I bury my face in his chest and breathe him in, letting his addictive, calming scent fill my lungs. “I’m overreacting, I know, it’s just . . .” I heave a watery sigh. “I just wanted to do this one thing right, and I’m mad at myself for messing it up.”
He’s quiet for a minute as he strokes my hair, and I let myself enjoy how it feels: safe and taken care of and right. Like I could belong here. “Look, it’s obviously my fault. This never would have happened if my kitchen weren’t so damn fancy.” I huff a laugh into his shirt. “Anyway, this is why we live in New York, right? We can get whatever we want delivered in ten minutes.”
I brave a glance up at him. “That wasn’t the point, though.”
“No,” he concedes, then leans back in, voice lowered. “But I’m gonna let you in on a little secret.” His lips brush the shell of my ear and goosebumps bloom on my skin. “Your culinary skills are very low on the list of reasons I’m attracted to you.”
The rough growl of his voice makes my toes curl. “That’s probably a good thing,” I manage—and right then, mercifully, the alarm stops bleating.
He grins down at me, and just as I’m registering that we’re still hugging, our bodies locked together like magnets, the song changes and Otis Redding’s bluesy baritone floats through the kitchen.
These arms of mine, they are lonely . . .
Jack raises an eyebrow at me, and without waiting for an answer, starts swaying in time with the music. I decide to go with it, replacing my head on his chest and melting into his embrace—but not before I slide off the oven mitts and toss them to the floor, which makes him laugh, the deep, rumbling sound vibrating against my cheek.
Time stands still as we slow-dance, the angst of the last few minutes fading away as I dissolve into his chest—though I suppose if we’re splitting hairs, what we’re actually doing is closer to cuddling than dancing. If this was a movie montage, it’d be the scene engineered to tug at viewers’ heartstrings: just me and Jack, all our pretenses and posturing stripped away as we rock back and forth in charged silence, oblivious to everything but each other.
. . . They are burning from wanting you.
We sway that way for ten . . . twenty . . . thirty more seconds, before he slows and pulls away slightly, and I lift my head to look up at him.
His gaze is a scorching heat; a dark, raging fire that burns right through me. His eyes search my face, lingering on my mouth, and my throat goes bone-dry. He lifts his hands to cradle my face, tipping my chin up, and I nearly stop breathing. My pulse pounds a relentless drumbeat in my neck; he must be able to feel it.
I know what’s about to happen and I’m powerless to stop it. He lowers his head slowly, deliberately, and it’s as though he’s saying: Now’s your last chance to pull away.