“Steak is good, Cece,” Andrew tells her. “You should try it.”
Cecelia looks at her father then back down at her plate. She prods her steak gingerly with her fork, as if she’s anxious it might leap off the plate and into her mouth. She has a pained expression on her face.
“Cece…” Andrew says.
I look between Cecelia and Andrew, not sure what to do. It hits me now that I probably shouldn’t have made steak for a nine-year-old girl. I just assumed she had to have highbrow taste, living in a place like this.
“Um,” I say. “Should I…？”
Andrew pushes back his chair and grabs Cecelia’s plate from the table. “Okay, I’ll make you some chicken nuggets.”
I follow Andrew back into the kitchen, apologizing profusely. He just laughs. “Don’t worry about it. Cecelia is obsessed with chicken, and especially chicken nuggets. We could be dining at the fanciest restaurant in Long Island, and she’ll order chicken nuggets.”
My shoulders relax a bit. “You don’t have to do this. I can make her chicken nuggets.”
Andrew lays her plate down on the kitchen counter and wags a finger at me. “Oh, but I do. If you’re going to work here, you need a tutorial.”
“Okay…”
He wrenches the freezer open and pulls out a giant family pack of chicken nuggets. “See, these are the nuggets Cecelia likes. Don’t get any other brands. Anything else is unacceptable.” He fumbles with the Ziploc seal on the bag and removes one of the frozen nuggets. “Also, they must be dinosaur-shaped. Dinosaur—got that?”
I can’t suppress a smile. “Got it.”
“Also”—he holds up the chicken nugget—“you have to first examine the nugget for any deformities. Missing head, missing leg, or missing tail. If the dinosaur nugget has any of these critical defects, it will be rejected.” Now he pulls a plate from the cabinet above the microwave. He lays five perfect nuggets on the plate. “She likes to have five nuggets. You put it in the microwave for exactly ninety seconds. Any less, it’s frozen. Any more, it’s overcooked. It’s a very tenuous balance.”
I nod solemnly. “I understand.”
As the chicken nuggets rotate in the microwave, he glances around the kitchen, which is at least twice as large as the apartment I was evicted from. “I can’t even tell you how much money we spent renovating this kitchen, and Cecelia won’t eat anything that doesn’t come out of the microwave.”
The words “spoiled brat” are at the tip of my tongue, but I don’t say them. “She knows what she likes.”
“She sure does.” The microwave beeps and he pulls out the plate of piping hot chicken nuggets. “How about you? Have you eaten yet?”
“I’ll just bring some food up to my room.”
He raises an eyebrow. “You don’t want to join us?”
Part of me would like to join him. There’s something very engaging about Andrew Winchester, and I can’t help but want to get to know him better. But at the same time, it would be a mistake. If Nina walked in and saw the two of us laughing it up at the dining table, she wouldn’t like it. I also have a feeling that Cecelia won’t make the evening pleasant.
“I’d rather just eat in my room,” I say.
He looks like he’s going to protest, but then he thinks better of it. “Sorry,” he says. “We’ve never had live-in help before, so I’m not sure about the etiquette.”
“Me either,” I admit. “But I don’t think Nina would like it if she saw me eating with you.”
I hold my breath, wondering if I’ve overstepped by stating the obvious. But Andrew just nods. “You’re probably right.”
“Anyway.” I lift my chin to look at his eyes. “Thank you for the tutorial on the chicken nuggets.”
He grins at me. “Any time.”
Andrew takes the plate of chicken back into the dining room. When he’s gone, I gobble up the food from Cecelia’s rejected plate while standing over the kitchen sink, then return to my bedroom.
TEN
A week later, I come down to the living room and find Nina holding a full garbage bag. My first thought is: Oh God, what now?
In only a week of living with the Winchesters, I feel like I’ve been here for years. No, centuries. Nina’s moods are wildly unpredictable. At one moment, she’s hugging me and telling me how much she appreciates having me here. In the next, she’s berating me for not completing some task she never even told me about. She’s flighty, to say the least. And Cecelia is a total brat, who clearly resents my presence here. If I had any other options, I would quit.