Chapter 10: The Morning After
The smell of coffee pulled me up from a dream I couldn't hold onto, something about water and a bridge I'd never seen before. My eyes opened to pale morning light slanting through the curtains, and for a single suspended second, I didn't know where I was. Then the weight of my own chest reminded me, the unfamiliar heaviness pressing against the mattress, and it all came flooding back. Vermont. The farmhouse. The body.
And Allan, moving around in my kitchen.
I heard it clearly now, the soft clink of a pan on the stove, the low murmur of his voice humming something tuneless to himself, the slide of a drawer opening and closing. He'd stayed the night. I'd invited him to, after the pasta and the easy conversation that had curled around us like smoke. The guest room, I remembered telling him, gesturing vaguely down the hall, and he'd taken it without question.
Now he was cooking breakfast in my house like he'd been doing it for years.
I swung my legs out of bed and stood, feeling the cool air on my bare thighs. I'd slept in a thin tank top and a pair of shorts, nothing more, and the fabric did little to hide the shape of me. For a moment I considered changing, finding something more modest, but that would mean moving quietly enough not to draw his attention and I wasn't sure I wanted to signal that I cared. I'd spent thirty-six years not caring what people thought of my body. I wasn't about to start now, even if this body felt like a costume I couldn't take off.
The floorboards creaked under my bare feet as I padded down the hallway. The smell grew stronger, coffee and bacon and something warm and yeasty. Allan had his back to me when I reached the kitchen doorway, standing at the stove in a pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt I didn't recognize as mine. His shoulders were broad under the thin cotton, and he was humming again, a low country tune I almost placed before he turned at the sound of my footsteps.
His eyes found me, and I watched them travel down and back up again before he caught himself. A flush crept up his neck, and he turned quickly back to the stove, reaching for a spatula.
"Morning," he said, and his voice was warm and rough with sleep. "Eggs are almost done. Bacon's on the plate."
I leaned against the doorframe, crossing my arms under my chest, then uncrossing them when I felt the pressure there. "You didn't have to do that."
He shrugged without turning around. "I don't mind. Especially after getting to sleep in that comfy bed in the guest room. That thing's got better springs than my place."
I watched him slide the eggs onto a plate, his movements easy and practiced. There was something about seeing him here, in my kitchen, his bare feet on my worn floorboards, that made my chest ache in a way I didn't have a name for. I'd been alone for so long, even before the program took everything from me. Alone in a crowd, alone in my own skin. But this, a man cooking me breakfast without being asked, humming to himself, making himself at home in the space I'd been given, it felt like a door opening somewhere I hadn't known I'd closed.
"You didn't have to," I said again, quieter this time.
He turned then, plate in hand, and his face softened when he looked at me. "I wanted to. You've been working hard on that truck. Figured you deserved a proper breakfast before we get back to it."
He set the plate on the table, then crossed to pour me a cup of coffee, adding cream and sugar without asking. I stared at the mug he handed me, at the way he'd remembered how I took it from the diner yesterday, and something in my throat tightened.
"You pay attention," I said.
A small smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. "I'm a deputy. Paying attention is the job."
"Pretty sure it's not the job to remember someone's coffee order from one day to the next."
He shrugged again, that easy roll of his shoulders, and pulled out a chair for me. "Maybe I just like doing it."
I sat, and he settled into the chair across from me, his own plate piled high with eggs and bacon. The morning light caught the side of his face, and I noticed the faint shadow of stubble along his jaw, the way his hands moved with deliberate care when he picked up his fork. He caught me watching and raised an eyebrow.
"What?"
"Nothing." I looked down at my plate, suddenly aware of the thin tank top and the way the morning air had tightened my nipples against the fabric. "Just still getting used to there being someone else here."
His expression gentled. "You get lonely out here on your own?"
It was a simple question, kindly asked, and it cut right through me. Lonely. That was the word, wasn't it? Not just here, in this farmhouse at the edge of a town I'd never heard of until a week ago, but everywhere. All the years as Justin, alone in his apartment with his spreadsheets and his carefully ordered life. I'd thought I preferred it that way. I'd told myself that solitude was a choice, a preference, a strength.
But I'd never had someone cook me breakfast before.
"A little," I admitted, and the words came out smaller than I'd intended.
Allan didn't say anything. He just reached across the table and covered my hand with his, his palm warm and rough against my skin. We stayed like that for a long moment, the bacon cooling on our plates, the coffee steaming in the morning light, and I thought about how strange it was that after everything I'd lost, everything that had been stripped from me, I could still feel something this tender growing in my chest.
"Thank you," I said, and I meant it for more than the breakfast.
He squeezed my hand once, then let go, nodding toward my plate. "Eat up. We've got a truck to fix, and you're going to need your strength."
I picked up my fork and took a bite of eggs, and for the first time in a long time, the food didn't taste like ash in my mouth.