by Gail Sattler
She finished with one light to spare.
As they exited the car, she felt okay about her face, but not okay about Jeff being better dressed than her.
They met Ashley and Dave in the foyer, chatted for a bit, then made their way into the sanctuary.
Before the service began, Natasha looked around for single women, and didn’t see many. Therefore this would probably be the last time they attended this small church, so when the service was over, she intended to make the most of it. This was only the fifth time they’d come here, but she really liked the people, and she especially liked the more familiar, informal way the pastor delivered his sermon. With a smaller group he made individual eye contact with probably every person present multiple times throughout his sermon. If a person nodded off, the pastor would indeed notice. But there was too much going on during the sermon.
First, the pastor had a riveting delivery that kept everyone fully attentive. She also noticed a few people who openly commented or asked the pastor questions in the middle of the sermon. He wasn’t flummoxed or annoyed at the interruption. Instead, he seemed to welcome it.
She really would miss this place.
At the end of the service, she found excuses to stay in the sanctuary longer. Jeff didn’t seem to be in any rush. Maybe he was just humoring her, but as all good things had to come to an end, they eventually joined everyone else in the foyer.
Instead of being beside her husband, Ashley stood, leaning on her cane, talking with a group of women. Likewise, Dave stood talking with a group of men.
Like a typical man, Jeff took a few steps toward the group of men, then stopped. He turned toward her, smiled, appearing to be waiting for her approval. Natasha nodded, so he continued on, and she joined her friend.
Conversation stopped.
Ashley turned to Natasha. “I haven’t heard from you all week. I was going to ask what’s up, but now I can see why.”
All heads turned in unison toward Jeff, who was laughing at something someone had said.
Ashley nudged Natasha with her elbow. “What’s up with that? Is something happening that you’re not telling me?”
Something was going on, and she did want to talk to her best friend, but not in front of a bunch of near-strangers. “I guess he felt like dressing up.”
Ashley giggled. “I guess you two have plans for lunch?”
She’d looked forward to going out for lunch with Jeff, and as far as she knew, that was still a possibility, even though they hadn’t talked about it. “No, no plans.”
As she spoke, Dave gave Jeff a manly slap on the back. Jeff turned around, and started walking toward her. At the same time the huddle of men split up as everyone went their separate ways. Those who had partners in their group approached behind Jeff.
Dave stepped beside Ashley. “Jeff says they have plans, so we’ve made a tentative date to get together with them for lunch next week, if that’s okay.”
“Of course that’s okay,” Ashley said as she again nudged Natasha with her elbow. “You two enjoy yourselves.”
Before she could challenge his decision, Jeff led Natasha to the door.
“We don’t have plans,” she whispered so no one else could hear.
“Maybe you don’t, but I do. We need to get going.”
Natasha’s heart dropped. All she could do was nod and follow him out without speaking. She hadn’t seen him make plans with someone new, but obviously he had. It was over sooner than she thought it would be.
* * *
Jeff turned left out of the parking lot, discreetly checking the time. If they didn’t catch too many red lights, they would be good.
“Why are we going this way? I thought you were taking me home?”
“I never said that.”
“But I thought you said you had plans.”
Jeff tried to think. He shouldn’t have said anything, because he didn’t want her to know.
Yet, already things weren’t going as he envisioned. He’d dressed up because he wanted to look good for Tasha. He hadn’t worn his earring for so long he’d worried the hole had grown in, but he thought Tasha would like it. Instead of commenting, she’d withdrawn. Unless something was wrong that she wasn’t telling him. In that case, it bothered him even more, because he wanted her to be able to lean on him when she needed a shoulder, just as he’d been able to lean on her over the past month.
“I do have plans. That’s why I have to hurry back home. She said the timing was important, and we got out of church later than I anticipated.”
She pressed herself back into the seat. “I don’t want to be a third wheel, Jeff.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Nothing.” Her voice quieted to almost a whisper. “Just go. You said you were in a rush.”
He waited for her to say more, but she didn’t. It nearly killed him to have the silence hover, but since he hadn’t done a very good job of bringing her out of whatever funk she’d fallen into, he didn’t want to start talking and say something to make it worse.
Hopefully she’d feel better when they got back to his place.
He turned on the CD player, knowing it was a band she liked and always sang along to.
But she didn’t sing. She continued to just sit facing the window, looking kind of...sad.
He didn’t know what to do, so he kept the music loud and continued driving. Maybe she’d tell him about it later, unless there was nothing he could do.
They pulled into his driveway with three minutes to spare. He wasted no time hustling her inside.
The second the door closed behind them, Tasha’s eyes widened and she inhaled deeply. “What is that? Are you cooking something?”
So much for the surprise. He turned to her and grinned. “Yeah. I made you lunch.”
Her eyes widened even more. He didn’t think that was possible. “Really? You mean you’ve had something in the oven all morning?”
“Yeah. I emailed my mother and asked her for the recipe.” He’d put everything together last night with his laptop set on the counter because he’d run out of toner and couldn’t print it. “I gotta go get it out of the oven real fast. I don’t want it to burn. Have a seat on the couch.”
He hustled into the kitchen, slipped on the oven mitts, took the casserole out of the oven, placed it on the stovetop, then stood back to admire it.
His timing was perfect. It was a nice golden brown without being burned, just as he remembered. He gave himself a mental pat on the back, then turned to go back into the living room, and froze.
Tasha stood behind him, grinning ear to ear. “That smells so good, I couldn’t stay in the living room. It looks delicious.”
He checked his watch. “We can’t cut it yet. It has to sit for ten minutes. I don’t know why. It just does.” And since this was his favorite brunch ever, he wasn’t going to mess with success.
“Can I set the table?”
He waved one hand in the direction of the table. “Already done.”
He bit his lower lip not to laugh when she gasped. He’d dug through the drawer to use matching cutlery, and two plates that were the same pattern. He couldn’t find napkins, so he’d used extras he’d stashed from the Chinese restaurant, but he’d folded them so the logos were on the inside. He’d even run the dishwasher so he could use her favorite coffee mug. “The coffee should be ready. I had that on the timer, too.”
“Why did you do this?”
So he wouldn’t have to look at her, he turned to get the cream out of the fridge. “With all the shopping and talk of Christmas, I started thinking about Christmas at home, and one of the best things about Christmas morning was the brunch my mom always made. Mom put it together before bed on Christmas Eve, then first thing Christmas morning she stuck it in the oven to cook. It was alway
s done when we were finished unwrapping the gifts.”
He stood straight, closing his eyes to savor the memory. “Opening Christmas presents was always better when we could smell this cooking.” Now, the more he thought about it, he saw the waiting period before they could eat to be a little too coincidental. The casserole needed to set after it came out of the oven. Strangely, that time was always the same time as it took to clear away all the wrapping paper and bows and packaging. He opened his eyes, turned and finished pouring the coffee. “Since you got me started thinking about Christmas, it made me remember what Christmas morning was like at our house. Then I thought, why wait? It would be a treat to make it now and share it with you. But part of the fun is the anticipation. No sampling until ten minutes. We’ve got eight minutes left.”
She shuffled back and forth. “What are we going to do for eight minutes?”
“When I was a kid, we picked up all the wrapping and stuff. It almost makes sense to start some of the wrapping, but I know from experience it takes way longer to wrap than to unwrap. We wouldn’t even get started before we had to stop. I think we should just sit down and enjoy the coffee.” Maybe, if they sat with nothing to do, and no distractions, she would tell him what was bothering her. He wanted this to be a two-way relationship, and this was a good start. She already knew what was bothering him. Now it was time for her to confide in him a little bit.
She looked one more time to the casserole, then to the coffee mug. “Okay.”
He found himself disappointed that she just picked up her mug and sat at the table without waiting for him to seat her. But come to think of it, he’d never seated her when they went out to a restaurant.
That would change.
The second he seated himself, she turned to the fridge and spoke without looking at him. “Did you make dessert?”
“I’m good, but I’m not that good. I bought dessert. It’s one of those frozen cakes that they advertise that it’s okay to stick your finger in the icing.”
She turned to him. “That’s really not okay. I wouldn’t eat it if you stuck your finger in it first.”
He thought of the times they shared the same dessert at restaurants. They were both too full to order a whole selection individually, but they often bought one piece of cake to share because they both wanted it. That made him think of movies where one member of a couple stuck their finger in the icing and the other one licked it off, which was meant to be sexy. He’d always wondered if one knew where the other’s hands had last been, and there was nothing alluring about that. He’d always thought Tasha felt the same way. Now he knew. “I’m pretty sure they mean if you stick your finger in your own piece, not someone else’s.”
“Five minutes.”
“I can see you’re really hungry. I don’t think it’s going to make any difference to wait. Just do me a favor and stay seated. This was supposed to be a fun surprise. At least let me serve it.” As he sliced the casserole and set it onto the plates, he mentally kicked himself. His previous thoughts were not that this was supposed to be a fun surprise. It was supposed to be a romantic surprise.
Maybe if he prayed for that, it might happen. But he wasn’t going to pray for that now. His prayers before they ate were to be of thanks for the food and their time together, in whatever format.
Tonight his prayers would be different.
When she took her first bite, her eyes widened. As she chewed, she waved her fork up and down in the air, not to speak with her mouth full. “This is delicious,” she said after she swallowed. “If that’s how you grew up, with this every Christmas morning, I can see why you’re such a fanatic over bacon.”
“I’m not a fanatic,” he said, but as the words came out of his mouth, he did realize that all his favorite foods contained bacon in some form.
“Yes, you are. You use bacon like women use chocolate. It’s your comfort food.”
“No...I...”
“Think about what you’ve eaten in the past month.”
He did make himself bacon and eggs for breakfast on the weekends, and he always put bacon on his burgers. He’d even bought a bag of nonfake bacon bits to add to salads, because when Tasha came over for supper, most of the time she liked a salad with her meal, so he made sure he was prepared.
“Some of that is your fault for eating salads. But you are right. I have been eating more bacon lately.”
“Don’t get me wrong. I’m not complaining. This is fantastic. I’m thinking this might be the thing that started your love of bacon. In fact, this has a lot of bacon.”
He felt his ears burn. “I might have used more than my mom said.”
He didn’t know how it happened, but for the rest of the meal they talked about cooking, then agreed to exchange a few recipes. Since she insisted, he acquiesced when she said she wanted to help clean up the kitchen. Fortunately, he’d done the entire cleanup from the casserole last night, so all they did was load the dishwasher and put the leftover casserole in the fridge.
While he made a new pot of coffee, Tasha disappeared into the spare bedroom where he’d piled the gifts she’d bought so far.
Together they wrapped everything, with Tasha being very careful to mark off the gifts on her tablet. Before he knew it, it was time to start cooking supper. Fortunately, she only laughed a little when she found out their supper was barbecued bacon cheeseburgers. After all, he had lots of bacon on hand.
All in all, the day had gone well, but it wasn’t what he’d planned, or wanted.
What he wanted was to be able to kiss her good-night. Except that when he drove her home, all the visitor parking spots were full. She just ran out of the car, called out that she would probably see him tomorrow and dashed inside her building while someone else held the door open.
Jeff smacked the top of the steering wheel, then put it into gear and headed for home.
Tomorrow he was going to see her again, but tomorrow would be different.
Chapter 8
Natasha felt her eyes drifting shut as she fell back onto the couch. Her eyes were closed by the time she landed.
She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been so exhausted. A nasty flu bug had ravaged the store and half the staff was missing, both on the floor and in the office. Every person well enough to go to work needed to put in extra time to keep things running. She’d worked eleven-hour days for four days in a row, and it wasn’t over yet. Tomorrow was Friday, the busiest day of the week. She didn’t want to work a twelve-hour shift, but had a bad feeling it was going to be necessary. A few people were expecting to come back tomorrow, but they were still going to be significantly short-staffed, which didn’t include clearing the backlog. As HR director, her position was in the office, behind a desk. But she’d been needed to work the floor, and the customer service counter.
Oblivion had nearly overcome her when a knock sounded on the door. “Tasha! It’s me. Jeff. I’m coming in!” The doorknob rattled, followed by the creak of the door opening. “You should be more careful about locking your door. Any weirdo could just walk in, you know.”
“Some weirdo just did,” she moaned without opening her eyes. “You came a long way for nothing. I’m not moving.”
Something crinkled. “But I brought food. No salad, though. Not a lot is still open so late. I didn’t have many choices. So I brought burgers and fries. And nice, cold, refreshing drinks.”
At this point she would welcome a burger and fries. If she could sit up or raise her arms. But she couldn’t. Her body wouldn’t let it happen. “How did you get in so late?” During the evening, residents often let people in they’d seen before, but now it was late, and there wasn’t a lot of people going in and out at this hour.
“That woman on the third floor let me in. Is that all she does—sit on her balcony and watch the door?” His voice lowered. “I think she likes me.”
“She doesn’t even know you. Even though she’s seen you hundreds of times, have you even met?”
“Uh. No. But I wave when she lets me in. Where can I put this? I think we should forget about going all the way to the kitchen and eat here.”
She really hadn’t been hungry, but now that she could smell the burgers her stomach reminded her that she hadn’t eaten since lunchtime. “I think I am kind of hungry. And really thirsty.” Except she didn’t know if she could get up.
“Then come and get it.”
As she opened one eye, Jeff stood above her with one hand extended. Without words she accepted his offer of help and slipped her hand into his. He pulled her up gently, then released her to empty everything out of the bag.
Instead of grabbing for the burger, she picked up her drink and drank greedily. “I’ve never known that an ordinary drink could be so good,” she murmured, then drank more.
Concern etched his features as he watched her drink. “Be careful. You must be really dehydrated if you’re that thirsty. That’s not good.”
“I know. I’ve spent most of the days in customer service, so I’ve been talking almost constantly.”
She could tell he was trying to bite back a grin...and failed miserably.
He lost control and broke out into a full belly laugh. “I can really see you talking for ten hours nonstop,” he gasped, still laughing. “I’ll bet you’ve never had so much fun in your life.”
Instead of dignifying his comment with a reply, she bit into the burger. Even though it was just a burger, the flavors danced in a celebration in her mouth. Fast food had never tasted so good. And for some reason she couldn’t explain, the best part of the burger was the bacon.
He was definitely rubbing off on her. Too much.
She didn’t care that he was watching. She didn’t want to talk. She suddenly felt so famished she barely paused between bites as she devoured the burger.
The burger was half-eaten before she could break the momentum enough to speak. “What are you doing here, anyway? I thought you had to get up at six. Isn’t this rather late for you?”
