“It was her bucket list, not mine.” Bridget focused on the outline of the mountains on the horizon. She would not cry, and she would not unload all her grief on Wesley, either. She just needed to get through this run, this shelter event, this summer . . .
But Wesley kept pressing. “You said ‘our,’ like the bucket list meant something to both of you. Whether that was on purpose or not, it seems like maybe you need to finish it to help give you closure.”
“Closure on what? My mom dying?” A part of her had liked it better when they talked less. She was so very tired of people speculating about her emotions, thinking they knew what was best for her when she’d already figured it out for herself.
Wesley frowned. “I don’t know. Only you know that.”
“Now you sound like my friend Nichole.”
“Is that the one who ambushed us last week? She seemed nice.”
“That was her, and my friends are nice. Just pushy.” She turned to him and tilted her head to show that she now included him under this annoying umbrella, too.
Apparently, he took this as a good thing, which was definitely not the way she’d intended it. “I guess that means it’s okay if I push you a little, too, seeing as we’re friends now and all that.”
“Remind me to never invite you to Potluck Club.”
He laughed. “To what?”
Shoot, shoot, shoot. Why had she said that aloud? “It’s just a thing we do every Sunday. We each bring a dish and check in on one another and catch up on our lives. It used to be a support group, but it’s kind of moved past that.”
“Sounds like a great thing to have in your life.”
Did she have to invite him now that she’d brought it up? The others would tease her mercilessly, not that they weren’t already but . . .
Wesley laughed again, but this time it put her at ease. “I can see the gears in your brain turning. Don’t worry, I’m not looking for an invite. But maybe I can help you with the cooking. Sundays, right? What are you planning to bring tomorrow?”
Now this was a topic she could talk about at length without feeling embarrassed or overwhelmed. “I’ve been learning Indian cooking. Last week’s aloo matar was a miss, but I have high hopes for this week’s biryani.”
“Let’s make it together,” he suggested. “I think I have the ingredients for curry, too, if you want to remake last week’s dish to figure out where you went wrong.”
Where she went wrong.... If only it were that easy to fix life.
Didn’t work the first time?
Just try a second time. Easy.
Only it was anything but.
Chapter 23
The next morning, Bridget stood outside Wesley’s first-floor apartment with an overloaded bag of ingredients in one hand and her favorite glass serving dish in the other. “Knock, knock!” she called, finding it too difficult to maneuver her load to attempt an actual physical knock.
Wesley’s two arctic dogs, Snow and Beau, let out frantic, high-pitched howls and slammed their bodies against the other side of the door in their eagerness to say hello. Honestly, she preferred her gang’s chorus of deep, throaty barks over the earsplitting howls assaulting her ears now.
The door opened, but Wesley stood facing the other way, his hand lifted in a command to the dogs, who now sat silently, tails thumping against the hardwood floor. “Come in,” he said and moved to the side, keeping his stare firmly on the dogs.
Bridget stepped inside and made her way straight to the kitchen. She’d expected Wesley’s apartment to follow the same blueprint as her own, but the two spaces looked nothing alike. Where hers was spacious and comfy, Wesley’s was small and cramped with cold hardwood floors. Still, the place was immaculately kept, with sparse furnishings and an even sparser gathering of personal items. The walls were white, the cabinets white, the blinds white, the floors light honey. It was as if she’d stepped inside a giant egg.
“Good boys,” Wesley said, releasing his dogs from their command with a fast click of his tongue.
“How long did you say you’ve lived here again?” Bridget asked as he wandered over to join her. Her place already appeared a hundred times more lived in even though she’d moved in only recently.
Wesley stretched both arms overhead, luxuriating in the space that Bridget found far too small. “Almost a year now.”
“I didn’t know you were a neat freak. I might not have agreed to be your friend if I had,” she joked. Not a single belonging was out of place. Everything had a spot, most of it tucked away out of view. Bridget would go crazy without her homey clutter; it was what made a house a home as far as she was concerned.
Wesley just shrugged, completely unbothered by the gentle criticism. “I like keeping things tidy. Makes small places seem lots bigger. Don’t you think?”
“Yeah, sure thing. But, um, is there enough room for us both in here?” Like the rest of his apartment, the kitchen had to be half the size of Bridget’s—at most. The only available counter space stretched out about three square feet beside the sink. The oven swung out on the other side of the tiny L that flanked the room. It, too, had a small swatch of counter to the side, but the microwave took up the entire space. The end result was a cramped triangular area that hardly fit one person within its boundaries, never mind two.
Wesley pulled open a drawer and withdrew two wooden cutting boards. “We’ll do prep at the table. C’mon.”
Bridget took a seat at his equally diminutive table. Two semicircle laminate flaps folded out on either side, but the room didn’t boast quite enough space to open them up. No wonder Wesley ran his dogs so much. The three of them must be tripping over one another all the time in this place.
Bridget glanced around in search of the husky and malamute and found them lounging by the front door happily.
“Seems vet techs make more than short-order cooks,” he said with a simple smile as he handed her a French knife and two tomatoes. “Don’t worry, though. I have all the space I need.”
She watched as Wesley returned to the kitchen and gathered onions, garlic, and little green peppers. He sat down opposite her and picked up a sleek and shiny knife. “The initial prep work for both dishes is pretty similar, so we’re going to make them both at the same time. Walk me through what you did last time you cooked Indian.”
“Well, I didn’t have any of those,” she said, nudging one of the small peppers with her index finger.
“Green chilis are essential for good curry,” he explained, slicing one in half to show Bridget the seeds inside. “If you use canned or frozen ingredients, it makes the end result a little less special. I’d rather have the most delicious meal possible than save a few minutes of prep time.”
Bridget nodded. “Well, I used canned tomatoes, canned peas, and red chili powder, so I probably did a pretty mediocre job last time around.”
Wesley’s eyes widened at her horror. “Please tell me you at least had fresh potatoes.”
“Yup,” she announced, happy she’d done one thing right.
“Which spices did you use?” Wesley asked, moving on to the garlic.
“Curry powder, red chili, salt, and coriander.”
“Oh, yeah, we can do way better than that. For starters, you want turmeric for color. Freshly grated ginger adds a bit of zing to the mix. And fresh is best for coriander, too.”
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen fresh coriander.” She tilted her head to the side as she thought back to the sand-colored powder she’d purchased from the grocery store last week.
“I bet you have.” Wesley chuckled for a moment before stopping abruptly and gaping at her with his jaw slightly askew. “Wait, you’re not one of those people who swears cilantro tastes like soap, are you?”
“I love cilantro,” she said, fighting off a craving for her favorite shrimp tacos. Maybe next week.
“Good, because I wouldn’t have accepted any other answer.” He laughed all the way now. “Cilantro is the leaf of the plant. Coriander is
the stem.”
“Which do we use?” Bridget asked, waiting while Wesley moved back to the kitchen and extracted a thick bunch of the plant in question.
“Both, if you’d like. One during the cooking process and one as a garnish,” he told her after rinsing the leaves in the sink.
“Okay, let’s do it.”
Time passed quickly as they worked together to chop and dice the needed ingredients. When they moved to the kitchen, Bridget stood slightly behind Wesley to peer over his shoulder as he explained the importance of using a wooden spoon instead of plastic while working over high heat.
“Carcinogens,” he’d said. “Best to avoid whenever possible.”
A precaution with which Bridget most heartily agreed. She never wanted to come anywhere near cancer again so long as she lived. Wesley didn’t know what had killed her mother, which made it easier to breeze right past his friendly little warning and focus on making the food.
As they continued, he also insisted medium heat would be gentler on the onions and that constant stirring wasn’t necessary but preferred.
“Where’d you learn to cook like this?” she asked as she watched him maneuver around the stove with a level of skill she would never attain.
“Around,” he answered simply before announcing his next great culinary tip. Maybe she could ask him again later. Right now she was in too much awe to look away from the masterful food coming together right before her very eyes.
She couldn’t wait to taste-test it.
Chapter 24
Bridget had assumed a rice-based dish would be easier to prepare than a fancy curry, but she soon found out how many extra steps went into making the biryani. They’d even had to use the oven, for crying out loud!
If Wesley weren’t there to guide her, she definitely would have messed up some part of it. She’d never been a bad cook, but she’d never embarked on such an ambitious new cuisine before, either. It probably would have helped if she’d eaten Indian food more than a handful of times before attempting to master it in the kitchen.
Wesley, however, seemed to have no issues. It was as if he didn’t even need the recipe that Bridget had carefully printed out and brought along with her cooking supplies.
“You need to come today,” she said as he pulled out the perfectly browned rice dish and unleashed the wonderful scents of coriander, saffron, and clarified butter into his apartment. “There’s no way I can take credit for doing all this on my own, not after last week. You should come and bask in the glory of your culinary prowess.”
Wesley let out a full-bellied laugh, his head arched forward in front of his chest. “The glory of my culinary prowess, huh? You make me sound like a Greek god or something.”
She grabbed a fork from the counter and dipped it into the dish to steal a bite. “The Greek god of cooking. That’s you. Or is it the Indian god?” She lifted the fork in a salute, then shoved the steaming morsel past her lips.
Wesley smirked as he watched her. “That’s hot, by the way.”
Yup. Of course it was. Bridget should have known. She tried to keep her face straight even as her eyes teared from the heat.
He laughed again when she shot him the thumbs-up sign. “You are ridiculous.” He pointed to her with the wooden spoon, then turned it back to himself. “And I don’t need to bask in anything, glory or otherwise.”
Bridget was having far too good a time with Wesley for things to end now. What if he turned back into ice man the next time they got together? She liked the warm, smart, laughing Wesley and didn’t want him to be replaced with that other guy. Not if she could help it.
“I know they’d love to meet you, and this week is definitely the easiest, since it’s at my place,” she argued. “Potluck Club won’t be here again for another four weeks.”
Wesley shifted toward the sink and lifted the tap so that he could begin cleaning up the dirtied pots and utensils.
“No pressure, though,” Bridget added as she watched him and tried to figure out why he was so hesitant to accept her invite. After all, he was the one who’d practically begged her to become friends. He was also the one who had suggested they cook together today. “It’s an invitation. Not a prison sentence.”
Wesley flinched, then slammed the handle down and took a giant step back. “I almost forgot I have something for you. Just a sec while I go get it,” he mumbled, disappearing so quickly she didn’t even have time to ask for more details.
She stood on her own as Wesley retreated into what she assumed was the bedroom. Strange how the simple thought of enjoying a potluck lunch with her friends sent him running straight out of the room.
Wesley was gone for several minutes, and Bridget had begun to question whether she should follow him in there or give up and head home. Neither seemed like the right response, so she continued to wait.
When he returned, he held an adorable plush toy over his face and wiggled it from side to side. “It’s just a small thing, but I saw it and thought of you,” Wesley said, lowering the stuffed animal to reveal a gigantic smile on his face.
She squealed in delight as he handed her the gift, then laughed as she noticed that the stuffed dog was wearing a tiny lion hoodie complete with a fluffy mane. “Aww. He looks just like Teddy. Where did you find him?”
Wesley watched her carefully, his smile never faltering. “They have them all over the bookstore. This dog has more outfits than Barbie, I swear. That’s Boo, by the way. He’s supposed to be the world’s cutest dog.”
“Boo who?” Bridget asked, laughing at her own joke, then sobering when she realized Wesley’s large smile remained unmoving, almost as if it were plastic.
“Nah, it’s totally Teddy. And I love it. Thank you so much.” She gave him a quick hug, feeling heat tug at her cheeks and her core both. “I hate to run, but I need to be home in case someone comes by early, and either Amy or Nichole almost always does. You sure you don’t want to come?”
She wanted him there despite the merciless teasing she knew they’d both endure at the hands of her friends. Wesley had said he didn’t want to make friends, but he needed them, needed her. He’d given her a gift, and now she wanted to do the same for him.
The only reason she’d gotten through the obvious walls surrounding him was her bullish determination not to take no for an answer. If Wesley had others in his life, Bridget had never seen them come around, which led her to believe he’d closed out everyone. If only she could figure out why....
His unnatural smile finally faded, and he turned away, mumbling, “I’m not good with new people.”
She laughed as she remembered their first dozen exchanges. “Yeah, maybe so. But you’re not new to them. They’ve already heard lots about you from me.”
He raised one eyebrow playfully, a bit of the tension swept away once more. “Oh? Like what?”
She wagged her finger at him, then hooked it in a come hither gesture. “If you come, I can pretty much guarantee they’ll tell you.”
“Well, now, I guess that’s an offer I can’t refuse.”
Chapter 25
Wesley helped carry the two freshly prepared dishes back to her apartment. He also carried her largely untouched spices and cooking supplies, leaving her with only the small stuffed animal to transport.
They’d had just enough time to wipe down the counters and set up a serving station when the first of Bridget’s friends arrived for their weekly get-together.
Amy’s eyes lit immediately upon noticing the handsome newcomer. “Is this him?” she whispered in Bridget’s ear while leaning in to give her a hug hello.
“Please don’t embarrass me too much,” Bridget whispered back, even though she knew it was already too late to hope for such a thing.
Amy spun toward Wesley and threw her arms around him as if greeting a long-lost friend. “It’s so good to meet you!” she exclaimed. “I can’t wait to hear all about how you know our Bridget.”
Bridget rolled her eyes and shrugged helplessly, but Wesl
ey just laughed. Unlike earlier at his apartment, this gesture of happiness appeared completely genuine. “I don’t think anyone’s ever been so happy to meet me in all my life,” he said.
Amy hit him playfully. “Well, I bet that’s not true, but tell you what? I’ll call my boyfriend over so you’re not the only guy at club today. Strength in numbers, right?”
As soon as Amy picked up her phone, Nichole appeared at the door. “Hello again, stranger,” she said with a small smile. She didn’t offer Wesley a hug, but she did twitch her nose in curiosity and storm straight into the kitchen.
Finding what she’d been looking for, she stared at the two dishes Wesley and Bridget had prepared in open horror. “Oh, B! Please tell me you didn’t try making Indian food again. It wasn’t even edible last week!”
“Hey,” Bridget cried. “I tried my best, but I’m still learning. And for your information, Wesley helped me this time and he’s a professional, so you all need to shush.”
“You’re a chef?” Amy asked, returning her attention to the people in the room with her. “I love that. I used to work in a bakery for extra money during my college days.”
“More of a short-order cook,” Wesley corrected. “But I do love sharing my . . . What was it, Bridget? Oh, right . . . the glory of my culinary prowess with others.”
“You fit right in already,” Nichole said, patting him on the shoulder and tossing a wink toward Bridget.
“She’s right,” Amy added. “We definitely don’t tease B as much as we probably should.”
“Really, I think you guys do just fine on your own,” Bridget said with a groan.
That’s when Hazel showed up. “Fine with what?” she asked Bridget before noticing Wesley and marching right up to him. “Oh, hello there. Is this the hot guy we saw from your window before?” she asked, facing Wesley but glancing over her shoulder as she addressed Bridget.
And now she officially wanted to run into her bedroom, lock the door, and hide under the covers until this whole thing was over.
Wesley extricated himself from the crowd by the door and took a seat at the dining table. “Bridget and I run together,” he explained. “I live on the first floor.”
Wednesday Walks & Wags Page 9
