The Difference Between Us

  I moved out of the way so he could look for himself. Crossing my arms over my chest, I waited for him, in all his restaurant owning glory, to determine time of death on this solid but failed effort.

  He poked at the bread. “Oh,” he said. Then he moved over to the noodles. They had been soaking in the pot since I’d given up the idea of draining and serving them. “Huh.” Passing by the salad, he sniffed at it. “I don’t… I’m not sure what to say.” He reached over and flicked off the burner that had still been heating the meatballs. “Do I want to know what’s under there?”

  I lifted my head and met his amused gaze. “I’m fine if we want to leave that one a mystery.”

  He chuckled, surveying the messy, ruined scene once again. “Molly, I… You… What went wrong?”

  My eyes widened as the full weight of my bad choices were realized. I had invited Ezra Baptiste to my apartment knowing I couldn’t cook. The man owned four of the most successful restaurants in Durham. He sometimes filled in at Bianca because he “knew his way around a kitchen.” He had probably eaten five star meals every day for the last decade of his life. At the very least, multiple times a week.

  This was the man I had invited over to scare away with my cooking.

  Mission accomplished.

  “I-I don’t even know where to begin,” I told him. God, this was humiliating. My entire face flamed red, spreading a splotchy blush from the roots of my hair to the tips of my toes. I pressed my hand to my mouth and wrapped my other arm around my waist. I needed someone to console me. Apparently, that someone was myself.

  Would it be totally out of line to make him leave? It seemed like a better option than having him witness this total humiliation.

  Finally, when the silence had stretched to uncomfortable and neither of us had any idea what to say to make this better, I blurted, “It’s your fault! You started kissing me and… and then this happened!”

  Our gazes clashed across the small space between us and something shifted inside him, something widening and deepening and spreading wings that were bigger than my entire apartment.

  He smiled, prompting me to say, “Everything was time sensitive and you… distracted me.”

  “Don’t move.” He walked back to the entryway and returned with the bottle of wine he’d brought with him. “We should open this.” He looked around for a second, then asked. “Do you have a cork screw?”

  Silently, I walked over and retrieved the bottle opener from a drawer. I handed it to him. He took it from me and held it up to examine it.

  “This is a nice one,” he commented.

  I blinked at him. Was he really moving on this quickly? We were surrounded by terrible food! And messy dishes. Wasn’t his professional integrity insulted?

  “I can’t cook,” I confessed. “But I take my wine very seriously.”

  He stayed focused on the task of uncorking the bottle he’d brought, but his mouth widened into a smile. “I thought it was my fault that this happened.”

  Nerves hit my stomach and I felt like doubling over to stop the sensation. “It is.” I pulled two glasses down from the cupboard and set them on the countertop next to him. “But more accurately, I’m terrible in the kitchen. I can’t even do simple things like toast, or cookies, or… spaghetti.”

  He lifted that so intense gaze again, searching my face and my eyes and my soul. “Then why did you offer to make dinner tonight? We could have gone anywhere. You didn’t have to stress out over this.”

  I bit down hard on my lip, trying to figure out how to spin my decisions so I didn’t sound crazy. “I underestimated my propensity for disaster.”

  Ezra laughed again. “I think I did too.”

  “Sorry,” I whispered to him. “You don’t have to stay if you don’t want—”

  He cut me off before I could finish my thought. “I’m going to stop you right there. Dinner was only an excuse to see you again, Molly. You could have served goldfish and I would have pretended to love it. I’m not here because I want you to impress me with your cooking. You already impress me because of who you are. You impress me with your knack for business. You impress me with your painting, and design style and mural making. You impress me with your kindness, your sense of humor and the way you nibble on your bottom lip when you’re deciding what you want. Molly, if I wanted a chef to make me a good meal, I would have stayed at work. I’m here because I want to spend the evening with you. And no other reason.”

  I suddenly found it difficult to breathe. “Oh.”

  He stopped fiddling with the wine bottle and stepped over to me, pulling my hands into his. “I hope you didn’t feel pressured to cook for me. I would hate to know I’m the reason…” He paused to look around at the mess in the sink and on the stove and all over the counters. “Your kitchen exploded.”

  A trembling sigh of relief moved through me. I’d wanted to scare him away with my bad cooking, but I’d ended up falling harder and faster and deeper for him. Did he even know what he’d done? Did he know how important his words were?

  “I don’t know what I was thinking,” I told him honestly. Because it was true. It had been a terribly stupid idea. Not just because it hadn’t worked, but because I didn’t want to push this man away. I had great big fears when it came to him, to us. I was filled with debilitating uncertainty. I didn’t know if I trusted whatever this was between us to last. But I did know I enjoyed spending time with him. I liked the way he made me feel when we were together. And I liked the way he looked at me, and touched me and kissed me. I liked Ezra Baptiste way more than I knew what to do with.

  And I wanted to see where this thing between us was going to go.

  I wanted to know him.

  He stepped away to pour a glass of wine for me. “It’s impressive though,” he chuckled. “I’ve never seen so many things go wrong at once.”

  “I know it’s hard to believe, but I was born this way. It’s all natural talent.” I took a sip of my wine and then another sip. I tried to talk myself out of gulping the entire glass, but it was too good to stop.

  Half his mouth lifted in that crooked smile that made my belly quiver. “How about we clean this up and I cook us something instead.”

  “You can’t do that.”

  “I can,” he argued. “I promise not to burn the bread.” He looked at the salad again like it was the most offensive thing of all. “Or turn the lettuce into soup.”

  I snorted on a surprised laugh. “I meant, you literally can’t make us dinner. I have nothing but cereal and yogurt and maybe some cheese.”

  “That can’t be true.” He turned around and walked straight to my refrigerator. Yanking open the door, he leaned inside and moved the milk around. “What is the opposite of lactose intolerant?”

  “Lactose tolerant?”

  He shot me a look over his shoulder. “What I’m saying is, I’ve never seen so much dairy in one refrigerator. You literally only have dairy.”

  “I also have oranges,” I told him. “And I think some grapes.”

  Ezra stood up and opened my freezer. He pulled out the Mint Chocolate Chip I’d been saving for a rainy day. “Oh, look. More dairy.”

  “Hey! That’s a different variation at least. I should get credit for that.”

  He moved over to my pantry, rummaging around until he came out empty handed. “You weren’t kidding. I can’t even make eggs.”

  “Sorry, I don’t do the whole big shopping thing. I prefer to make several intrusive, bothersome trips a week. This time, I only got enough ingredients to ruin them all.”

  “How do you survive like this, Molly?” He looked genuinely concerned, but I didn’t know what to tell him. I had a system that worked for me.

  Sure, it would have been beneficial to introduce more vegetables to my diet and maybe some fiber, but let’s review what happened with the spaghetti. It was safer for everybody if I just stuck to microwaveable meals.

  And the dairy of course.

  “I’m really good at o
rdering Chinese,” I told him.

  His eyebrows furrowed. “How about this. I’ll start on the dishes and you order the Chinese.”

  My chest warmed, my heart expanding to accommodate a flurry of new emotions. “What do you want?”

  “You pick,” he ordered. “Show me just how good you really are.”

  I shook my head at him, but did as he asked. When I came back to the kitchen he had already thrown away all of the food and started on the dishes. I stepped up next to him and reached for the noodle pot to dry.

  “You don’t have to do this,” I told him.

  He stared intently at the salad bowl he was scrubbing. “I know.”

  “But you’re going to do it anyway?”

  “We all have our domestic talents, Molly. Washing dishes is mine.”

  I laughed, thinking he was joking. “Why don’t I believe you?”

  He turned his head, giving me the full force of all his broody intensity. “It’s true,” he insisted. “Killian always had to be the one to help make dinner. That left me on cleanup duty.”

  The heaviness in his statement surprised me. “I forget that you guys grew up together.”

  He turned back to the bowl. “Yep.”

  I hadn’t meant to kill the conversation, but I was also curious to know more about his childhood. I knew he came from foster care. I knew his mom had died. I knew his dad had died later. But those were random facts anyone could Google. I wanted to know the details, the specifics. I wanted to know so much more than the highlights.

  But I didn’t know how to ask those questions, so instead, I said, “It’s cool you guys are still friends. Vera and I grew up together too. I can’t even imagine what my life would look like without her.”

  “Yeah, I’m not sure I feel the same way about Killian.”

  I laughed because I hoped he was making a joke. He didn’t. We fell silent again. Realizing he wasn’t going to offer any information about his childhood, I decided to pry. “So what was it like growing up with Killian? Was he as scary back then as he is now?”

  “Worse,” Ezra grunted. “He’s always been a cocky bastard, but back then he was always picking fights and causing trouble. He hated everything and everyone. Even me. Maybe especially me.”

  “Why you?”

  He shut off the water and dried his hands on my kitchen towel. Settling back against the counter after he set the towel down, he crossed his arms over his chest and dropped his voice reverently. “Because I had known my mom. He hated that I’d gotten to live so much of my life with a parent. But he had no idea. I still think he’s clueless. He lost his parents, but he didn’t lose them, you know? Not like I did.”

  “What do you mean?”

  My chest pinched at the desolate look in his expression. I immediately wanted to throw my arms around him and tell him it was going to be okay.

  “My mom and I were close,” Ezra explained. “Losing her… losing her was like losing everything.” His gaze met mine. He tapped his chest with a flattened palm. “It still hurts. After all these years, I still feel it here as sharply as I did the day it happened.”

  I licked dry lips and tried to swallow past the lump in my chest. “How did she die?”

  “Breast cancer.”

  “I’m sorry, Ezra. I’m so sorry.”

  He reached out and linked our hands. I hadn’t been expecting him to need comfort, but I wished I’d given it to him before he asked. His grief was so palpable, so real and heavy that I had been momentarily paralyzed by it, lost in the swirling emotions he didn’t try to hide.

  I squeezed his hands. “What was she like?”

  “Kind,” he answered with a tender smile. “She was kind and thoughtful. We were very poor and when she got sick, things only got worse. But she always managed to take care of the people in our life that had less than we did. She always remembered birthdays and holidays, and she reached out when people had a need. She had this beauty that everyone was attracted to. Not just outwardly, but her soul drew people in. And funny. She had the best sense of humor. Even at the end.”

  “Your dad wasn’t around at all?”

  Something harsh and unforgiving flashed in his expression, making me regret the question. “No, my dad didn’t show up until years later. Which I will always be grateful for.” There was a weighted pause and then he said so softly I almost didn’t hear him, “He didn’t deserve her.” He blinked, breaking out of a memory. “What about you? What are your parents like?”

  It was all I could do not to pull my hands from his and curl into myself. There were only a few topics I liked less than my parents. But he had been so open and honest with me, it was only fair to return the favor. “They’re… difficult,” I admitted. “And really different.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Avoiding his probing gaze, I confessed, “My mom is a crazy workaholic that thinks everyone in the world should work at least as hard as her. And my dad is… the opposite.” I didn’t want to bring up my dad’s lack of job yet. Whenever I told people that my dad was out of work, they immediately started placing all of their judgments on him. “He’s laid back,” I finally said.

  “What do they do?”

  Apparently, I wasn’t going to be able to skirt around the conversation after all. “My mom runs an elementary school lunchroom. She’s in charge of the kitchen. And my dad is currently unemployed. He was recently let go.”

  Ezra made a face. “Oh that’s hard. I’m sorry. What’s his field?”

  “Uh, sales, mostly.”

  “What does he sell?”

  “Everything.”

  He laughed, thinking I’d made a joke. “What?”

  “He sells everything. Or he’s sold everything. At least once. This has been somewhat of a theme my whole life. He sells something. He gets fired. He tries to sell something else. Eventually he gets fired. He’s… I don’t know how to explain him. He just, he’s not a very good worker.”

  “Your parents are still married?”

  I exhaled a long sigh. “Yeah. They hate each other, but they’re still married.”

  Nodding in empathy, he said. “At least they’re trying.”

  “I don’t know if that’s true,” I told him. “It’s hard to tell with them.”

  Ezra let out a slow breath. “You know, when my mom was dying, I didn’t know who my dad was. My mom never told me. So the whole time she was sick I believed very strongly that if my dad had been around, she would have been able to survive. I just knew that if he’d been there to take care of her instead of me, she would have been fine. Which is a heavy burden to carry as a kid. But then I met him, and I realized I’d been wrong. He wasn’t the kind of father that would have shouldered burdens and made things better. He was a taker. He wasn’t just sick physically, there was something wrong with him on the inside. But there was nothing I could do about it. By that point, he was going to die no matter what. I either had to accept him as he was and be thankful I had finally gotten to meet him and know him or I was going to have to live with never getting to know my dad. I made the right choice. Our parents aren’t perfect people. They’re as human and flawed as we are. Which means they’re as likely to mess us up as they are to not.”

  I felt myself smile at his truth. “Wise advice.”

  He lifted one shoulder. “You still turned out fine, Molly Maverick. I’ve been very impressed with everything you’ve done for the websites. I think your social media strategy is really going to make a difference. I already have some people on it. And the cooking classes were a genius idea. Wyatt is really excited about that.”

  That lifted my spirits. “Yay!”

  His lips kicked up in a teasing smile. “If you’re ever ready to leave STS just give me a call. I’ll have a job waiting for you.”

  “Oh, really? How’s your health care?”

  His grin widened. “Excellent.”

  The door buzzed. The food was here. Ezra paid for it, even though I offered more than once since I’d be
en the one to ruin dinner, but he wouldn’t hear of it.

  We spent the rest of the night laughing over Kung Pao chicken and Mongolian beef, fighting over the last crab Rangoon, and talking about every other single thing.

  He made me think and listen, and I was surprised with how open he was. We’d ended up on the couch flirting and teasing and becoming something more than friends… something more than a casual kiss.

  Not that we didn’t kiss.

  Because we did.

  When we’d gotten tangled in each other’s limbs and our words had run out, he’d kissed me on my couch like he’d been looking forward to it all night… all week. And then he’d kept kissing me. He’d kissed me long and thoroughly until I’d been greedy for more of him, more of his touch.

  Until he’d somehow made tonight the best first date I’d ever had. Even though I’d started the night by destroying supper.

  He’d finally pulled away sometime after midnight when it was impossible to keep our bodies and hands and minds from trying to push us past kissing.

  I’d walked him to the door where he’d kissed me again and promised another night like this.

  “Come see me at Bianca this week,” he’d demanded. “Thursday night. Give me something to look forward to.”

  At this point I’d been drunk on him and his sinful mouth and the best conversation so I’d nodded. “Okay. Thursday.”

  “Goodnight, Molly.”

  “Goodnight, Ezra.”

  Then he’d walked away leaving me bursting with hope and possibility. My poor cynical heart grew two sizes in anticipation of the next time I would see a man that only hours ago I’d tried to scare off.

  I’d texted Vera even though it was late. It didn’t work. He wasn’t scared off.

  She’d texted back almost immediately—Duh.

  That’s when I realized she’d tricked me. I hated her.

  And loved her.

  And couldn’t wait to thank her in person.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  It was after nine by the time I parked at Bianca Wednesday night. It had been two weeks since the spaghetti mishap. Two weeks of new-relationship bliss and constant smiles and getting to know the most amazing man I had ever met.