Nothing More (27 page)

The powdered sugar moves to one side and I realize that she cut the end open. I try to grab it before it spills out, and fail. The sugar dumps out of one end and onto the counter and the floor. A cloud of white dust puffs up in my face and Nora waves her hand around as the sugar cloud covers her.

“Oh my God!” she shrieks, humor evident in her voice.

I sit the plastic bag on the counter and look at the mess I made. As if it's mocking me, the bag falls to the floor and the last bit of sugar puffs out. My sweatshirt is so covered in white that the seahawk printed on the front is barely visible. When Nora smiles, her eyes crinkle at the corners and I sort of like it.

“Sorry! I didn't know it was open.” I wipe my hand across the counter, and while I like the way the soft sugar feels against my skin, I should never, ever, try to bake anything again. Noted.

Nora's black tank top is covered in blotches of powdered sugar. Along with her arms, her hands, her cheeks, and her dark hair.

“It's okay.” Her smile is contagious and I'm not even embarrassed at the mess I made. It feels weird that she's not mad about it, and I don't know why. She's just smiling, looking from the mess to me, and shaking her head with her lips pressed into a smile.

Nora moves the mixing bowl out of the way and grabs a roll of paper towels. She turns the water on in the sink and uses her hands to push as much powder into the basin as possible.

“During my first semester at culinary school, I forgot to put the guard on a forty-quart mixer. A ten-pound bag of confectioners' sugar went everywhere. Needless to say, I had to stay an extra three hours to clean and redo my assignment, and my teacher was such a prick he wouldn't let anyone help me.” Her hands are moving quickly to clean the mess I made and I should probably be helping her.

“Did you pass the class? I mean, after you redid the entire thing?” I ask her.

“Nope. Like I said, my instructor was a real prick.”

I look at her and she lifts her sugary hand to scratch her face. She wipes at her cheek, smearing white on her tanned skin.

I grab a paper towel and start to help her. “That's why I want to be a teacher.”

She tosses the empty sugar bag into the trash. “To be a prick?”

I laugh and shake my head. “No. To be the opposite. I had this teacher in tenth grade, Mr. Haponek, who went above and beyond his job. He was everything a teacher was supposed to be, but the older I got, the less my teachers cared about their jobs, and when I looked around my school, I saw so many kids who needed that one good teacher. It makes a difference, you know?”

“What was your high school like?” Nora asks.

Terrible.

A shithole.

“It was okay,” I say.

I don't think she wants to hear about my actual experience.

I don't think I'd want to tell her.

It's kind of like when people ask “How are you?” and really only want you to say “fine.” Any further explanation makes them uncomfortable.

“I didn't get to go to a real high school. I went to a small private school near Seattle. It was awful,” Nora says, surprising me with another small glimpse into who she is.

“My school was awful, too,” I admit.

Nora regards me with a skeptical look. “I bet you were one of the popular kids. You played sports, didn't you?”

I nearly laugh at the idea of me being a popular kid.

A jock? Me? Not even close.

“Not quite.” My cheeks get red. I can feel it. “I wasn't anything, really. I wasn't cool enough to be popular, but I wasn't smart enough to be considered a nerd. I was just in that middle ground where no one gave a shit about me. I was chubby then, so I got teased when the popular kids got bored with their usual prey. But honestly, I didn't realize how bad my high school was until I moved to Washington halfway through my senior year. My experience in Washington was so different.”

Nora walks over to the utility closet and grabs the broom and dustpan. She starts to sweep the floor and I prepare to fill the silence with more ramblings about my high school days as I wet a paper towel and clean the rest of the counter.

“Nothing is worse than a bunch of assholes who peak in high school,” she observes.

I bark out a little laugh. “That's one of the truest things I've ever heard.”

“I guess I wasn't missing much,” Nora says, her eyes distant. She has that expression on her face again, the one that looks like she's grown bored.

“Did you always want to be a pastry chef?” I ask. The sugar is close to being cleaned up now, but I don't want the conversation to end. I almost wish there was another bag of something for me to
accidentally
dump on the floor.

I've never heard Nora talk this much before, aside from her and Tessa gushing over the two boys kissing on that demon-hunting show Tessa's obsessed with. Usually, I'm never a part of their conversations, I'm in my room studying or at work when she's here, and now that we are alone and she's being uncharacteristically chatty, I want to gather in as many words as she's willing to say.

She moves the broom across the tile floor and looks over at me. “Thanks for remembering not to call me a baker. And no, I actually wanted to be a surgeon. Like my dad and his dad and his dad.”

A surgeon?
That's the last thing I expected her to say.

“Really?”

“Don't be so surprised. I'm actually very intelligent.” She cocks her head to the side and I decide that I really like her playful attitude. It's different from Dakota's, not as harsh or as hard.

Dakota
.

I haven't thought about her once in the last thirty minutes, and her name sounds foreign inside my head.

Does that make me a bad guy? Naked with her one minute, not thinking about her the next.

Is she sitting at home, waiting for me to call her?

. . . Somehow, I doubt that.

“I'm not doubting that.” I raise a sugary hand to her. “I just thought you would say something more . . . art-related.”

Nora regards me with a thoughtful look on her face. “Hmm, why is that?”

She rests the broom against the counter and leans closer to me to turn on the faucet. Her arm brushes against the fabric of my sweatshirt and I move out of her way.

“I don't know. I just picture you being some sort of artist.” I run my hand over my hair and little bits of sugar fall onto the floor. “I don't really know what I'm talking about.”

“You should have taken that off before I swept.” Nora's fingers wrap around a string from my sweatshirt and I look down, watching her hand.

“Probably,” I say, and she takes a step closer.

I hold my breath.

Her eyes catch mine and she sucks in a quiet breath between her teeth. “Sometimes it feels like you know me more than you should,” she whispers—and I can't move.

I can't breathe, or move, or even speak when she's this close. Even with sugar covering her, she's so painfully stunning that I can barely look at her.

“Maybe I do,” I tell her, somehow feeling the same.

Truthfully, I barely know anything about her, but maybe it isn't about knowing the factual things. Maybe it doesn't matter if I know her mom's name, or her favorite color. Maybe it doesn't take years to know people like we assume; maybe the important things are much, much simpler. Maybe it matters more that we see deeper, that we know what kind of friend they are, or that they bake cakes for people they don't know without being asked.

“You shouldn't,” she says, still staring up at me.

Without thinking, I take a step closer to her and she closes her eyes.

“Maybe I should.”

I don't know who I am in this moment. I don't feel nervous about being so close to such a beautiful woman. I don't feel like I'm not good enough to be touching her face.

I barely have any thoughts running through my mind.

I like the silence inside my head that she seems to bring.

“We can't,” she says, in a voice that's barely audible.

Her eyes are still shut and my hand is on her cheek without me even knowing that I put it there. My thumb traces the outline of her pouty mouth, and I can feel the quickening of her pulse where my palm rests on her neck.

“Maybe we can,” I whisper.

In this moment, all I know in the world is that her hands are gripping the fabric of my sweatshirt, and despite the doubt in her words, she's pulling me closer.

“You don't know how bad I am for you.” The words rush out of her mouth and her eyes peer open just a fraction . . . and my heart swells.

There's pain there, a deep pain shredded through the dark green and the flakes of brown. Her pain is visible to me for the first time, and I can feel the weight of it in her hooded gaze. Something shifts and locks into place inside of me and I don't have the words to explain it. I want to heal her. I want her to know that everything will be okay.

I want her to know that pain is only permanent if we allow it to be.

I don't know the origin of hers, but I'm certain that I would do anything to take it away from her. My shoulders can bear the weight of her pain. They are strong, built for supporting, and I need to her know that.

I feel fiercely protective of her now, as if she's been mine to guard for my entire existence.

“You don't know what you're getting into,” Nora warns, and I quiet her with my thumb against her lips. She parts them under my touch and exhales a quiet sigh.

“I don't care,” I say, and mean it.

Her eyes close again and she pulls me closer, closer, until our bodies are pressed together, molded like they're supposed to be, like they were made to be.

I lean down and lick my lips and she whimpers as if she's been waiting an eternity for my lips to find hers, and it does feel that way. I feel a powerful sense of relief, like I've found a part of me that I didn't know was missing.

I rest my hand on her cheek and there's barely an inch between our mouths. She's breathing so softly, as if I'm the fragile one, and she's being careful not to break me.

Her lips taste like sugar and she's my favorite dessert.

I'm gentle with her, gently pressing my lips against the corners of her mouth, and she makes a noise in the back of her throat that makes my head swim. I feel dizzy when her mouth opens and her tongue gently meets mine.

It's the best kind of disoriented and I never want to think straight again. The hand of mine that's not on her cheek moves to her back and I press her soft body against mine until there's not a single inch between us.

Through her soft lips, she whispers my name, and I've never felt this type of rush before. She pulls away for a moment and I feel lost, like I'm swimming out in the middle of nowhere, and when her mouth finds mine again, she's found
me
and anchored me to her.

A vibration buzzes against the counter and the music I had forgotten was even playing fades out.

It's like I've lost the last few minutes of my life, but I never, ever want them back. I want to stay here, lost with her.

But reality has other plans and Nora pulls away, taking the silence in my mind with her.

She grabs her phone from the counter and looks at it quickly as she swipes her finger across the green circle. I lean against the counter to steady myself and she apologizes and steps into the hallway.

A few seconds of silence pass and I can hear her talking but I can't make out any of the words. Her voice gets louder and I force myself not to move closer to eavesdrop on her conversation.

“I have to go,” she says when she comes back into the room. “But I'll be back in the morning to help you decorate the cake. I'll wrap it up so it won't get stale.”

She moves across my kitchen and I notice the change in her demeanor. Her shoulders are slouched, and every time I try to catch her eyes, she avoids mine.

A thrumming rises in my chest.

“Is everything okay? Is there anything I can do to help?” I ask. I decide in this moment that there are only a few things in this world that I wouldn't do for her.

I know I'm insane and that I barely know her. I'm aware that it's hard to protect someone that won't allow you to. I'm also aware that I have a messy on-and-off relationship with someone else, but there's nothing I can do to go back now. I can't make the last few minutes disappear—and even if I could, I never would.

“Everything is fine. I just have to go back to Lookout, my boss needs me,” she says with a weak smile I can see right through.

I stand in silence as she layers Saran Wrap around the cake pan and grabs her shirt from the back of the chair. She tucks her tie into the back pocket of her black pants and walks to the entry of the kitchen.

Her eyes still won't meet mine and it makes my stomach hurt. “Don't worry about those dishes, I'll get them in the morning.”

I nod, not knowing what else to say. The bliss from our kiss is evaporating faster than I can blink, and the endless questions I have for her are filling my head.

“I'm sorry,” she says, and I truly feel like she means it. At least there's that.

She disappears through the doorway and I stand still for a few minutes, recollecting every moment we just shared. From the sweet taste of her sugary kiss to the desperation in her fingers as she clutched the fabric of my sweatshirt.

The apartment is so silent, unlike my mind, and I turn on the faucet and open the door to the dishwasher. I toss out the uneaten broccoli and put the olive oil back into the cabinet. By the time Tessa gets home, I'm still sitting in the kitchen, at the table. The dishes are clean and put away, and there's no trace of powdered sugar anywhere to be found.

She unties her apron and lays it on the back of the chair. “Hey, what are you doing up?”