Bread and Butter by Michelle Wildgen

Author:Michelle Wildgen
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Doubleday
Published: 2014-02-11T05:00:00+00:00

Part 2

CHAPTER 12

LEO WAS EARLY. HE CIRCLED the block several times instead of ringing the doorbell before eight and was rewarded by a lengthy, suspicious look from a guy out shoveling his driveway as Leo passed him for the third time.

Eventually he pulled into the driveway, where he hadn’t been for years, not since the grand pig feast Thea had hosted when she was still married to Bryan. The light was on in her kitchen and he could see her moving back and forth before the window, putting dishes on shelves and closing cabinet doors.

He had asked her only last night, presenting it as a professional outing to check on Stray’s friends-and-family night, to support their coworker and his brother, and to extend a hand to Harry as well. He’d oversold it a bit. They’d been upstairs at the restaurant, finished with the dinner shift, Thea back in her civilian clothes, tired and shiny-faced while downstairs the last shift of servers began straightening the dining room.

The night they’d seen each other at Mack’s, Leo had walked her out to her car and stood beside it, one palm flat on the hood, while she threw her purse into the passenger seat and turned back to him, her pale face lit with expectance and uncertainty. They’d felt like old friends and also like people on a first date, some strange blend of both.

He’d found himself more at ease than he’d ever been in Thea’s somewhat taciturn presence. When Thea had appeared in the entrance at Mack’s, looking startled by the thud of the door she’d just pushed open, her scuffed boots planted far apart as she’d surveyed the room, he’d known this was the last place she wanted to be. He was touched, because she was there because of the job, which was at least partially because of him.

As they’d finished their drinks and eaten their eggs and walked out into the crisp night air, Leo had felt the darkness of the past few weeks lift. The fretfulness and the unfocused discord that had infected every aspect of his day were just gone, soaked up by bourbon and a meal and by Thea’s obvious pleasure at being cooked for and catered to. Alone with her in the kitchen, he had felt reckless and lighthearted, as if nothing he did could fail.

But by the time he’d walked her to her car, he’d come down a bit—they were back out in the quiet familiar neighborhood, the night was over, and they’d return in the morning, the spell broken, and have to work together again. So he just smiled and stepped back so she could close her car door.

The next day he’d braced himself for Thea to be dour and puffy from a night too late and too relaxed. Maybe he even wanted her to be less attractive in the morning, for all evening long, he’d wondered why he’d never noticed Thea’s essential prettiness, the delicacy of her mouth and the fine point of her

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