Super Host by Kate Russo

Author:Kate Russo [Russo, Kate]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781472270009
Google: XJ6pDwAAQBAJ
Amazon: B07XXCNJQF
Publisher: Headline
Published: 2021-02-09T00:00:00+00:00

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The next morning, she hears Theo moving purposefully around the house. Even his footsteps sound patronizing.

“Hi,” he says, when he sees her coming down the stairs.

She stands on the staircase, still wearing the clothes she’s been wearing for two days now. Her hair must be crazy, because he’s looking several inches above her eyes. Or maybe he can’t bear to look her in the eyes anymore. Hopefully, it’s the hair.

“This should do it,” he says, holding up supplies. He’s been to the hardware store.

“Thanks,” she says, sheepishly. She wants to be angry, but in truth, she’s thrilled that he went to buy the paint, even more thrilled that he did it without asking.

“Granola?” he asks, pointing to the kitchen island.

“Yeah, alright,” she says, although she’s not hungry. She hasn’t eaten anything since the granola she had yesterday, but she’s not going to tell him that for fear he’ll go ballistic again. Okay, not ballistic. A better word to describe Theo would be concerned. That’s the word she would use if she were writing it down for the fact jar.

He pulls down two bowls from the cabinet and pours granola into each. He slides one bowl down the island to Emma, followed by a spoon, before filling his own with milk. He eats his granola standing up, facing Emma from the other side of the island. “I’m not the only one that needs to take better care of myself,” he says, not in a patronizing way this time, but like someone who knows what’s at stake when you don’t.

From where Emma sits, she can see Bennett looking out his studio window, but he turns around quickly to make it seem like he hasn’t been watching. Normally, she’d tell Theo, try to prove to him that Bennett’s been spying, but this morning she lets it go.

“I’m sorry,” she says. “About upstairs. Do you want some help?”

He smiles. “No. That’s okay. I’m kind of looking forward to it. Something I can actually fix.” He lifts the lid off the fact jar and stares in at the full contents. “That’s a lot of truth. Does every one of these pieces of paper say, ‘Theo is a jerk’?”

“No,” she answers. Just one, she thinks. “Besides, that’s a feeling, not a fact.”

He nods, impressed, and puts the lid back on the jar. He looks around, clearly hoping to reacquaint himself with both the kitchen and the wife he left behind. When he picks up one of the avocados from the fruit bowl, it bursts in his hand.

“Eww . . .” he says, looking down at the brownish-green slime on his palm and fingers. “Why did you keep this?” He chucks it into the bin, but his hand is still coated in green slime.

Emma watches, bewildered at how quickly he dispenses with the piece of fruit that’s been taunting her all week. He’s forgotten all about the circumstances of that avocado—that it needs to face the laundry room, that Bennett touched it, that it represented a “good challenge” she could never quite bring herself to face.

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