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Not ideal.
“If it’s not chicken and veggies ...” Zoe prompted.
Right. My daily question. I closed my eyes and conjured up the first thing I’d ask my mum to make if I were back home. “My mum’s bacon butty.”
“What’s that?”
I glanced at Zoe. She’d turned in the chair, her legs tucked up to the side. Even though it was perfect out, sunny and in the midseventies, she had that fucking Wolves sweatshirt covering her to midthigh, her thumbs poked through holes in the sleeves.
I’d come to realize she did that to all her favorite shirts, and fuck if that didn’t delight me.
A few curls had escaped her ponytail, and they framed her face—open and attentive and curious.
When I didn’t answer, she widened her eyes meaningfully.
“You know, your one question somehow turns into quite a few.That’scheating.”
Zoe grinned, a dimple popping up in her cheek.
I had to turn away because I was not liable for my actions when that dimple appeared. Bloody hell, it made my stomach tremble dangerously.
For a moment, I focused on the chicken, flipping a few of the pieces and then transferring some others to the top rack to finish.
“A butty is just a sandwich,” I told her. “My mum fries up bacon—ours is much larger than anything you use here. She puts salted butter on the bread. If tomatoes are in season, she’ll add a fresh slice from the ones in her garden. Sometimes it’s got brown sauce.” My voice went a little quieter the longer I talked, the longer I thought about sitting at her banged-up kitchen table, eating one of those fucking sandwiches. It had been years. “It’s nothing fancy, and you can find it in a thousand pubs across Britain. But hers are the best.”
Zoe was silent after I stopped talking, and when I risked another look in her direction, she’d lifted her Kindle again, but her smile was soft and happy.
Slowly and quietly, I exhaled all the air from my lungs.
Some days, the questions were easy.
My biggest pet peeve? People.
That one made her laugh. I liked it when that happened.
Favorite candy? M&M’s.
She’d said I needed to get out more.
Some questions called for a bit more of a filter, something I often struggled with.
When you were little, what did you want to be when you grew up?
I couldn’t say the real answer—anything but like my dad—out loud.
It had taken me a few minutes to answer this one. Somehow, she realized that the question was harder for me than most and didn’t push.
“Don’t remember a lot from when I was little,” I told her. What a bloody cop-out.
“I wanted to be a ballerina,” she said. “Alas, I wasn’t born with the long legs or the talent for dancing.”
Of course that made me look at her fucking legs. I tugged my eyes away before she noticed. Her legs looked just fine to me.
“Didn’t most little British boys and girls want to be footballers when they grew up?” she asked. “You know,yourfootball. Believe me, I know better than to call it soccer.”
I grunted. “Most did, yeah.”
“You didn’t?”
