Page 47 of Drop Dead Gorgeous

“Only because I learned from the best.”

When the dishes are finally done, he loops the towel into an oddly perfect knot before hanging it neatly over the oven handle.

The after-dinner quiet settles around us, warm and familiar, like borrowing a future that doesn't quite belong to either of us yet. I find myself wanting him to stay—not because I'm lonely, but because, somehow, he's already beginning to feel like part of the house. Like another lamp left on in the evening. Like another mug drying beside the sink.

We drift into the living room.

It's small and faintly embarrassing: a battered blue sofa that looks as though it once belonged in a dentist's waiting room, three mismatched lamps competing for attention, and bookshelves overflowing with grief memoirs, botany guides, and novels I've promised myself I'll eventually finish.

Grim lowers himself onto the couch with considerably more force than expected, the cushions protesting beneath him with a sound like two trees colliding in a storm.

I settle beside him.

Close enough that our knees touch.

Not so close that he might disappear.

For a long while, neither of us says anything.

I realize I've never actually done this with another person—not really. I've sat beside boyfriends before, watched movies, held hands, kissed. But there was always some version of myself trying to become what they wanted, smoothing rough edges, filling quiet spaces before they could become uncomfortable.

With Grim...

There are no performances left.

Only now.

“Tell me something about you,” he says.

It's not a demand.

It's barely even a question.

Just quiet curiosity.

I consider giving him the edited version of myself—Lavinia, flower shop owner, reasonably well adjusted, unlikely to alarm the neighbors—but the idea feels ridiculous in front of someone who has witnessed the worst day of every life he's ever touched.

So I tell him about my father.

About the stories he invented for every bug that wandered through our back door: the queen ant, the homesick wasp, the moth that threw itself against the porch light every night as though hope had somehow grown wings.

I tell him about my first garden.

About the unreasonable jealousy I felt when my mother praised Mrs. Collins's marigolds instead of mine.

I even tell him about the dream I've had for years—a meadow burning in slow motion, beautiful enough that I never want to wake before it disappears.

He listens.

He doesn't interrupt.

He doesn't offer advice.

He doesn't search for solutions.

He simply lets every confession find a place to land.

Somewhere between the end of my stories and the beginning of his, I realize my head has come to rest against his shoulder.