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When I placed my fork on the table, she picked it up along with my plate. “You cooked, so I get cleaning duty.”
“We can do it together,” I suggested.
“Nope. I didn’t help you cook, so it’s only fair. Besides, I find cleaning relaxing.”
I shook my head. “You really are strange, Sweeney.”
She laughed and pushed me out of the kitchen. I raised my hands. “Okay, I’m going. I’ll check on the fire in the living room.”
By the time she joined me, I’d revived the fire to a sizable blaze. Colton taught me to make one when I was ten. There weren’t many opportunities to practice since we stopped camping after my parents died. My uncle wouldn’t take us, and Colton focused on his career once he turned eighteen.
Spotting the full glass of wine in her hand, I grinned. “I see you changed your mind about another glass.”
“You only live once. Isn’t that your motto, Crawford?”
“Yeah. Something like that.” The motto was, we don’t live forever, but she was pretty close. It surprised me she even remembered.
She sat on the couch, her back against the armrest, and raised her knees to her chest. The long shirt slid down her thighs, leaving the back of her thighs exposed. Her smooth skin gleamed in the dim light and shadows crept in secret places. Sweat gathered at my neck, so I joined Sweeney on the couch, away from the fire. But I felt no relief, having moved away from the heat and closer to her. Out of the pot and into the frying pan, as they say.
She took a sip of her drink and stared at me. “Are you still mad at me, Luke? Because I’m still quite pissed off at you.”
I laughed because she didn’t sound drunk, but I knew the whiskey and now the wine had loosened her tongue a bit.
“Yeah, I’m still mad, Sweeney. But we called a truce for the night. Remember?”
Her eyes narrowed, but instead of responding, she took another sip of her wine.
“What did you do after high school, Luke?”
I rubbed the back of my neck and stared at the fire. “I went to Business School at Oxford. I graduated, but I spent most of my time at restaurants or traveling around Italy, France, and Spain, learning recipes from the locals.”
Then I smiled at a memory. “One time, I hopped on the back of some girl’s motorcycle and she drove us to a secluded field. I thought I’d made a bad decision, but it was just her family’s home. They baked fresh bread and pizza from a stone oven that was centuries old. It was pretty wild.”
“That kind of stuff happens to people like you,” she said.
“People like me?”
“Yeah. The take-life-as-it-comes type. No plan, no worries. Just live. Sometimes I wish I was like that, you know. Carefree.”
I wasn’t sure if that was a compliment. I didn’t think it was. It sounded quite similar to Colton’s speech about me finally taking on responsibilities.
“Why? What did you do after high school?”
She raised her eyes and held her glass from the rim as she spoke. “I went to the local college. Worked all summer to earn enough to pay for whatever the scholarship didn’t cover and then got my Master’s in Accounting. Applied for an internship at Delmar & Tuch and I’ve been there ever since.”
“I’m glad it was all worth it,” I mumbled. A part of me was happy she got what she’d always wanted, but it still stung that she had put her work before our friendship.
She narrowed her eyes. “Maybe I’ve had too much to drink, but I don’t follow. What do you mean, you’re glad it was worth it? Worth what?”
“Nothing,” I said. I’d promised a truce. I wouldn’t bring up the past.
“Spill it, Crawford.”
“It doesn’t matter. You got what you wanted, even if you had to sacrifice people on the way. We all make choices. Looks like yours paid off the way you wanted it to.”
Her lips pursed and she put the glass down on the side table next to the couch. “What choice did I make?”
“Forget it, Sweeney. We agreed to leave the past behind us tonight.”
