June had fallen asleep with the book clutched in her grasp. When she woke, the house was wafting with a wonderful aroma that sent her tummy rumbling. Chad was cooking. She stole herself into the kitchen where he busily stirred a saucepan full of some concoction that made her mouth salivate.
"You cook?" she asked, pleasantly surprised. In fact, Chad was a surprising guy she was finding. Layers that seemed so random, yet so him.
Chad jumped, splattering a spoonful of tomato sauce on himself and the floor. "Aw, Jesus!" He turned with a dollop of sauce clinging to his left cheek. June couldn't help but laugh. She walked on over, ran a finger across the sauce on his cheek and tasted it with a grin.
"It's good." She watched him blush as she leaned against the basin. "What is it?"
"One-pot rice I learned from a friend." He wiped his face on his apron, an apron that was a bit too frilly and looked ridiculous on him. An apron June was eyeing meticulously.
"It's a cute look on you." Her brows danced as she grabbed the spatula off him and went to stir the sauce and lick the spoon. "Was it a present?"
Chad glanced at the pink, strawberry patterned apron with black frills at the bottom. It made him look like a ridiculous version of a pin-up girl. "It was my ex's." He pursed his lips. No sooner had he said this, he took the embarrassing thing off and threw it across the benchtop. He disappeared into his study and emerged with an expensive-looking bottle of red still in its original wooden crate. "You drink?"
June took another taste of the sauce and licked her lips. "I'm a lightweight."
"That's all right. I'm not any better myself." He fished out a wine bottle opener from the drawer behind her, shoving her out of the way gently to do so. He popped the cork, took a long sniff of the neck and poured it out into two wine glasses. He passed her one before pouring a dash into the sauce followed by the soaked rice. He stirred it once, put a lid on it, and lowered the gas before turning back to his company.
June took a sip of her wine and almost pulled a face. It was a strong taste. "How long have you had that? It's not off, is it?" she asked, dubiously eyeing the bottle.
Chad glanced at the dusty wooden crate with a laugh. He had no idea how long he'd had that wine, but it was cork bottle, and they kept for years. He found it cute that June didn't know much about wine, despite having implied she drank. "Don't know. I've had it for a while, but you sure you drink wine?" He leaned against the fridge with a smile, swirling his glass around like a pro.
"Of course, I do!" she bit back, barely hiding a smile herself. She wasn't really a wine person, no. Give her light beer and ciders any day over the wine. She'd even take the occasional Riesling and some other variety of white, or a Moscato, but reds? They really weren't her thing. "I have had little since, you know." She cocked her head sheepishly. "Not flushed with cash the last few months."
Shit, Chad bit his tongue. He'd put that big fat foot in his mouth again. "Um, yeah, of course. Do you mind if I ask you how...?" he struggled to find the right words this time.
She took another facial-twitch inducing sip of the wine and settled against the counter. "How long have I been on the streets?" she finished the question for him. She knew what he wanted to ask. She'd sensed it off him for days now.
He nodded, looking uncomfortable. "I'm sorry if it's a–"
"No, I don't mind." She interrupted, a little docile herself, however, she did not volunteer the information any more than Chad would admit to being curious about her life before him.
"I can't imagine how tough it was for you, or Bax..." he muttered, still wanting to ask but daring not to. He turned to the rice instead and checked on it. The steam hit his already flushed face as if it were a karmic punishment for prying.
An awkward silence of sorts lingered as Chad stared at the rice. "Do you cook?" he asked, finally turning around to face her.
She shook her head. "I try if that counts."
Chad took another sip, eyeing the saucepan. "Aren't girls meant to know how to cook?" He met her gaze with a faint smile trying to joust her, to get back on her lighter side.
"Aren't you stereotyping?" She held his gaze with a slight smile playing at the corner of her lips.
Chad clinked their glasses and gulped down the rest of his pinot noir. "I don't normally, but all women I have ever known, cook occasionally." June couldn't argue. "So what's your story?" he asked.
"What do you mean?" She drained her glass, shuffled along the counter and poured another glass, probably needing more liquid courage. She did not seem keen to talk about her life. She turned back with the bottle, "Top you up?"
"Everybody has a story." Chad held out his glass with a nod, noticing the tension in her shoulders, and the rigidity of her motions.
She bit the corner of her lips, placed the bottle back on the counter, and leaned against it, watching him check their dinner once more. "I don't really know my story... not really. A little less than a year ago, I had a home. I had a life."
Chad replaced the lid on the pan. He leaned as casually as he could manage against the fridge and studied her. "Do you have a family?"
She shook her head, her gaze dropping to her drink. She took a desperate gulp and batted tears away. "What about you?"
"I have a mother, an older sister, a twin actually, and she has her own thing." He watched her stare into her glass. "And you know about my ex." June nodded, but remained mute. Say something damnit, change the subject. June looked more forlorn than before, and he'd caused it. "More?" was all he could manage, desperately draining his glass a second time. He could feel the lightheadedness already, but he had no other way of saving the conversation than to offer her further escape into an alcoholic haze.
She nodded, chugging her glass, still more than half full. The only thing missing was a bunch of drunk cheering her on.
"Do you like it?" he asked, topping her glass and draining the rest into his own.
"It is wine, isn't it? I'm already a little tipsy."
"I think so." He laughed, holding the bottle out for her to read. "Someone gifted it to me a couple of years ago and for the life of me, I can't remember who. Probably my mother."
"Why did you open it today?"
"I don't know." He held her gaze. The rice smelled burnt, and it tore his attention away. He rushed to turn the stove off and salvage their food. "I had forgotten about it till the other day when I was cleaning my study, procrastinating, to be honest."
"It was nice while it lasted." June half laughed, placing the empty bottle back in its crate.
Before long, Chad had served up two deep bowls of the rice and placed it on the breakfast nook. He pulled a stool out for her, "Start before it gets cold." He then disappeared into the laundry, leaving her oddly staring in his wake. He emerged once more, with yet another bottle of wine.
"Where else do you hide them?" she asked in disbelief. "It might be good for me to know, in case I ever need to get hammered."
Chad sat on the empty stool beside her. "Only if I get to join you," he suggested, refilling their already drained glasses. "And I have a wine cooler in there."
"Deal." June raised a toast before digging into the food. She did a double-take on Chad. "You have a wine cooler? Gosh, you sound so fancy!"
"I take offence to that!" he quipped, enjoying the first mouthful of the rice. It was delicious, as delicious as the wine and the company. A company he was enjoying a little too much.
It was almost midnight, and the two were drunk as skunks, with their rice bowls cleaned out. Chad might have even licked his bowl clean, like a child. June was slapping the counter because of something he had said, had sent her off.
"I'm serious," he almost yelled.
"I know."
"Then why are you laughing?"
"Because, Chad Gilligum, I dropped out for a reason."
Chad rose from his stool and stumbled towards the fridge. He fumbled above the door and brought forth a whiteboard marker, uncapped it and started scrawling across the steel front in a lazy slant. He placed the marker back where it had been and returned to his perch next to her.
June read and re-read the note, her eyes welling up: Get June re-enrolled. She looked back at him. "But why?"
He grabbed the sides of her stool and pulled her closer till their knees met and wiped the tear as they rolled down her soft cheeks. "Because you have a home now."
June, who was a creature averse to physical contact, wrapped her arms around his neck in an instant, hugging him tightly. Chad returned the hug, his grip around her tiny waist protective and comforting.
"You have me," was all he could say before breaking away. The hug was doing things to his emotions he hadn't wanted it to. He didn't know what else he could to do or say, but he could no longer stay close to her. It was making it hard for him to figure out what he should to say or think. One inappropriate thought after another was barging into his mind.
He kissed the top of her head and patted the edge of her shoulder awkwardly before pushing his stool back and diving at the chance to use the dirty dishes as an excuse to put some distance between their bodies. Bad thoughts, Chad, bad thoughts!
He grabbed the dirty dishes and took them over to the sink. "We should go to bed," he proposed, as muddled as his mind was with the wine and the thoughts he was trying to banish. Suddenly, he bit his tongue and turned to her. "I mean, you should go to your room, and I go to mine."
June nodded, touching her lips absently, whereupon a hesitant smile crossed it, a smile he couldn't place. She jumped off her stool and headed for the stairs with a mousy, "Goodnight then."
Had she wanted him to kiss her?
"Goodnight," he called behind her as her footsteps faded up the stairs, leaving him feeling for the first time like a character in his books, the awkward character whose role isn't yet clear. Was he a foe, or a friend? Or did he want something more? More, his mind screamed. Maybe she does too, it offered, devilishly cunning.
Chad made a move to follow her. She had looked like she had wanted more, hadn't she? He could march up and see if that feeling still had a hold on him, if her lips were still somewhat inviting. He could kiss her and see? He got as far as the bottom of the stairs before he stopped and turned.
He was drunk, for Pete's sake. This was the worst time to make those big decisions or mistakes. Distracted and drunk, he left the dishes soaking in the sink and stole into his study. The door closed behind him to keep temptation to follow the urge to march upstairs and kiss the woman at bay. Slightly humming from the wine, he sat beneath the lamplight, his legs bouncing up and down, unable to get her off his mind.
He opened a drawer and from the midst of it, brought out a brown paper bag immaculately wrapping something hefty. He pulled out a thick, custom-made leather-bound notebook from inside it. A gift his dad had posted him when officially became a published author. Posted. It was a voluminous monster and a beautiful monster. Not to mention the last gift the old bastard has sent him. Chad had been twenty-three then, almost a decade ago.
He'd never dared to deface it, not until that night. It's not like he could take the notebook to his grave, anyway.
In the wee hours of the morning, he turned to the first page and halfway down, in the middle of it, wrote, A tale by Zachery Eve. He then turned another page and began writing feverishly, as if the words were running away from him and he had to catch up. It was the first time in over a month he'd written something that felt right, that felt like it wanted to be told. He wasn't sure how it would turn out though, but he didn't let that stop him. He didn't even realise he was changing the story yet again on Terry. Poor, poor Terry, however, he couldn't stop what he was doing.
The night wasn't enough. He wrote till the rooster came to, literally. The darn neighbour next door had decided three months ago that the alarm in his phone would cause him cancer and opted for nature's own, a rooster. At the first cock-a-doddle-do, Chad put down his pen, closed the book and stretched out like a cat.
What the hell are you writing? The thought barged in, pretty much uninvited.
"The only thing I can, apparently." He pushed up from the chair and dragged himself to bed, drained.
♡
June spun the thin silver ring on her finger, again and again, a nervous habit she'd developed in her teen. Her throat was dry. The air conditioning felt like it was miserably failing to do its job, and the rustling of paper and the ringing of teller booths kept making her jump. She turned to Chad seated beside her, leafing through leaflets he'd grabbed on their way in.
"Can we leave?"
He shook his head and continued reading a leaflet on credit cards without a care in the world.
June sighed, exasperated. "I don't have the money to reopen my account!" she hissed, embarrassed that she even had to explain herself.
Chad continued glancing through the A5 booklet. "But I do."
Good for you! Her jaws clenched. "I didn't ask you for money."
Chad shook his head, still not looking her way. "And I'm still giving it to you."
She rose to her feet, enraged. "Why?"
He looked up, calm. "Sit down. People are looking."
June obliged, though not a moment that went by made her feel better or any less angry with him. Before long, a customer service representative approached them with a warm smile on her face.
"Ms Amari?"
Chad pointed to June, and the woman asked them to follow her into a consultation room. "So you'd like to reopen your account with us, Ms Amari?" she asked, pointing out seats for them to take.
"No," June muttered, feeling every bit embarrassed to be in that room.
The lady across from them looked confused. "I'm sorry. I was told you wanted to reopen..."
Chad cleared his throat. "Don't listen to her. We are here to reopen her account if possible."
The woman nodded and sat down at her computer. "I need some details to begin with."
June forced a smile, while beneath the table she was digging her fingers into her palm. She felt her temper rise and her ego shrink with every question she had to answer until she was asked, "How much would you like to deposit today? The minimum is $200." That's when her ego self-combusted and flew away like ashes in a gust of wind.
She could only look to Chad for the answer, fighting every fibre in her body to keep seated in that chair, appearing calm and in control.
"A thousand, please," Chad blurted, with not so much as a glance her way, and June felt her jaw drop.
As soon as they stepped out the building, she turned on him. "What are you doing?" she almost yelled. "A thousand? Do you have any idea how much money that is? Are you crazy? Who the hell gives someone a thousand just like that?"
Chad smiled, and it infuriated her, though somewhere deep down, she knew she should be anything but grateful. Chad was a messiah. Her messiah. "I told you already, I'm not that kind of girl." She turned away with a grunt. "You can keep your money." She started walking away from him as fast as she could in the lunch crowd, afraid that the desire to punch his pompous face was strong, a little too strong.
"June!"
"What?" She turned, almost bumping into a passer-by. "What?"
Chad pointed in the other direction to which she was headed. "You're going the wrong way."
She stood her ground, taking deep breaths to calm her rage. She shook her head and followed him back to the car despite herself. "People will think you're crazy," she snarled, getting in the passenger side. "Hell, I think you're crazy!"
Chad sat quietly for a moment, staring out the windscreen, at the tree line that separated the train tracks from the parking lot. "I'm only doing what someone once did for me."
"What do you mean?"
He turned to her, his expression soft, and the angry lines around her eyes dissolved like cotton candy. "Do you know what I do for a living?" She shook her head, and Chad extended a hand forward. "Zachery Eve."
Her eyes narrowed at the offered hand, and she looked up at him, not comprehending.
He smiled. "You know that book you've been reading, or the eight others on the shelf in the corridor by Zachary Eve?"
She nodded, her jaw dropped incrementally with each motion before she freaked out and fumbled for the door handle.
"June, are you okay?" He stared at her as she opened her door and jump out of the car as if it were on fire. She circled a spot on the pavement, chanting. "Oh, my God. Oh, my God."
Nice to meet you too, thought Chad with a self-discerning smile. He stepped out of the car and stared at her over the rooftop, chasing her tail. "You okay?"
June shook her head several times followed by nods, then shakes again. When she finally looked at him, her head was still shaking in disbelief. "Zachery Eve?"
He nodded.
"You are Zachery Eve?"
He nodded again.
"I've been living with Zachery Eve all these days?"
He nodded yet again.
"Oh my God!" she squealed, causing Chad to wince at the high-pitched sound, a sound that had strangers eyeing them.
"Please don't scream," he requested, flashing a partial smile at the couple walking past them. "Few people know, and I'd like to keep it that way."
June slammed her hands over her mouth and shook her head, though her eyes were still crazy.
"Get in the car?"
She nodded, and Chad waited till she had closed her door before he took a deep breath and got in behind the wheel.
"Why are you helping me?" she asked once she could string a proper sentence.
"I would have probably been in your shoes all these years if someone hadn't taken a chance on me, believed me, a broke young man with a dream to see his name in print."
"But why me?"
Chad shrugged. "Good question. Why me indeed?" He keyed the ignition and reversed the car out of the lot. "I don't know why Terry took a chance on me, nor do I know why you." He looked at her and smiled his best smile. "It feels right. That's all."
After a few moments, she spoke again. "Why the name Zachery Eve?"
Chad laughed. "Now, this, I can answer."
(Image by Olya Adamovich on Pixabay)