©Megan Hart, may not be reproduced without permission

The first time I saw Alex Kennedy, it was with the thud-thud of my fast-beating heart still pounding in my ears and throat. He stood in the doorway to my kitchen, one hand on the doorjamb at a point high enough to stretch his lean body. He leaned slightly forward, one foot balancing his entire weight while the other leg bent as if I’d caught him in the act of taking a step. I saw faded jeans, low-slung but with a black leather belt holding them snug on his hips. A white t-shirt. Very James Dean, though instead of a red cloth jacket he had a black leather coat tucked into the hook made by his hand shoved into his front pocket. He wore sunglasses, and the big dark lenses covered most of his face.

It was a picture-perfect moment, like something out of a movie, and for a moment we merely stood and stared at each other like we were waiting for an unseen director to shout “Action!” Alex moved first. The hand came off the doorjamb, the other eased itself from his pocket and grabbed the coat before it could fall. He finished his step, entering my kitchen like he’d always been there.

“Hi.” He said this looking around the room over the top of his dark glasses before he looked back at me. “Anne.”

He didn’t make it a question. James had said he was smart. Who else would I be? He didn’t introduce himself, either, a fact that could be taken as arrogance or nonchalance, or simple understanding that though he didn’t know me well enough to know it, I was smart, too.

“Alex.” I moved around the kitchen’s center island, toward him. Streaks and mess coated my hands, so I didn’t offer one. “Wow. I’m sorry, I wasn’t expecting you.”

He smiled. It’s a cliché to say it took my breath away, but all clichés began as truth, or else nobody would be able to relate to them. His mouth, full soft lips, quirked on one side. He took off his glasses. The eyes beneath were dark and could only be described as languid, but not in a romance-novel, gushingly descriptive way. Languid as in lazy, rich, slow. Deep. Alex had eyes that meant something important, if only I could figure out what it was.

“Yeah, sorry about that, I rang Jamie’s cell and he said to head on over. He said he’d call you. I guess he didn’t.” His voice, too, was slow and deep. Bemused.

I laughed, rueful. “He didn’t.”

“Bastard.” Alex slung his jacket over the back of one of the high-backed chairs at the breakfast table and hooked both thumbs in his pockets. “Something smells good.”

“Oh…I’m baking bread.” I grabbed a dishtowel and wiped my hands quickly and began the dishevelment dance. Hair, smoothed, shirt, tucked, a quick pass of face and body to make sure I was put together.

He watched me, mouth still quirked. “And making something with chocolate, I see.”
“Brownies.” I blushed, and blushed harder at the heat rising along my throat. I had no reason to be embarrassed. Well, aside from the disaster that was my kitchen and personal appearance.

Alex made a low purring noise of approval. “My favorite. How’d you know?”

“I didn’t –” He was teasing. “Who doesn’t like brownies?”

“Good point.” He laughed. He looked around the kitchen again, as if taking in every detail. I found myself following his gaze with mine, cataloging the framed prints on the walls, the wallpaper, slightly peeling in the corner. The scrapes in the linoleum where the chairs had worn the pattern to whiteness.

“We’re fixing it up,” I said, like I had to apologize for the kitchen’s imperfections.

His gaze swiveled back to me. It was disconcerting, in a way, yet also familiar. Alex had the same focus as James, though on my husband it was offset by a somehow greater sense of impermanence. James could be intense on whatever had currently grabbed his attention. He was the blackbird with a beady eye, focused on the shiny. Alex reminded me of a lion waiting in the grass, seemingly sated until his prey got close enough to capture his notice.

“It’s nice. You’ve done some nice things.”

“Oh, you’ve been here before?” I shook my head at my own question. “Of course you have.”

“Back when Jamie’s grandparents lived here, yeah. Long time ago. It’s nicer now.” His mouth stretched into another slow grin. “Smells better, too.”

There was no reason for me to be intimidated by him. He wasn’t doing anything. He was, in fact, being quite pleasant. I wanted to return his smile, and I did…but it was with a sort of hitching, confused reluctance. It was the kind of smile you give to someone who’s just offered you a mint on the subway. Wondering if they’re being kind, or if your breath’s offending. Was he just being polite, or did he mean it?

I didn’t know.

“I hope they taste good, at least,” I admitted with a glance at the bowl. “I’m not having much luck with them so far.”

He tilted his head to look at the mess on the center island. “How come?”

“Oh….” I shrugged with a small, self-conscious laugh. “I thought I’d be fancy and make them from scratch instead of the box. I should’ve stuck with the prepackaged mix.”

“Nah. Things made fresh are always better.” Alex moved closer to the island, and therefore, closer to me. He looked into my bowl. Without his gaze pinning me, I could watch him, and I did. “So you put the butter in with the eggs? What’s next?”

He came all the way around. We ended up shoulder to shoulder. He hadn’t looked so tall from across the room. My head would reach the bottom of his chin. On James, I could reach his mouth without standing on my toes. Alex turned his head and gave me a look I couldn’t interpret.

“Anne?”

“Oh…oh, I guess it’s right there.” I leaned over to stab the cookbook with my finger. Several grease splotches marked the pages. “Melt the chocolate. Melt the butter. Mix together. Add the sugar and vanilla….”

I stopped when I saw him staring at me. I returned his smile with a tentative one. It seemed to please him. He leaned forward, the tiniest amount. His voice dipped low, sharing a secret.

“Want to know the trick?”

“Of making brownies?”

His grin got broader. I expected him to say no. That he had another trick to reveal, something sweeter even than chocolate. I leaned forward, too, just a little.

“Hot butter will melt chocolate. You need a low flame.”

“Will it?” I looked at the cookbook so I didn’t have to look at him. More heat rose, burning the tips of my ears. I thought I must look ridiculous and tried to pretend it didn’t matter.

“Want me to show you?” At my hesitation he straightened. His smile changed, gave us a bit of distance. Still friendly, but less intense. “I can’t promise you they’ll win any awards ,but –”

“Sure. Yes, sure,” I said decisively. “James’ family will be here pretty soon and I don’t want to be worrying about dessert once they start arriving.”

“Yeah. Because they’ll take up all your attention. I know what you mean.” Alex reached for the bowl and turned toward the stove, where I’d left the double boiler I’d been using earlier.

He would know just what I meant, I thought, watching him dump the cooling butter and egg mixture back into the pot. He twisted the knob on the stove, bending to get his face at the level of the flame and setting it with a delicate touch. He grabbed up a spoon from the tool caddy on the counter and stirred the mixture.

“Bring me the chocolate.” He spoke like he was used to being obeyed, and I didn’t hesitate. I tore open the bag and gave it to him. Without looking at me, he shook the package gently, dropping chip after chip into the butter as he stirred it. “Anne. Come and see.”

I moved to peer over his shoulder. The butter now had dark brown swirls that got larger and larger as Alex added more chocolate chips. After a few more moments the mix was a gooey, velvety liquid.

“Beautiful.” I murmured, not really meaning to speak, and he looked up at me. This time I didn’t feel like he’d snared me with his gaze. I wasn’t prey. He assessed me, then turned back to the thickening batter.

“Is everything else ready?”

“Yes.”

I gathered the rest of the ingredients. Together we mixed and poured and scraped the bowl with my serviceable white spatula that was guaranteed not to crack or stain. The brownie mixed smelled liked heaven and filled the baking pan exactly the way it was supposed to.

“Perfect,” I said, and slid it into the oven. “Thank you.”

“And of course it has to be perfect, right?” Alex leaned against the island, hands gripping the edge so his elbows bent akimbo.

I wiped my hands on the dishcloth and started putting utensils into the sink. “It’s nice if it is, isn’t it?”

“Even a flawed brownie still tastes damn good.” He watched me clean without offering to help.

I paused, mixing bowl in my hand. “Depends on the flaw, doesn’t it? I mean, if it’s too dry or crumbly, it might not look right but will taste good. Or if the ingredients are wrong it can look perfect on the outside and taste terrible.”

“Exactly.”

I wondered if he’d been baiting me to say something he’d been thinking. “Well. They looked perfect. Unless they burn.”

“They won’t burn.”

“But they might not taste good, either?” I laughed at him. “Is that what you’re saying?”

“You never know, do you?” He shrugged and gave me an upwards, sideways, roundabout glance.

Teasing. He was teasing me, judging me. Trying to draw me out. Trying to feel me out. Figure me out.

“I guess we’d better taste it then.” I held out the bowl. “You go first.”

Alex raised a brow and pursed his lips, but pushed himself off the island and held out a hand. “In case they’re vile?”

“A good hostess always allows her guests to have the first portion,” I said sweetly.

“A perfect hostess makes sure everything’s grand before she serves it,” Alex countered, but he scooped a finger along the bowl’s side. It came away smeared with chocolate.

He raised his finger, showing me. Being theatrical. He opened his mouth, tongue showing intimately pink. He put his finger in his mouth and closed his lips over it, sucking hard enough to hollow his cheeks before his finger popped out with an audible noise. He said nothing.

“Well?” I asked, after a moment.

He grinned. “Perfect.”

That was enough incentive for me. I slid my finger along the small amount of batter left in the bowl and licked it with the tip of my tongue.

“Coward.”

“Fine.” I stuck the whole thing in my mouth and sucked as hard as he had, making a show of it. “Mmmm, that’s good!”

“Brownies fit for a queen.”

“Or James’ mother,” I said and immediately covered my mouth to pretend I hadn’t said anything so remotely derogatory.

“Even her.”

We smiled at each other again, drawn together by our mutual understanding about what sort of person James’ mother was.

“Well….” I cleared my throat. “I should go change my clothes and take a shower. And show you to your room. It’s clean and ready, I just have to bring you some towels.”

“I don’t want you to go to a lot of trouble.”

“It’s not any trouble, Alex.”

“Perfect,” he said, not quite a whisper and not really a sigh, either.

Neither of us moved.

I realized my fingers were numb from clutching the bowl too hard. I loosened my grip at once and put it in the sink. I had chocolate on my fingers from the bowl’s edges and I laughed, gesturing.

“What a mess.” I licked them, the pointer, middle, thumb. “I’m chocolate all over.”

“You have some just…there.”

Alex’s thumb traced the outer edge of my mouth’s corner. I tasted chocolate. I tasted him.

That was how James found us, touching. An innocent gesture that meant nothing, yet I backed away at once. Alex did not.

“Jamie,” he said, instead. “How the fuck’ve you been?”

They collapsed into a flurry of back slapping and insults. Two grown men reverted to the behavior of fourteen-year-old boys in front of my eyes, both of them rumbling and posturing. Alex grabbed James around the neck and knuckled his hair until James stood up, face flushed and eyes bright with laughter.

I left them like that, to their greeting. I crept away down the hall and into the shower, where I ran the water cold as ice and stood beneath the spray, mouth open, to wash away the taste of my husband’s long lost best friend.