Dinner for One (17 page)

“As in…?”

He takes another bite, chews slowly and thoroughly. He feels a little like he’s not actually there. He’s so tired. “Harper Carlisle,
New York Times
food critic.” His lips are stretching in a smile, and he has an inkling that it probably doesn’t look happy. “He left his wallet out, and I thought it was mine.”

Jean starts to curse, and Bastien turns to look at him finally. He looks
pissed
. All his cursing is in quiet, nasty French. It’s all the more vicious for the way he’s muttering it under his breath. Bastien’s smile turns into something a little more genuine. Jean always has his back. “When did this all happen?” he finally asks, still speaking French.

Bastien props his hips against the counter. “When Fleur called. I was checking to see if I had enough for a cab.” His sandwich is almost gone, and he’s still kind of hungry. He heads back to the pantry and pokes around for snacks. There’s a bear-shaped container of animal cookies, and he pulls those out.

“You didn’t talk to him, did you.” Jean says it like he knows the answer, dawning realization for why Bastien hadn’t called on his own phone.

“I didn’t have time. I needed to get to the hospital.”

“Have you checked your phone?”

“Don’t want to.” He chews and swallows, pops another two in. “I’m not looking for advice. It’s done.”

Jean’s eyeing him with concern. “I can cover your shifts for the weekend if you want.”

Bastien thinks about saying no, but then he thinks about going into work and all of his staff asking him about James. “All right,” he says. He wants a weekend to mourn the end of a relationship that hadn’t been long but had made him happier than any of his past ones. Too bad it was all a lie. “I need to stay here and help Fleur anyway.”

“Sure,” says Jean, “because Chandler won’t be of any use.”

“Avery will prefer if we’re all here.”

Jean doesn’t argue with that. She will. He asks, “Want me to pick up Chloe and bring her here?”

“Shit,” he groans. He forgot about his cat. He rubs his face, blinking as animal cracker dust falls down his cheeks. “Yeah. She’s going to be so mad.”

“We’ll get her on the way to the airport.” He picks up the mug of finished tea on the counter and presses it into Bastien’s hands, taking the animal crackers from him. “Take that to your sister. I’ll get the guest bed set up, we’ll sleep, and then we’ll pick up Chandler.”

His stomach still feels like an empty hole. “I’m still hungry.” He stares at the jar of crackers.

“You’re eating your feelings,” Jean informs him. “I’m not giving these back. You’ll thank me later.”

He highly doubts that, but he goes to Fleur’s room, tea in hand, warming his cold palms. She’s sacked out, face-first on the bed, wearing cotton pajama pants and one of Chandler’s worn gym shirts. He leaves the tea on the bedside table and drapes a blanket from the end of the bed over her.

He doesn’t check his phone before he burrows into bed. He leaves it in his jeans, the sound switched off. It buzzed once, for a little while, a few hours ago and then vibrated twice soon after. He has no desire to know what the messages say.

He falls asleep thinking about how he’s craving pickles and sushi for some unfathomable reason.

Chapter Eleven

THE HOUSE
is quiet when Bastien wakes up, and he stumbles through his entire morning routine before he realizes it’s only half past seven and he doesn’t have anywhere to be. He cracks open the door to Avery’s room, checking on her, but she’s passed out in bed. Her arm cradled carefully on her chest, pillows crammed on either side to keep her from rolling. He’ll have to wake her in a couple hours to take more pain meds, but he thinks she might sleep away the entire first day or two.

Things are silent in Fleur’s room aside from the sounds of Chandler’s snoring, so he leaves them to rest. They got back with Chandler not even two hours ago. He’d looked frazzled when they’d picked him up from the airport, and he’d held onto Chloe like she was a stuffed animal providing him comfort. She’d accepted it gracefully, much to Bastien’s surprise.

He goes looking for her next and finds her curled up on a chair cushion in the kitchen. Her green eyes slit open to stare at him as he bends to look. “Bonjour,” he says, reaching out to scratch under her chin. She purrs, and her tail twitches up to flick through the air. He pulls out the chair she’s on and picks her up, ignoring the way she grumbles. He plops down and sets her in his lap, combing his fingers through her thick fur.

It’s comforting.

Going home to pick her up had been surprisingly painful. He hadn’t realized how much of James had made it into his apartment. He’d known he’d taken over a good portion of his life—his time and his thoughts—but he hadn’t paid attention to the extra throw on the couch that was there for when James got cold. Or the shirts in his hamper that definitely didn’t belong to him. The book on the coffee table that he hadn’t bought and he’d certainly never read.

Is he supposed to give all that stuff back? This is far from his first breakup, but it is the first one that happened like this. He’s not sure what the protocol here is. He doesn’t feel right throwing it away, but at the same time he doesn’t want to risk running into James if he gives it back. He’s not going to send anyone to do it for him either, because while he’s mad, absolutely furious at James, he doesn’t want him to get punched either. And he’s pretty sure Jean will hit him.

If someone gets to strike James, it should be him. He thinks he probably couldn’t do it, and that thought makes him feel pathetic.

Frustration and upset, hurt feelings that niggle away at his insides and leave him physically aching, eat at him. He puts Chloe down and goes to look through the fridge and cupboards. Cooking has always calmed him, and who deserves a fancy breakfast more than his family after the night they’ve had?

The kitchen is well stocked, so he grabs all the necessary ingredients and searches out all of the implements he needs. He starts with making the crepe batter, in the mood for apple crepes with a salted butter caramel topping. He whisks that together in the blender, losing himself in the rhythm of measuring out the perfect amount of flour and sugar, making sure when he cracks the egg, none of the shell ends up in the mix.

He moves that to the fridge to chill while he whips together several pancake and waffle mixes. It’s more food than they’ll eat, but they can always freeze it and eat it for meals later in the week. He’s got five different pancake mixes set aside—blueberry, apple, cinnamon, strawberry, and peanut butter (a favorite of Avery’s)—by the time he needs to take the crepe batter out and start baking that.

He drizzles the batter into the pan and flips when he needs to, setting each one on a plate to the side when it’s done. While he’s waiting for each one to cook, he sets up the other burners so he can start on some of the pancake mixes, and he preps the Belgian waffle press. Cooking multiple things at once is even more soothing for him, distracts him further. His gaze is constantly flicking between his dishes, and he’s a blur of motion as he works to make sure his timing is perfect.

Two hours later and he has plates stacked high with the crepes, pancakes, and Belgian waffles waiting in the oven to keep warm. He pulls out more fruit once that’s all done and starts slicing everything, putting it in bowls so it can be easily scooped out and used as a topping. He makes the topping for the crepes and leaves that in a bowl in the oven to keep warm. He’ll let everyone drizzle however much they want on them.

When he’s done with that and everyone is still sleeping—and he’s checked on Avery, still so asleep he can’t bring himself to wake her—he feels bereft. He isn’t ready to stop moving. He isn’t prepared to be alone with his thoughts just yet.

He cleans up the mess he’s made and starts to make another one. If he makes muffins, those can be eaten over a period of time. They’ll have food ready and waiting for later that day. Which gets him thinking: Should he precook dinner? Maybe he could make something elaborate, use a slow cooker.

He hasn’t used that much. He reaches for his phone, thinking he’ll look up recipes on Pinterest, when he realizes it isn’t there, and he remembers why he doesn’t have it on him. His throat feels tight.

No slow cooker, then.

He’ll make a pie. That’ll be a nice dessert for after dinner.

He’s halfway through the crust when he hears shuffling footsteps, and he turns to find Avery standing in the doorway, bright eyes shadowed as she looks at him. He stops what he’s doing and crouches, arms wide—heedless of his messy hands—and holds her carefully when she steps into his grip.

“Smells like the bake sale,” she mumbles into his shoulder. “Did you make brownies?”

“I can make them if you want me to,” he says, slowly pulling away so he can go fetch her meds.

“With extra chocolate?”

There aren’t any chocolate chips in the pantry, but he can run out and get them. He can pick some other things up while he’s out. Make sure the house is stocked so he can cook more the next day. “Of course,” he tells her, coming back to the table with a glass of orange juice and her pill. “Do you want anything I’ve already cooked?”

She makes him list off all the things he’s baked, and then she stares up at him with wide blue eyes. “How long have you been up?” she asks, and the look of concern on her face nearly breaks his heart.

“Not that long,” he fibs, and she looks like she’s going to call him out on it when his sister and Chandler walk into the room.

Unfortunately the first words out of Fleur’s mouth are, “How long have you been up?”

He sighs. “I made a really nice breakfast. Why don’t we eat it?” Everyone in the kitchen is eyeing him like he’s a bomb about to go off. He turns his back to them and starts pulling the dishes from the oven and retrieving the fruit from the fridge. He ignores their questioning faces while he lays it all out on the table.

“We’re never going to be able to eat all of this,” says Fleur, her nostrils flaring wide as she inhales the mix of smells. Her gaze tracks to the oven. “Are you
still
baking?”

He shrugs while he straightens one of the plates so the arrangement looks pleasing. “Apple pie,” he says. “I thought we could have it after dinner tonight.”

“What are we having for dinner?” asks Chandler, using his fork to stick one of every pancake on his plate. His voice is bland.

“I haven’t decided,” answers Bastien. “Some kind of soup maybe. What do you all want? I can make everyone something different.”

Fleur’s eyes narrow. He shoves the salted caramel drizzle at her. “This is for the crepes. You’ll love it.”

“Bastien,” she says.

“Please.”

That stops her in her tracks. She takes the drizzle from him and sits down, slowly filling her plate until it’s almost overflowing. He follows suit, and he finds that he’s ravenous; and rather than content himself with one plate, he eats three platesful and has to talk himself out of a fourth one. His stomach somehow still feels empty.

The weird craving for pickles is back. What can he make for dinner that could reasonably include pickles? He’ll have to grab a jar when he picks up the chocolate for Avery’s brownies. His head feels like it’s buzzing, and in the back of his mind, he knows this is him trying to cope, trying to ignore thinking about the giant elephant sitting on his thoughts.

No one talks during breakfast, and he’s aware of it being awkward. Aware of the questions everyone wants to ask. He feels like a jackass for taking attention away from the true problem that happened last night. He turns to Avery. She’s looking a lot perkier than he thought she would be. “Do you want to help me bake later?”

“You’re baking
more
?” demands Fleur.

Avery’s mouth snaps closed.

Bastien sighs. “Avery wanted brownies. And I want something with pickles.”

“Pickles.” She says it like he said he wanted to put acid in his food.

He stares at her, shifts uncomfortably in his chair. “I can… I can go home if you want?” He clears his throat. Maybe she wants to be alone with Chandler and Avery after the night she’s had. And he should go home. It’s weird to stay at his sister’s when he lives so close by. He starts to stand. He’ll just clean up first.

She shoots her hand out and grasps his wrist. “Stay for the weekend,” she says. “We’ll feel better with you here.”

He blinks, his vision blurring. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah,” she says, standing up and coming around to hug him tight. She cards her fingers through his knotted hair. “We’ll all help you bake. We can donate the extras to the homeless shelter. It’ll be a nice family weekend.”

He breathes in her familiar peach scent, relieved she smells like herself again and not like the sterile hospital. “Thank you.”

NO MATTER
where he is in his house, he feels like he’s being pulled to where he’s stashed his phone. Every time he looks at it, spurred on by a niggling hope that Bastien will have surely responded, he is disappointed. The only texts that light up his screen are from his family, and he roundly ignores those. He doesn’t want to deal with their pity.

But he should know better. His family does not like to be ignored.

It’s eight in the morning on Sunday, over an entire day gone by since his massive fuckup, and he has to pee, but he can’t bring himself to move from bed. His limbs all feel heavy, and his eyes don’t want to stay open. Hearing the doorbell ring is a whole lot of noise he doesn’t want to deal with. He drags his pillow over his head. Whoever wants to speak to him at such an early hour can come back later.

He hears the door open, even with the pillow pressed around his head. His body tenses. Either he forgot to lock the door after Georgina the morning before and someone’s coming in to rob him (unlikely since they rang the doorbell) or one of his siblings has come by. He’s half hoping for the robber.

In a bid to get them to leave him alone, he uncovers his head and tries to feign deep sleep. He’s barely settled into position when his doorknob jiggles, and footsteps enter. Both sides of his bed dip seconds later, and that answers the question of who came at least. The twins are there to bug him. He’s careful to keep his breathing steady and even, mimicking light snores, while he feels them make themselves comfortable, yanking on the covers and jostling the entire bed.