In Love and Diplomacy

Chapter Eighteen: All Because He Touched Me

"See, you distract me, but I'm distracted without you
I don't know how to focus, baby, teach me how to"

- Tatiana Manaois, "Helplessly"

Chapter Eighteen

The puzzle was almost completely finished by the time it got dark. When Sterling got up to make dinner, I grabbed the book of crossword puzzles and joined him in the kitchen. I settled on a barstool, eyeing Sterling's chopping. He was surprisingly good at it.

"Are you sure you don't need any help?"

"I'm sure. I've seen your cooking."

"You're so dramatic. It was not that bad!"

You burn one grilled cheese you try to make for yourself, and suddenly you're banned from the kitchen. Ridiculous.

In my defense, I didn't use to have a lot of time for cooking with my job. Usually, I'd have takeout from Oliver's restaurant, or something I could throw in the microwave. Homemade meals came from Kennedy, who sent me home with a stockpile of containers every time I had dinner at her house.

"I don't need any help, Avery," Sterling confirmed, pulling out a pan. From here, I couldn't see his whole face, but I could have sworn I saw a twitch in his jaw, so far up it was almost his lips.

He's probably laughing at my poor grilled cheese. At least Rolo enjoyed it.

For a few minutes, nothing could be heard other than chopping as he worked on dinner and I worked on my crossword. I'd completed several with ease so far, but one was giving me difficulty. I wasn't a quitter—but it was starting to frustrate me enough to piss me off.

"Seven letters. Colorless, odorless, and tasteless element. Shares a name with Superman's home planet."

"Have you never read a comic book before?" Sterling asked, amused, glancing back from the stove.

I scowled. "No, and I didn't enjoy science class very much either."

"Let me guess, your favorite class was...history?" He abandoned our meal to lean on the counter with a crooked grin—a curled, twisted grin that sliced as sharp as his knife. "World relations and all that."

"English, actually. So, do you know it?"

I was getting distracted. He was distracting. I forced myself to look back at the puzzle book in my hands. Nevermind, I thought, moving on to the next question. I didn't need the answer.

"Krypton."

"Hm?" I looked up from filling in 'tectonic' as the eight-letter word for Earth's shifting plates.

"Krypton. A seven-letter word for a colorless, odorless, tasteless element that's also the name of Superman's home planet." Sterling leaned over the counter and plucked the pencil from my hands. Our fingers brushed, filling my hands with a burning warmth that radiated up my wrist. I felt like I'd been burned. Turning the book, he filled in the boxes with bold, slanted handwriting.

"Oh." I stared down at his writing in all capitalized letters, a stark contrast to my own tiny loops. I'd never bought into handwriting being the window to the soul, but he wrote like he was trained that way. "Thanks."

I could see when he stiffened. He slowly placed the pencil down and my eyes shifted up; the look on his face told me he was just as surprised by his actions as I was.

"Sorry," he breathed. Before I could speak, he had awkwardly shuffled away, hand rubbing the back of his neck and his gaze pointedly not on mine. I was left facing his shoulders and spine again as he minded the sizzling pan on the stove.