Love Simmers

Chapter 4

"Sleeping beauty, you hungry?" Nate gently woke me with a flick on the nose. I tried to bite his finger when he attempted to flick me again. He pulled away with a brief smile. After my overdue apology, he'd been slowly thawing towards me. It was nice.

"What time is it?" I asked with a yawn as I rolled off the couch and over to the table Nate had set for two.

"Six. Ollie's still at the restaurant working on the menu." Nate pulled a chair back for me before settling himself across the table from me. "We ended up hiring four people."

"When I left I thought it would just be the two of you come opening night," I said, looking down at the meal in front of me.

I took a moment to admire the beautifully presented plate of steak and hand-made fries, the smell alone enough to make my mouth water.

"What's the occasion?" I asked as I dug into the meal before me. The only thing I loved more than a free meal was a really good home cooked dinner and Nate knew how to cook, probably better than me.

"There isn't one. I came home. You were curled into a little ball asleep on the couch. I thought I'd feed you," he shrugged his shoulders.

I dipped a piece of steak into the red wine jus he'd made, putting the food in my mouth I started chewing, my eyes widening in shock as it dawned on me what I was tasting.

"This is my recipe!" I pointed an accusatory finger at the sauce.

I swallowed my mouthful and marched into the kitchen. Opening the cabinets, I went around the kitchen methodically until finally, at the back where they kept the pots and pans, I found a copy of my book. A worn and well-loved copy of my book. My heart almost burst with joy. Someone had read my book!

I waltzed back into the dining room triumphantly, laughing at the bashful look on Nate's handsome face.

"You love my book. You cherish it, admit it," I teased him, taking another bite of the delicious food while I watched Nate try and come up with an answer that would deflect my allegations.

"Love is a strong word." He looked down at his plate as he spoke, obviously not wanting to see the smirk on my face.

"Do you watch my show as well? You and Ollie did seem to be able to quote it extensively." I flicked through the pages of the book, noticing the turned down corners and cooking stains on the pages. All evidence that he used it regularly. I turned over to the back cover, staring in shock at the bio picture of me that was defaced with horns on the top of my head.

"What type of person draws on a book?" I shouted at him, "It's a hardcover!"

"I was pissed about Tommy," he clarified quickly, "you breaking up with him."

"You didn't have to take it out on the book," I whispered in pain, vowing to never again send anymore of my cookbooks home. They weren't appreciated here.

"Why did you start dating him?" He asked and I could sense the hesitation in his voice, as though it was a question he didn't really want to ask. Nate wasn't an emotional type of man. He wasn't good at communicating. He was quiet, thoughtful and well...brooding. It wasn't that he didn't feel. He just didn't discuss what he felt very often. After all, he did come from a long line of Anglo-Saxons.

"I was lonely and he reminded me of home," I replied honestly, though in my head I also thought 'he reminded me of you.' I couldn't say those words aloud. I didn't want to deal with the realisation of how much I had missed Nate. It would only make it harder to leave again.

"Are you not happy in the city?" He said quietly, avoiding eye contact while he savoured his last bite of steak.

"I am, at times." I gazed at his face in the rapidly fading light of day, admiring his five o-clock stubble and ruggedly handsome features. If you were being technical about it you could say I was fawning. Like a fan girl at Comic Con who's just spotted Loki.

"And at other times?" He pushed.

I knew what he wanted me say but I didn't want to admit it aloud.

"I miss home, a lot."

"We miss you here," his voice was hoarse. It was both soothing and unsettling to me. It calmed me and excited me.

"I'm sorry about Tommy. I should've checked to see if you would be okay with it," I conceded to my error of judgment. If I had a sister and Nate had started dating her I would have been pissed to say the least. It wasn't logical or rational given the fact that Nate and I hadn't been together in years but it was inherently human. Seeing someone you once cared for move on was difficult enough without another family member being involved.

"I'm not your keeper." He looked away.

"You're my friend, one of my oldest friends. So, you know, bros before hoes." I smiled at his chuckle, his laughter making me happy. "Though I guess in this case, since Tommy's actually your bro, I'm the ho."

"I watch your show," he admitted with a cringe, as though he were admitting he enjoyed dressing up like a French maid on a routine basis. My show was not that bad. "I like seeing you."

"What happened to us? We've known each other our whole life." I knew the answer to my own question. I had happened, my own stupidity. Sometimes you look back on the actions of your past and you literally want to die from embarrassment. I had been so impatient, desperately wanting fame and fortune to the point that I had placed those ambitions above everything else. I had left my family and friends behind in order to achieve my goals. I thought that success would make me happy. I know now that my definition of success had been wrong because it definitely did not mean fame and fortune. Success meant happiness. It meant that you were content professionally and personally. Right now, I was neither of those things.

"You left." Nate was brutally honest to a fault. He'd never been anything but honest to me. Once, when I was fourteen, I'd asked him if he liked the dress I was wearing. He'd said he'd seen me look better in sweats. I'd thrown away the dress and ignored him for a week. Then I'd seen a picture of myself wearing the dress a month earlier. I'd looked ridiculous. He'd simply told me a truth that no one else had the balls to. I never got angry with him for being honest again. Either you wanted an honest answer or you didn't ask the question.

"People leave," I countered his point. It was life, people grew up and sometimes they left home.

"People drift apart." He picked up the plates from the table and walked to the kitchen.

I didn't say anything else. What was there to say? He was right. We had drifted apart. And now I just hoped it wasn't too late to bring us back together. After all, he was my first.