Resilience | ✔

Chapter Seven

She arrived in the kitchen, where the blue line stopped, in about two minutes. She had allotted herself much more time than she needed. Steve was there, along with two women and a man she didn't know. They were all working in the astoundingly large space, yet all bickering about getting in the way. Marley recognized the redheaded woman from earlier, Black Widow, also known as Natasha Romanoff, also known as Nat. The other woman was just about the most beautiful woman Marley had ever seen, maybe in her late teens or early twenties, with long, slightly-curled brown hair, high cheekbones, and eyes rimmed with eyeliner. She wore a short longsleeved black dress and thigh-high socks; several rings adorned her fingers. The longer Marley looked at her, the prettier she got.

Marley tugged her gaze away from the gorgeous woman, leaning against the doorway. The man she didn't know was decidedly unexciting in comparison to the pretty woman: waving a knife, loudly and good-naturedly (she thought) ripping into him about something. Steve was laughing, shaking his head as he stirred a steaming pot on the stove. Natasha, working at the island, was chopping onions, completely dry-eyed, her knife a blur on the cutting board. The beautiful woman was stirring something in a giant frying pan. To top all the chaos off, eighties music—Roxanne by The Police, currently—blared from several well-placed speakers on and under cabinets and above the fridge.

"Your shoulders are so wide I can't open the damn fridge!" the man teasing Steve shouted, even though Steve was nowhere near the fridge.

"I'm nowhere near the 'damn' fridge," Steve responded, tapping the spoon on the edge of the pot and setting it down on a spoon rest on the stove.

"That's my point!" the man hollered.

"Language, Steve," Natasha said, looking up and smirking. Even though she'd taken her eyes off the knife, she chopped away at the same speed. Marley was impressed.

Steve gave Natasha the stink-eye over his shoulder. "It's been a year, Nat, give me a break."

"Nine months," Natasha corrected. "Maybe in May, when it's actually been a year, we'll let it go. Maybe." She turned her attention to the beautiful brown-haired woman. "Wanda, do you need these onions yet?"

The pretty girl looked up from the frying pan. "Sure. Yes, please." She had an accent, Eastern European, if Marley had to guess. Wanda—her name was Wanda. Good God, she was so damn pretty—

Focus, Marley, she told herself. You're not here to ogle. You're here to eat dinner so you can be respectfully kicked out.

"Marley!"

She looked up: Steve was smiling at her from across the kitchen. He doesn't want you here. "Come on in, meet some people," he invited, gesturing with his spoon. "That's Nat—Natasha, that's Sam"—he pointed at the loud one—"and you should in no way take anything he says seriously—"

"Oh, piss off," said Sam.

"—and this is Wanda." Steve tapped her shoulder with the end of his spoon, ignoring Sam. "Everyone, this is Marley."

Marley strode in, her shutters and walls of confidence and self-assurance snapping up into place, carefully crafted over the years to show everyone exactly what they wanted to and nothing beyond. "Pleasure's mine," she said, smiling with just a hint of well-placed sardonicism. She leaned against the counter, hands on the cool granite. "Anything I can help out with?"

"See, and I already like you more than anyone else here," Wanda told her, earning small protests from various persons. "No one else in this room volunteered to help with dinner. I had to drag them out of their rooms."

"I didn't think you wanted me in the kitchen after last time," Natasha said, saving Marley from having to try to eke out a response through the delight of being not only spoken to but praised by the prettiest person she'd ever seen.