Divorced, Broke, and Back as His Perfect Wife novel · Chapter 23 of 24

Chapter 23: Second Draft

He arrived on Friday at six fifty-eight with a Dutch oven wrapped in two towels.

I watched him from the window. He stood on my porch for a full minute, holding it, until the clock on my phone said seven.

Then he knocked.

"You were early," I said, opening the door.

"I was outside. I wanted to be on time."

"That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard."

"I know." He grinned. "Where do I put this?"

I let him into my kitchen.

It was small, with a window over the sink and a table for two. He moved around it carefully.

He took the lid off the pot.

The roast was dark and glossy, with carrots around it and the whole room smelling of onion and thyme.

"It took three tries," he said. "My mother supervised the second. The first one was tragic."

"First draft?"

"First draft."

We ate at the little table with our knees touching under it.

It was a good pot roast. It was not as good as mine, and I told him so, and he said he knew.

He asked me about the diner. I asked him about the company, where he had cut his own salary to a third. He said nothing about the thirty million, and I did not ask.

We talked for two hours. I laughed more than once with my mouth full.

When the plates were empty he sat back.

"Lena."

"Yes?"

"May I ask you something?"

"You may ask me anything."

"Would you go out with me?" He turned his glass a quarter turn on the cloth. "Not like a deal. Like a man asking a woman he'd like to take to dinner and walk home."

"We just had dinner."

"That was a rehearsal."

I looked at him across my own table, in my own house, with no one watching.

"Not yet," I said.

His shoulders went down a half inch, and he nodded. "Okay."

"Ask me again in about four minutes."

He stared. Then he began to laugh, helplessly, with his head in his hand.

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