A Night With A Stranger novel · Chapter 18 of 24

Chapter 18: A Door to Come Back Through

The tuition statement was on the kitchen counter Sunday morning, where I'd left it under a coffee mug.

Evan had read it.

I knew because the mug had moved.

He stood at the stove in a T-shirt, barefoot, holding a spatula in one fist, and he did not say a word about it.

"You read my mail," I said.

"It was face up."

"It was under a mug."

"The mug is a thin defense." He put the spatula down. "Four thousand, two hundred dollars, due in nine days."

"I know the number."

"I'm not going to pay it."

I blinked.

"I wrote the check at six this morning," he said. "I put it in the envelope. Then I put it in the trash, and then I took it out of the trash and tore it into four pieces."

"Evan."

"I want to do something else." He took a breath. "Teach me to cook."

I laughed before I could stop.

"You have a kitchen with a stove that costs more than my first car."

"I've never turned it on. The staff do it." He looked at the pan. "I burned eggs for forty minutes and called it breakfast."

"That's the thing you want from me? Eggs?"

"I want something that costs me time, not money." He said it carefully. "I've only ever had one way of helping. Show me a second."

My throat went tight.

I put the tuition statement in my back pocket.

"Come here," I said. "Turn the heat down. You're scorching the pan."

We cooked my mother's chili.

It took three hours, because he leveled every spoonful of cumin with a knife and asked what each ingredient was for.

I stood behind him with my hands over his, showing him how to dice an onion.

"Smaller," I said. "You're not building a wall."

"It's an onion."

"Your eyes are streaming."

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