Chapter 19: Dinner at Jenna's

Jenna invited Miles to dinner without asking me.

"He's coming at seven," she said on Friday, and walked off before I could answer.

I changed my shirt twice.

At seven he stood in the doorway of her apartment with a grocery bag in each arm and a stubble that had not seen a razor since the ballroom.

"I didn't know what you eat," he said. "So I bought everything."

Jenna took one bag and looked inside.

"There are four kinds of pasta in here."

"I panicked."

"You're a paramedic."

"That's different."

She laughed, and I realized I had not heard her laugh in a month.

"Eight cans of tomatoes," Jenna said, lining them up on the counter.

"They were on sale."

"Both of you are impossible," she said, and handed him an apron.

He cooked, because Jenna said she wouldn't, and I sat on the counter with a glass of water and watched him cut an onion with his whole attention.

He did everything that way.

Once, when the pan smoked, he reached over without looking and moved it to the back burner.

"You have a system," I said.

"I have a checklist. It's the same thing."

"What's on it for tonight?"

"Make sure you eat."

He said it plainly, to the onion.

Jenna looked at me over his shoulder with both eyebrows high.

I looked away.

We ate at her small table.

He asked about the detective, and Jenna told him about the three of us, and the DA, and he listened without interrupting.

When she stopped, he put down his fork.

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