Page 27 of Hungry Like the Wolf

“My brain always seems to be six steps ahead of the rest of me. I’ve always got contingencies for my contingencies. What-ifs. Plans for plans. But when my hands are busy, my brain gets real quiet. I’m focused on weeding, or cleaning a coop, or dicing mirepoix, or building something, or getting the right color on a roux. When my hands are busy, I’m able to be right where I am.”

She was quiet, chewing and staring over his right shoulder.

“I don’t think I’ve ever worked with my hands like that,” Nadja said.

That surprised him. “Never helped with a garden?”

She scoffed. “I don’t come from gardening people.”

“Not even a few flower pots on the front porch?”

“Not front porch people either,” she said before popping a peanut butter saltine in her mouth. She chewed thoughtfully, took a drink of her water, swallowed, and said, “I didn’t have parents. I was raised by a guardian. I would call my upbringing one of benign neglect. Mostly.”

“Mostly,” Robbie parroted, feeling like that one word contained an entire lifetime of experience.

“Mostly,” she repeated. “And then I had to go to work.”

“As a therapist?”

She winced. “No. Not at first. Not for a while, actually. I didn’t go to school until I… left.”

She scratched at a residue on the tabletop with a blunt nail. The kitchen faucet dripped, the sound of the water hitting the stainless steel basin loud in the quiet. Outside, he could hear the wind rustling the bare branches. There was a howl, long and low, in the near distance. A week ago—hell, yesterday—that sound would have alarmed him being so close. But now, it felt almost comforting.

He couldn’t explain it, but he could tell by the sound of it that the howl was an excited one. Like its wolf was about to race through the moonlit forest and couldn’t wait, like they were inviting everyone to share in their joy. And someone must have because a moment later, there was another howl. Higher, sharper. Closer. And then another. They chorused together, punctuated by an aggravated snarl that made him smile for all that it reminded him of his Grandpa grousing at him to “pipe down.”

He looked at Nadja across the table and saw that she’d been watching him. Her head was cocked slightly to the side. He looked back at her, at her moon pale skin, almost translucent in the yellow glow of the overhead light. She was beautiful. He’d registered that thought before, but now, looking at her, really looking at her, it felt like a punch to the gut.

She sucked in a breath, but then she stood quickly, picking up the now empty plates and moving toward the sink.

“You cooked, I’ll clean,” she said. And if her voice shook a little, Robbie was able to tell himself that it was because of her vigorous scrubbing with the yellow and green sponge, attacking the plates like she was scouring one of those flat-top grills that hadn’t been cleaned in fifty years and not a plate that held nothing but dry crumbs. She wiped the counter, the table, even the front of a cabinet, scrubbing at an old smudge of what looked like petrified grape jam, a perfect purple fingerprint.

Robbie yawned. “Are you tired?”

She whirled around, her cheeks pink, her throat flushed, with the sponge still clutched in her hand.

“Tired?”

“Yeah,” he said, nodding at the digital clock on the top of the stove that said that it was close to ten o’clock.

She whipped her head to look, her blunt bob swinging after. She cleared her throat, her cheeks properly red now as she turned back to Robbie.

“We should probably go to bed,” she said.

She seemed almost afraid—or if not afraid, at least nervous. Robbie stood and came up to her, lifting his hands to rest them on her shoulders but freezing before he could set them down, instead looking like he was holding them up in surrender.

“Talk to me,” he said.

“About what,” she said, staring at her feet.

“Do I make you nervous? Are you afraid I’ll try something?”

Her gaze flew up to his. This close, he could see that her eyes were a black coffee brown, with little flecks of something lighter.

“I’m not afraid of you, Robbie. I just?—”

She stopped abruptly, swallowing, but didn’t finish the thought. He was so close. If he took half a step closer, their toes would touch. The thought of that little intimacy made his stomach jump.

“Can I touch you?” he whispered.