Page 76 of Familiar Things New

“Not at all. It’s comforting to me. I love it. Really, it’s . . . I’ve never had chicken like this elsewhere.”

“You haven’t had slightly burned chicken elsewhere?” Mrs. Meyer asked in a teasing tone.

Andrew chuckled.

“I have, but, uhm, but this is better,” he tried. “Truthfully, it’s even better than the food I had on my recent visit to New York City.”

Mrs. Meyer shook her head in mock chastisement. She looked over at Edwin.

“He’s a flatterer, isn’t he?” she said.

Edwin’s cheeks reddened sweetly, and the sight made Andrew’s stomach swirl. After only a brief glance up from his food, Edwin’s eyes fell back to his plate.

“Yes, he definitely is,” Edwin said, his voice low and soft.

Edwin was so beautiful like this, with his cheeks pink, some of his shyness seemingly having returned. And Andrew so wished he could kiss him right then.

Rather than ruin both of their lives by surrendering to that fleeting fantasy, Andrew settled on folding his hands in his lap. Edwin had a small bite of food. And then another.

“So, is it better than whatever fancy food the Whitney family serves?” Mrs. Meyer asked Edwin. “Andrew tells me you’re a friend of William Whitney’s. If that really is true, then I’m sure you must have eaten your fair share of meals at the Whitney Estate here in Albany.”

“I have,” Edwin said. “And I have to agree with Andrew. This chicken really is better.”

Mrs. Meyer hummed, and her smile broadened.

“Ah, so I have two flatterers here, then,” she said playfully before stabbing a piece of chicken with her fork. “I’ll pretend you’re both being sincere.” She pointed her fork at Andrew. “But if you think you can compliment your way into me letting you win at cards, then you are sadly mistaken, Andrew.”

Andrew laughed and held up his hands.

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” he said. “I promise.”

Mrs. Meyer narrowed her eyes, and then she popped the hunk of chicken into her mouth. Chuckling, Andrew returned his attention to his plate. Rosemary wafted up his nose, the scent causing his chest to warm, and a lovely feeling of contentment settled within him. Andrew stabbed a piece of chicken and ate it, barely suppressing a happy hum as he chewed.

Even though the meal was simple, it never failed to satiate him, in more ways than one. Rosemary-crusted chicken and soft, practically creamy, cloves of garlic with chunks of cooked carrots—they had begun to taste like home.

Home.

Andrew’s heart sank. While the boarding house was nice enough, it wasn’t a home, no matter how badly Andrew sometimes wished it could be. Mrs. Meyer wasn’t his mother. She was just the woman who owned the house in which he happened to rent. Andrew enjoyed playing cards with her, but she was still paying him for his time. And of course Andrew paid her the monthly rent for the room as well. Mrs. Meyer may have been a sweet woman—someone who practically oozed the sort of parental warmth that Andrew hadn’t been the recipient of since childhood—but she was still only Andrew’s landlady. And if she ever found out the kind of romantic company he preferred to keep, then he’d surely lose his “home” within the hour.

Just like he had before.

Andrew’s eyes flickered up to find Edwin, who was munching on his food, and the sinking feeling in his chest worsened. He liked Edwin so much. And yet there was clearly something amiss. Edwin seemed to have some sort of blockage when it came to intimacy, physical and otherwise.

Andrew fought back a frown.

Out of everything he had learned in his life, the most painful but perhaps most evident thing was that relationships were fragile and finnicky, not unlike a wet collodion plate. Given the right care and conditions—perfect coating, ideal lighting, precise exposure time—the most beautiful something could come to be. But that most beautiful something, it could fade or break or split so easily. All it took was a simple mistake to ruin it. And so, while Andrew felt contented and cared for right then, sitting with his lover and the woman whom he had come to think of as a sort of motherly figure, he knew he best not mistake the comfort for permanence.

Looking back and forth between his landlady and his friend, Andrew attempted to capture the moment in his thoughts—a memory he could revisit later, especially once these lovely people were gone from his life—and he prayed that, unlike the photographs he had of his family and his former best friend, this pretend photograph might be one he could someday look back on with fondness rather than heartache.

“So, Andrew, how has business been lately?” Mrs. Meyer asked.

Andrew swallowed past the lump in his throat, hoping to hide the percolating melancholy from his companions.

“Good. Better than expected, even,” Andrew said, fighting to keep his voice level. “I, uhm, I couldn’t have kept up with the influx of clientele without Edwin’s help. Not with my knee like this, though I think it’s finally almost healed.”

“I’m happy to hear that,” she said. “I’ve been worried, you know.”

Andrew’s chest pinched. Once again, he was reminded of the care he’d received as a child, but he forced himself not to linger on the memories.