Page 100 of Meet Cute Reboot
“I’m not peeling a tomato.”
“If you’re gonna grow tomatoes in that garden, you’re going to need to know how to prep tomatoes for canning.”
“You noticed my garden?”
I look up at Luke and smile. “Yes, I noticed.”
Luke searches my face with an intensity that belongs somewhere other than a kitchen. What did I say that was so enticing? My stomach flutters and I look down at the bowl of ripe tomatoes, suddenly feeling a kinship with them as a mixture of embarrassment and desire flames my cheeks.
Luke slides behind me slowly, intentionally placing one hand on the counter to my right, the other to my left. I clear my throat. “Um. You need to blanch them and then the skins peel right off.” There’s a bit of distance between me and the stove, so I take aim and toss the tomato into the pot of boiling water. Not one of my best ideas. Scalding water splashes from the pot and lands on our arms.
Luke seizes and jumps back. I spin around and grab his arm. “That was my pasta water,” he says. “Also... Ow.”
“I’m sorry!” I rub the water droplets from his skin, and I continue rubbing even when his skin is dry, enjoying the contours of his muscles. This is weird. I let go. He’s grinning down at me.
He lifts my hand and rests it back on his arm. “You don’t have to stop.” And then he gathers me up in his arms and presses me against his chest. Our lips meet and yearning grips my stomach.
But—
The tomatoes—
I pull away. “We need to drop the rest of them into the pot.”
Luke lets go and leans over the island to grab three more tomatoes. He juggles them through a few rotations before plopping them into the water one by one.
“When did you learn how to juggle?”
“When my business took off and I had to counsel five start-ups all day, every day.”
“I guess that’s why you’re so adept at clowning around.”
“I’m adept at a lot of things.”
Flames roar in my belly. Intense and blue like the ones licking the copper-bottomed pot. No more talk about clowns and juggling. I want Luke’s lips on mine. He reads my mind and leans in to kiss me.
Movement to my right catches my eye and I turn my head. Like someone turned the burner back to low, the flames in my stomach die down, replaced by a cold tingle up my spine. The cabinet door—the door to Betsy’s medicine cabinet—opens slowly, purposefully.
Luke sighs and slumps. “Darn you, Betsy.”
“What did I just see?” I know what I just saw but I don’t want to believe it.
“Must be time for Joey’s medicine again.”
I extract myself from Luke’s arms and tiptoe over to the haunted cabinet. “Do you think I’m walking through her? Right now?”
“Do you feel cold?”
I rub my goose-pimpled arms. “A little.”
I’m sharing the kitchen with a ghost. This is bizarre, unnerving, but I can’t stop my intrigue. I grab the door handle, swing the door on its hinges, search for any possible explanation based on the laws of physics regarding why a random cabinet door might suddenly, inexplicably open on its own.
I feel a tap on my shoulder and my body nearly flies apart at the atomic level. I’m pretty sure my feet leave the floor. I knowmy heart spits out an extra gallon of blood. My temperature spikes and not in the fun I-want-to-kiss-Luke-way.
Luke’s laughing.
“Are you trying to send me to an early grave?”
He walks over and lightly presses his index finger to my lips. “Don’t joke about dying. Betsy might be listening.”