Page 38 of Reaching Gavin

“Can you wash those?” he asked me.

“Um, sure.” It took an embarrassing amount of time for me to find a pair of scissors to cut the bag open with. Then, I began to take one out and wash it.

“Not like that. It’ll take forever.” He moved behind me, his arms circling my waist, and picked up the entire bag to hold under the water. I was pretty certain he could be doing this without me as a buffer, but I wasn’t complaining. Instead, I leaned against his firm chest, more than willing to let him show me how it was done. When he finally stepped away, I missed him immediately.

“Now what?” I asked. If I had to be in the kitchen to be near him, I might as well be helping, and with any luck he’d have to show me what I was doing again.

“Washing the vegetables was the easy part,” he warned me.

“I’m a modern woman,” I told him, “I don’t just let my man cook for me. Teach me.”

He laughed at this and gestured to the package of steaks left on the counter. “Can you find me a pan for those?”

I screwed up my face. “Is a pan the one you put cereal in?”

Gavin looked stricken, and I burst into laughter.

“I’m not exactly that helpless in the kitchen.”

“Okay, sassy. Find me a pan.”

“We’re eating steak.” I might have been a little too happy about that. Seattle had spectacular access to seafood, and while I love me some lobster, sometimes all I wanted was red meat. You could take the girl out of Texas, but you couldn’t always take Texas out the girl.

“Yes. We’re going to reverse sear it.”

I waited for him to explain what this meant. Finally, he looked over and sighed. It sounded strangely contented like he was actually enjoying walking me through the cooking process.

“We’re going to cook it in the oven and then finish it on the stovetop.”

“Really?” I wasn’t sure I was buying this method. Maybe it was a weird Pacific Northwest thing.

“Who’s the one who knows how to cook here?”

He had a point. “Will this work?”

I pulled a skillet off of an upper shelf surprised to see it wasn’t covered in dust and cobwebs. I’d half-expected bats to fly out when I’d opened the cabinet door.

“That’s perfect.” He took it from me and began to show me how to prepare the meat. He rubbed down one of the steaks with a little bit of oil and then cracked some pepper on top of it before stepping to the side. “Now you try.”

“Me?”

“I’m beginning to wonder if the whole Texas rancher’s daughter story is a lie,” he teased me.

I grabbed the oil and poured a bunch into my hands, mimicking what he had just done. So, it wasn’t exactly cooking. It was more like combining a few things and then heating. Still, when Gavin put them into the preheated oven, I felt a strange sense of accomplishment.

“What’s for dessert?” I asked him mischievously.

Gavin jumped a little and dashed over to the bag. He pulled out a pint of mint chocolate chip ice cream. “This is going to have to go in the freezer for a while. I totally forgot to put it in there.”

“That’s okay. We probably have a few minutes until the steak is done, right?”

“We have about 45 minutes,” he told me.

I heard my stomach rumble in protest. I hoped he didn’t catch it. “Oh. What else do we need to make?”

“I’ll wait until the steaks are close to being done before I start the vegetables,” he said.

“So, what are we going to do until then?” I eyed the bottle of wine peeking out from his grocery bag, and he nodded. I’d just reached in to pull it out, discovering it was the same Montepulciano that I had served him a few weeks ago, when Gavin hooked an index finger under the strap of my dress and tugged me toward him.