“What’s the actual agenda for this month’s house meeting?” I interrupted them loudly. Kaya always wrote it up.
She finally sat down in her usual spot, the battered easy chair, and opened her phone. She cleared her throat and used her public speaking voice. “Item one. You guys both owe me money.”
Morgan and I looked at each other and nodded. “Soon,” I promised. “Sorry.”
Kaya frowned. “Well, the next item is a recent addition to the agenda, and it changes the discussion about the rent.” Morgan looked at me, and I knew that he also expected her to say that we owed even more, that the bills had gone up because he and I kept adjusting the heat above where the tape on the thermostat told us was the upper limit. So we were shocked when Kaya announced, “Item two: I’m getting married. I finally said yes to Denny after my game yesterday. I was pretty happy after my hat trick and I guess that lowered my defenses to him.”
“What? Congratulations, Kaya!” Morgan told her, forgetting about his broken bike. “That’s wonderful!”
“Thanks,” she said, and smiled back at him. “Denny’s moving in, so you guys will need to move out. Sorry.”
“Wait, what?” I shook my head. “We have to move out?”
“When?” Morgan asked her.
“I’ll give you until the end of the month, if you pay me what you already owe. If you don’t want to pay, just get out now.” The front door opened. “There’s Denny,” she told us.
Her boyfriend came in carrying a box and a suitcase. He put down his stuff so that he and Kaya could greet each other by wrapping together their tongues.
“Oh, Lord,” Morgan muttered. “I’m not staying here another minute if he’s moving in. Our walls are way too thin. Every time Denny sleeps over, I have to hear her yelling, ‘I need your Washington Monument!’ If he’s here permanently, my ears and I won’t be able to take it.”
It wasn’t like I could sleep through their sex yells, either. I looked at Denny grabbing Kaya’s ass in the middle of the living room, and I walked out of the cottage. “On my way over to talk now,” I texted to César.
His tall gate was wide open and the heavy front door was unlocked when I got there, so I let myself into his house. “Hello?”
“In the kitchen,” César called back, and I followed a delicious smell down the hallway. “Hi,” he said when I walked into the room. “Are you doing better than you were this afternoon?”
I nodded, but man, not really. I plunked down in a chair at the table. “What are you making?” I asked, and he showed me pasta in a pot. “Do you have enough for two?” Or three, because I counted as two. I closed my eyes and rested my forehead on my palm.
“You’re not doing much better,” César said, and a moment later, a bowl clinked down in front of me. I opened my eyes as he added a fork next to it.
“Thank you!” I started putting pasta in my mouth as fast as I could move my arm. Jesus and Mary, had anything ever tasted so delicious in the history of the world?
“This is actually one of the things I’ve been wanting to discuss,” he said, watching me inhale the food. “I have a list.”
“A list?” I asked with my mouth full, but I had better manners than see-food. “Sorry,” I apologized, but as I said it, I lost one of the noodles I was chewing onto the tabletop.
César appeared to be majorly disgusted by my eating habits, and I couldn’t blame him. It reminded me that we had never shared a meal before. We hadn’t shared much before, besides our phone numbers, tequila, and bodily fluids. My stomach clenched and I stopped eating momentarily.
“Item one is your nutrition,” César said, and sat across from me with a laptop. He opened it and studied the screen.
He sounded just like Kaya with her items. Item one, give me money, item two, get the hell out of my house. “What about my nutrition?” I asked him, making sure to swallow my food first.
“Are you taking prenatal vitamins? What’s your daily protein intake?”
“Hold on a second.” I put down the fork. “There are a few other things we need to talk about first.”
“I agree.” He frowned. “You work at a winery, you said. Are you drinking?”
“That’s none of your business!”
“It is, if you’re carrying my baby!” he told me.
I tried to hold in my anger. “As for nutrition, whatever I can keep down is about as good as it gets. And as for alcohol, of course I’m not going to drink, no matter where I work! I haven’t been, no alcohol for months because I’ve felt so bad. But anyway, my job will probably not be at the winery for much longer, with how much time I’ve been missing. I had to have a come-to-Jesus talk with my bosses this afternoon after I got back from our appointment.” I took another bite and chewed for a moment. “Also,” I continued, “I found out that I have to move out of my house, so today has really been something.” I shoved another huge forkful of pasta into my mouth. “I’m sorry, I’m starving. I didn’t have lunch and I threw up my breakfast,” I explained. Oops, I had forgotten to swallow before I said that.
César stared at me, somewhat horrified.
“Sorry,” I mumbled again.
“So we’ll start with your nutrition,” he said, moving right along. “I do a lot with my own eating plan, and I made one for you, too, based on
