Chapter 22: Wherever You Are Is Home

Rosalie stands at the edge of the kitchen and watches him.

She meant to praise him.

She meant to say that Adrian was amazing, that he had already learned to cook for himself.

Her mouth opens, but tears come first.

One slips down her cheek. Then another. Soon she cannot stop them.

Adrian hears her trying to smother a sob and looks up.

The moment he sees her, he drops the butter knife and rushes around the island.

“Why are you crying?”

He pulls tissues from the counter and carefully wipes her face.

Rosalie cannot answer. The tears keep coming faster than he can catch them.

“Please stop.” He bends until they are eye to eye. “I’m begging you, Rosie. I’ll make you something to eat, okay?”

She only cries harder.

Adrian looks lost.

He has just buried his mother, yet Rosalie is standing in his kitchen weeping as though the grief belongs to her.

“Adrian…”

It takes her several attempts to say his name.

“I’m here.”

He rests both hands on her shoulders.

Rosalie draws a shaky breath and grabs the hem of his shirt.

“Come home with me.”

Adrian goes still.

“Live with us,” she pleads, tightening her fist in his shirt. “Don’t stay here by yourself.”

He looks past her into the silent house.

“I’ll be fine. I can figure it out.”

“You don’t have to.”

Her voice breaks again.

Adrian turns back to her. He wipes the tears caught in her lashes with his thumb, so gently that she nearly starts crying all over again.

“Okay.”

Rosalie stares at him. “Really?”

For the first time since Aunt Helen’s funeral, sixteen-year-old Adrian smiles.

“Wherever you are, Rosie, that’s home for me.”

A saucepan bubbles on the stove.

The sound pulls Rosalie back to the present.

The boy in her memory has become a man.

Adrian stands at the marble island, stirring milk and rice while cinnamon and orange zest warm in the pan.

He lowers the heat without looking, then adds vanilla and a little brown sugar.

When he turns and finds her watching, he immediately sets down the spoon.

“Why are you up? Does your stomach still hurt?”

Rosalie doesn’t answer.

She walks behind him, wraps both arms around his waist, and rests her cheek between his shoulder blades.

Adrian dries his hands before covering hers.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” She closes her eyes. “I just wanted to hold you.”

His fingers slide between hers.

“Then hold me.”

The rice pudding continues to simmer. Adrian makes no move to rescue it.

He lets her stay against his back until the sweet scent deepens and Rosalie’s stomach betrays her with a quiet growl.

He laughs under his breath. “Still want to hold me?”

Rosalie releases him at once. “Feed me. I’m hungry.”

“Try this.”

At the dining table, Adrian sets down a small bowl of rice pudding.

Cinnamon dusts the creamy surface, and thin curls of orange zest release their fragrance with the steam.

Rosalie reaches for the spoon.

Adrian takes it first.

He scoops up a little, blows across it, and tests the temperature against his lower lip before bringing it to her mouth.

She gives him a look but accepts the bite.

The rice is tender without turning mushy. Vanilla softens the cinnamon, and the orange keeps the sweetness from becoming heavy.

“When did you learn to make this?” she asks after another bite. “You never made it before.”

“Last Christmas. I had dinner at the Aster, and this was on the dessert menu.” Adrian cools another spoonful. “I thought you’d like it, so I asked the chef to teach me.”

“Who did you have Christmas dinner with?”

The question leaves her before she can stop it.

Adrian answers casually. “No one. I went by myself.”

Rosalie looks down at the bowl.

After his parents died, Adrian spent most holidays with her family.

His grandparents were gone, and his mother’s relatives lived across the country.

Unless he traveled to see them, no one in New York was waiting for him.

She almost asks why he ate alone.

The answer is painfully obvious.

“This Christmas…”

She wants to tell him they can spend it together. He can come to France, or she can return to New York.

Then she remembers that her father will be released in August.

Putting Richard Hayes and Adrian at the same Christmas table would leave everyone unable to swallow a bite.

“Yes?”

Adrian waits with the next spoonful raised between them.

“Nothing.” Rosalie avoids his eyes. “Is it cool yet? I’m starving.”

He brings the spoon closer.

“Open up.”

The coaxing tone makes her laugh. She bumps his hand, sending rice pudding across the table and onto the floor.

Adrian grabs a napkin and crouches to clean it.

Rosalie watches from her chair, laughing without remorse.

“I’m not a child.”

Adrian looks up at her.

“You can tell me that when you’re ninety.”

He says it as though reaching ninety together is already settled.

As though even with her hair white, she will still be sitting beside him while he cools every spoonful before feeding her.

The laughter catches in Rosalie’s throat.

Too much stands between them. She has no idea whether they will make it that far.

Tonight, she cannot bear to correct him.

Maybe she cannot bear to correct herself either.

“All right,” she says.

Adrian’s hand pauses over the spilled rice pudding.

Then he lowers his head and continues cleaning, unable to hide his smile.