“I was craving sweet potato fries?” she said. “I don’t know how to tell you this, but alcohol is not the only thing they serve there.” Cole laughed sheepishly and started his engine.
“Well, what do I bring you, then?”
“Just you,” Maya said. “Park inside. I’ll leave it open.”
Five minutes later he was hitting the close-door button on the garage panel, watching the sunlight fade against the white metal of his truck and then disappear. He stood in the dark with his hand on the mud room door handle, trying to slow his breathing. Then with one swift movement, he opened the door and stepped inside.
There was Maya at the stove, oblivious to his entrance as she flipped some flatbread on a pan. Cole felt his mouth go dry as he took in her beauty. She wore a sheer, forest green sari that barely covered her upper body, and a cropped black blouse that clung tight to her breasts.
Her hair was pulled up in a high ponytail, and gold bangles hung loosely at her wrists. Her eyes were lined in black, just as they had been the last day he’d seen her in his classroom a lifetime ago. Cole lost his grip on the mud room door and it slammed shut, making Maya jump.
“Sorry,” he apologized, knowing he wasn’t going to get a cogent sentence out while still staring at her. “I just–you look incredible.” She beamed.
“You’re not so bad yourself, Teach,” she said, adjusting the pleats against her skirt and across her breasts. Cole took off his jacket and took a step closer, putting his hand on her warm, bare midriff.
“It’s hard to believe you have two teenage kids,” he said, no longer trying to censor himself. Her stomach was soft but still flat.
“I started and finished kind of early,” she smiled and ruffled his beard. “It’s not so fun when you have them at 25 and 26 and then you’ve got stretch marks before you’re 30.”
“That‘s what you think I noticed first?” Cole asked, taking between his fingers the meter of cloth that fell over her left shoulder. Maya squeezed his hand and lifted up to her tiptoes to give him a kiss on the cheek.
“How good are you at Scrabble?” she asked. Cole lifted an eyebrow.
“That has to be the last thing I expected you to say.”
“I have to let the paneer simmer on low for a while and we’d have enough time for a game. It’s on the kids’ video game console but they thought it was so boring they wouldn’t play with me for the whole break.” Maya slipped her arms around Cole and rested her head on his chest, standing just a bit past his shoulder. “Will you play with me?” Cole pursed his lips as he felt his soldier rise.
“Jesus, Maya, how do you keep doing that to me?”
“I’m not doing a thing,” she laughed, feeling his partial erection against her thigh. “It’s not my fault you’re so frustrated.”
“About that,” he said, limping over to the living room and switching on the Xbox, “what do I get if I win?”
“Oh, you won’t win.”
“Do you know how much English I had to take to be a teacher?”
“Do you know I went to journalism school?” He hadn’t known that, actually.
“Okay, let’s do this,” he said. “Whoever has more points per round has to answer a question about themselves.” He handed her a controller and started selecting game options.
“Look, if you want to know everything about me, just ask,” Maya said, turning the stove down and picking the couch opposite him. “No need to go through this rigamarole of trying to be a hero at Scrabble.” A few minutes later, Cole shot her a smug glance looking at his 25-point word against her 16-pointer.
“Any tattoos or piercings?”
“That’s you want to know first?” Cole tilted his head and continued to smirk at her until she rolled her eyes. “Fine, yes. All the piercings you see are all I have–two earlobes and my nose stud.” Her voice suddenly dropped as she locked eyes with him. “And I’ve got a tattoo of a sandalwood tree right here.” She pointed to her right thigh and Cole closed his eyes as his heart sped up. “Who knows, you may see it tonight.”
“You play dirty, Kumar.”
“It’s Scrabble, Gundersen. I go for the jugular.” Maya was able to snag the lead for the next few rounds. “What are you most afraid of?” she asked, setting down her controller and getting up to stir the paneer. Cole wasn’t expecting that.
“Snakes,” he said, while thinking about being old and alone.
“When was the last time you were the most angry?” Maya asked, realizing her mistake as she said the words. “Wait, no. I know that answer. Nevermind.”
“It’s not when I caught Janice cheating, if that’s what you’re thinking,” Cole offered. Maya looked surprised. “That moment gave me a lot of answers as to why our marriage had been as shaky as it was. The last time I was livid was when we started to find the mass graves of Indigenous children at closed residential schools all across Canada.
“This country murdered them and inflicted untold trauma on those who survived, and we’re all just treating it like an oops. Some of those babies were three years old.” Maya forgot herself for a moment. “You have another question, you know,” Cole said softly.
“Oh, right. Ummm…” Maya tried to remember what it was. “Who was your first girlfriend?”
“Kathy Klein in eleventh grade. It lasted five months and meant nothing, I swear.”
As Maya put down her next word, Cole gazed at her face contorting as she mouthed out words and shuffled her tiles. She would periodically stare off into space and then come up with a combination that never occurred to him. The bag of tiles was empty and Cole was 30 points ahead.
“You never answered my question,” Cole said. “What do I get if I win?”
“I’ll give you a clue,” Maya said, tucking her legs beneath her and letting her ponytail fall across her chest. “You’ll be getting the same thing even if you lose.” She turned her eyes to the TV screen, trying to seem unaware that Cole’s concentration was shot. No way, she thought, her face bursting into a grin at her last seven letters. M-L-E-R-O-A-A and there’s just enough space after ‘rig’ in the corner!
“Ohhhhh, that is ironic,” Cole shook his head as she put down ‘rigamarole’ and ended the game 68 points in the lead. Maya got up nonchalantly and smirked all the way through dinner. “You’ve never won at Scrabble before, have you?” Cole said flatly while washing dishes.
“Oh, I fully expected to win,” Maya replied as she packed up the leftovers. “I just didn’t think it would happen in such a chef’s kiss kind of way.” She came up behind him and molded her front against his back, her arms reaching around and her fingers slipping into his belt loops.
“Maya, these dishes are too nice to break,” Cole said gruffly as he felt himself stiffen for maybe the millionth time that evening. “You have to stop that.”
“Put the dishes down for a second,” she whispered, standing up on her tiptoes and dropping a kiss just above the back collar of his polo shirt. She couldn’t help but think how the hair that brushed against the nape of his neck was soft like a puppy’s fur.
Cole shut off the water, dried his hands, hit the kitchen light off, and picked Maya up. She shrieked and laughed as he carried her to the dimly lit living room, then sat her down with her legs across his lap, exactly as they had been six weeks before.