Legacy by Stephanie Fournet Page B

coming from the bathroom.
    It shut off just as he headed back outside.
    “Steaks will be done in like eight minutes, C,” he called on his way out.
    “Ok!” She called back.
    When he came back inside, Wes was surprised to find the small kitchen table set with two places, a potato on each plate. Corinne had even put out butter and sliced lemon.
    “Awesome,” he said, carrying in the sizzling steaks and steaming asparagus.
    Corinne gave a half laugh.
    “Least I could do,” she muttered, standing behind him as he served both their plates. “There’s no way I can eat all that.”
    The steak alone took up most of her plate. With the potato and asparagus, it was pretty full. Wes shrugged at her.
    “So we’ll have leftovers. Want a beer?”
    “Sure...,” Corinne still stood awkwardly, staring at the table with the hint of a frown. Wes guessed that the scene was too domestic, too intimate for comfort.
    “Is it too weird?” he asked, opening and Abita for her and handing it over. She took it without looking at him, but she didn’t answer right away.
    “No,...It’s just been a while since I ate a real meal...You know...at a table...with someone else,” she looked at him then, and he could see her defenses wall up. “I know that sounds pretty pathetic.”
    Wes shook his head.
    “It sounds familiar,” he said. It was suddenly important to him that she not see him as a threat. He was guilty of judging how she’d managed to get by after losing Michael, and maybe she couldn’t forget that. He wished she could. “I’ve lived by myself for the last three years, and I can probably count on one hand the number of meals I ate at a table when I was in my apartment. Most of the time, I just sat in front of the TV.”
    She looked at him then, and Wes could still see the suspicion, the absence of trust. And he wanted to change that.
    “C’mon, sit down before it gets cold.”
    Corinne sat, and he followed, cutting open his steaming potato and adding some butter and salt. He felt Corinne’s eyes on him, and he looked up to find her staring.
    “What?”
    Wes thought that he saw the color rise on Corinne’s cheeks.
    “This looks delicious...Thank you,” she said, looking humbled and awkward. It was better than her seeming suspicious or defensive, but he still didn’t want her to thank him. He was supposed to be taking care of her.
    “Don’t get ahead of yourself. It might taste like crap,” he joked. But when Wes squeezed lemon juice onto the ribeye and cut into the pink and tender brow, he knew it would be perfect.
    “Wow,” Corinne said through a mouthful.
    “Mmm,” he replied, losing himself to the rapture of it. Wes knew he was hungry, but Corinne seemed to wake up to her appetite. She was refined and mannered, but Wes saw the strain in the muscles of her neck and in her wrists as she wielded knife and fork. The almost wild look in her eyes. The girl was half-starving.
    “Ohmygodthisissogood,” she muttered moments later.
    Wes was torn between patting himself on the back and punching himself in the head. Sure, he was succeeding, but why had it taken him so long to see what she’d needed? Michael had been gone for four whole months.
    “So. Good.” Corinne looked up from her plate, half-amazed. “I had no idea you were such a good cook.”
    Wes allowed himself a wry grin. Her surprised smile was pretty cute.
    “My talents are pretty much limited to the grill,” he said, regretting that he’d never offered to cook for her and Michael. “You’re an awesome cook, though. Your pineapple upside down cake is like crack.”
    The smile she wore faltered, and Wes cursed himself. Thanksgiving was the last time he’d had that cake. Corinne had brought it to the Roush’s, and after Mrs. Betsie’s turkey and cornbread dressing and all the trimmings, he and Michael had glutted themselves on huge, golden slabs of paradise.
    Corinne was picturing this, too, he could see, and she’d already warned him that their