Cooking (Part 1)

I kept telling Sarah I could just take the bus home and she kept telling me that she would drive me home. I stopped fighting when her mom asked her if she could stop by the supermarket on the way to buy a few things. Sarah shot me a sneaky victory smirk. And well, if she had to make that stop, then I was going to take the opportunity to do some shopping as well.

I had made up my mind already, so there was no point in waiting. Mrs. West wrote down the recipe for me, so I was gonna try making her stir-fry at home for lunch. It SOUNDED easy, but my cooking experience was… lacking. I hope that whatever I made at least turned out edible.

At the supermarket, as Sarah and I were doing our shopping, she took the opportunity to tease me more. “Good with kids, learning how to cook… Are you planning to be a househusband, Oliver?”

“Sure, sure. I’ll leave work to you and the others and I’ll stay at home,” I answered. I was pleased to see it turned the tables on her because she blushed madly and didn’t say more. I was getting a little better at that.

She dropped me at my house and we risked it with a goodbye kiss since mom’s car wasn’t outside, but dammit, after last night I would’ve risked it even if it was. I felt like I’d gotten close to Sarah yet again, like we understood one another more and reaffirmed once more that we seriously wanted each other. It felt great.

We said goodbye and I went into my house. The sound of the door served as an alert, and Cake ran to be the first to greet me back. I kneeled down to pet her, and she purred and practically rubbed herself against my hand like, well, like the needy cat she was.

“She cried all damn night,” Isabelle told me as she came down the stairs, rubbing her eyes. “You’re not allowed to spend the night out again.”

I winced. “Sorry…”

“She was going to and from your room and the front door,” Isabelle continued. “Seriously, what kind of magic did you use on her? I’m kinda jealous.”

“If you had fed her when she was only a month old, she’d be attached to you too, but you left that to me.” I didn’t say that with any bitterness. I was simply stating a fact. And really, I understood why Isabelle was jealous. Having a cat be so attached to you that it misses you when you’re gone is pretty flattering.

“You started doing it before I even asked, remember?” Did I? I think I did, yeah. “Anyway. So… How was it meeting Sarah’s family?”

I tensed up and looked around. “...Mom’s not here, right?”

“She went out to buy some things.”

I sighed in relief. “They were really nice. Her parents are super kind and her siblings are fun.”

“Did you get lucky?” she asked. Her smirk told me she was aiming to make me uncomfortable, but as I said before, I was getting better at turning things around on people.

I smirked back at her. “Hm? Do you really want me to answer that question?”

Isabelle’s smile fell. She blinked, blushed and turned away.

{He totally did! And with her parents in the house!? What the hell!? Is this really Oliver!?}

It was my turn to blink. I felt a bout of dizziness from the sudden and very unexpected mind reading. I didn’t normally got to read thoughts that weren’t my girlfriends’. I sometimes knew what Thomas was thinking in general terms, but had never read his mind. With Isabelle, however, I was able to read her thoughts clearly, even if it happened very, very rarely.

Was there a trigger? A condition? A pattern? If there was, I was too dumb to notice it.

As I was thinking, Cake began to dig into the plastic bag of my groceries. I had to give her a little scolding and push her away, but it had already drawn Isabelle’s attention again.

“Hey, what’s that?”

“I’ll… ask mom if it’s okay if I cook lunch for us today.”

Isabelle’s eyebrows shot up. “You’re learning how to cook? Why?”

“...Mrs. West kinda convinced me to give it a try. The food she made last night was really good. Besides… We have the time to make dinner ourselves, yet we still leave it to mom to buy us take out even though she’s tired from working all day.”

“...” Isabelle pursed her lips and looked down at the floor. I could see the realization setting in the same way it had for me the day before.

I went to the kitchen, left my bag of groceries on the table and texted mom, asking her if it was okay if i tried making lunch. She said yes. Now… the pressure was on. I had to make it edible or **** mom and Isabelle to eat trash.

…

Stop it, Oliver. Stop thinking like that. Just… one thing at a time. I had Mrs. West recipe, and it did sound easy to follow. I had about an hour until lunch time, so I began immediately.

I gathered all my ingredients on the table, and maybe because of the stirring of the plastic bag or perhaps due to the unusual shapes, Cake jumped on it to see what I was doing.

“You. Out,” I told her, grabbing her and setting her on the floor again. I went to wash my hands and cleaned the counter with a damp dishcloth. I was going to start peeling the carrots when Isabelle came in.

“Say… Do you mind if I help?”

“You’ve never cooked either,” I told her.

“So you can learn, but I can’t?”

I smiled. “Want to peel the carrots or chop the onions?”

Isabelle winced. “Carrots.”

I shouldn’t have given her the choice. I hated chopping onions for the longest time.

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