First meal in the new house.

Of course, among the many things we brought with us were full bags of groceries, all courtesy of Sarah’s mom. After all, we were OFFICIALLY moving in right now, there was no going back home for lunch or dinner or anything. There was a store relatively close, but it had the essentials. Mrs. West gift to us as we started our new life was a month’s worth of groceries for the pantry.

It was kind of poetic that she was the one to give us this, since the blunder I wanted to amend was sort of related to her, when months ago she taught me how to make a stir fry and Isabelle and I completely botched it. Twice.

I hadn’t tried it again, but I couldn’t let that stand. I was more experienced now. My food was not only edible, but… good. Yes, good. I had learned to use knife properly and grown a better sense for these things. Still far from a master, but I could now feed myself. And more importantly, feed other people. So I rolled up my sleeves, got what I needed out of the pantry and got to work.

And yeah, I didn’t forget to feed Cake. Both Isabelle and mom asked me like five times each if I had packed her food. She ate close to me on her plate on the kitchen floor while I competently chopped vegetables and sliced the beef. Onions still made me fucking cry, though, fucking hell.

Everything was looking good and I was feeling confident. I didn’t forget the salt or anything, and the beef was looking juicy and tender. Even I was getting excited to eat. I texted the group chat to tell the girls lunch would be ready in 10 minutes, and after about 5 or so, they started coming down.

They all came in through the archway with Sarah leading the way in a hurry.

“What the hell? Oliver? Why does this smell like my mom’s stir fry?” she asked, then saw what I had in the wok. “Oh my God!”

“OOH! So THAT’S why it smelled familiar,” Grace said.

“It does smell really good,” Diana said. “I didn’t realize I was hungry until now.”

Sarah ran up to me, grinning giddily and hugged me while doing little hops. “Holy shit, baby, I love you!”

I laughed. It was very rare to see Sarah being so giddy. Happy and excited, yeah, but pure giddiness was another thing. Still… “Careful, I’m still cooking,” I told her with a hand on the handle of the wok.

“Sorry, sorry!” The smile on her face was reward enough for all the months of practice, but again, I wanted to eat it, too.

“So Mrs. West is passing down the family recipes?” Alice asked, getting a little closer to take in the smell. She smiled.

“Just this one,” I said. “She said it was easy and I messed it up when I tried. If this turns out well, I’ll ask her to teach me more.”

Noelle giggled. “Gotta master one before you unlock the others?”

“Yeah.”

“I really hope it’s good. Mrs. West cooking is amazing,” Mila said, sitting on one of the stools behind the counter.

“Mila, get up. Help me set the table,” Diana said.

“A-Ah, yes!”

“Did we bring anything to drink?” Grace asked, checking the fridge.

“There should be orange juice,” Sarah told her.

“Um… We have glasses, right?” Noelle asked hesitantly.

“Yeah, I got us a set,” Grace said. “Alice, where did you leave them?”

“Here,” Alice said, opening a cabinet right behind me, taking out seven tall glasses and leaving them on the counter for Grace to fill with orange juice.

Diana and Mila set the table and Noelle helped me serve the plates. We took them to the table, and as we were about to sit down…

“Oliver, sit at the head,” Sarah said.

Huh? Sit at the head? “M-Me?”

“Yeah, who else?” Mila asked.

“Um…”

“You’re not going to tell us you feel awkward sitting at the head of the table?” Grace asked with a raised eyebrow.

“Well… Kind of?” I admitted. I mean… Isn’t the person who sits at the head usually… the head of the house and… Ugh, yes, it feels awkward, but even I realized I was making too big a deal out of it. I sighed, shook my head and sat at the head of the table.

“Hey, speaking of awkward,” Noelle said, sitting down as well. “I’m not the only one who feels weird walking around the house, right?”

“Oh, so it’s not just me?” Mila asked. “It’s… kind of like I don’t belong here.”

“It’s the empty spaces.” Alice nodded in agreement. “I’m sure it’ll go away soon. You know, when we start filling those spaces with useless clutter,” she said, giggling.

“These are just your first hours in a new house. It happens,” Diana said. “Like Alice said, it’ll go away soon.”

“Enough of that, let’s eat before it gets cold,” Sarah said, looking at her plate with sparkling eyes. “Thanks for making lunch, Oliver.”

“Oh, yeah, thank you,” Noelle said.

“No problem. Now, if it’s bad you’ll have to eat it anyway,” I told them.

“That’s the plan,” Alice said, stabbing a piece of meat and eating it… before absolutely melting. “Oh my God…! It’s so tender!”

“Oh wow, it really does taste a lot like Mrs. West’s cooking,” Grace said, eyes wide.

“The vegetables are cooked just right, too,” Diana said. “They have the slightest bit of crunch left to them.”

“I think I got lucky there,” I admitted. “I kind of eyeballed it and I’m not sure if it’ll turn out the same next time.” Still, it made me happy to hear they liked it, and thanks to the connection we shared, I could tell they weren’t just saying it to make me happy.

That said, I turned to look at who should be my harshest critic. After all, I was directly competing with her mom’s cooking. I wasn’t aiming for perfection, so if I could get just close enough to bring Sarah a bit of her home here…

For a moment, we all went quiet and ate without saying a word, all while pretending we didn’t see Sarah desperately holding back her tears.

“It’s good,” she said with a small hiccup after swallowing. “Really good.”

Blunder amended.

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