“Is it? You better be nice to it, then.”
Oliver shook his head with laughter, and I smiled to myself as I continued chopping the rest of the produce.
“Those have to be the messiest cuts I’ve ever seen,” he said, abandoning the meat for a moment to lean over my shoulder and examine my work.
“They’re rustic cuts,” I said.
“That’s one way to market it.”
Us moving around each other in the kitchen was borderline comical. Everything was cooking faster than we expected,and I let out a little squeal of panic whenever I walked away from something only for it to start sizzling violently.
“Everything okay in there?” Mattie called.
“Great!” we both yelled back in unison before dying in a fit of laughter.
Being with Oliver felt good.
That was the only way to describe it. He made me feel happy in a way no one else did. To think, when I’d first met him, all I could think about was how unstable he was. Now, he was basically my rock. He was becoming the person I leaned on, even more than Mattie. I genuinely loved every second we spent together, and whenever we were apart, I only thought about seeing him again
“Crap,” Oliver said, eyeing the cooked meat in the pan.
“What?” I questioned as I turned off the burner for the peppers.
“The recipe said a quarter teaspoon of cayenne but I put in a quarter cup.” He held up the almost empty bottle of seasoning.
I shrugged. “I’m sure it’s fine.”
It wasnotfine.
After we’d set the table and sat down to dinner, Giles had taken one bite of his taco before going into a coughing fit and reaching for his water.
“Spicy,” Giles gasped.
Mattie slowly lowered the taco she had been about to take a bite of back to her plate, looking alarmed.
I eyed mine nervously. “It can’t be that bad.”
Oliver, being the only brave one, brought the taco to his mouth and took a small bite. His eyes immediately bulged before he reached for his own glass of water. “Shit,” he choked out. “That’s not edible.”
“Oh no,” I groaned, tossing my head back.
Oliver and Giles both had red faces as they continued to chug their waters. Mattie and I made eye contact before bursting out laughing.
“I think my throat has third-degree burns,” Giles said.
Oliver had tears in his eyes but one look at me and Mattie and his eyes pinched together as he lost it too.
Soon, we were all cracking up over the completely ruined dinner.
“Shit, I guess you can scratch learning to cook off my goals,” Oliver said, after we finally calmed down.
“Yeah, I think you might hurt someone, Ol.” Giles got up and took the plates, patting him on the back as he walked them straight to the trash.
“I still had fun,” I said, wiping my eye. “That was the point, right?”
“I think the point was to actually be able to eat what you made,” Mattie said.
“Oh, right.”
