Once you mixed things, you could forget them until the timer went off.
That wasn’t how Rowan cooked though. He’d had multiple pans going at once. He chopped and mixed and moved around like he was performing some kind of complicated dance. Andnow, there was a plate of food that smelled great and I justknewwould be on the team dietician’s approved list.
“This looks great,” I told him as I waited for him to take a seat on one of the stools next to me.
“It’s not much,” he answered with a shrug. “Thought about making pasta but wasn’t sure what kind of diet the team doc had you on.”
“I love pasta,” I told him as I cut into the chicken. It was juicy, and when I cut into it, it smelled even better. My mouth was watering as I speared the chicken with my fork and bit into it. Flavor exploded on my tongue. “Holy fuck,” I groaned. “You’ve got to teach me how to make this. It’s so much better than any chicken thing I’ve ever made.”
Rowan ducked his head and looked down at his plate. I thought I saw a faint hint of color in his cheeks. “Like I said, it’s a simple dish.” If this was his simple dish, I could just imagine what he’d come up with if he actuallytried. “I make this at least once a week. Meal prep it sometimes, on weeks where I don’t think I’ll have a lot of time to cook.”
That was pretty impressive. I’d tried meal prepping once, but it hadn’t worked out well for me. Instead, I paid someone to send me over meals that I could microwave. Most of the time, I forgot to eat them. Sometimes, I forgot them in the microwave.
I tried the rice and broccoli. They were just as good as the chicken, and that was saying something. I normally didn’t like broccoli that much, but I could eat this every day. It was seasoned really well. He’d even managed to do something to make the rice not taste bland. He was like some kind of magician in the kitchen.
I could not keep up conversation as I shoveled food into my mouth. I hadn’t realized how hungry I was until my stomach growled, and even then, I hadn’t noticed the full depth of the hunger until I took the first bite. When we’d cleared our plates,I took his from him before he could stop me. “Do you use your dishwasher or are you a hand wash person?” I asked as I rounded the counter.
“You don’t have to do that,” he called out. I heard his heavy footsteps on the linoleum behind me.
“You cooked. Aunt Edith and Aunt Annabelle had a rule growing up. The one who cooks doesn’t clean.”
“Well, in my house growing up, the guest didn’t do housework,” he scolded. He reached over my shoulders and plucked the plates from my hands. I was suddenly very aware of how close he was standing. I could feel the heat of his body against my back. “And to answer your question,” he said as he stepped around me and put the plates in the sink, “I load the dishwasher every night before bed.”
There was a coffee cup, a bowl, and the dishes he’d used to make dinner already in there. He rinsed the plate and shooed me out of the small kitchen.
We settled back on the couch. Maintenance called twenty minutes later to unlock my door.
Notes
I thought about writing the Nashville game, but after that loss? No thank you. Better to forget about it. Especially since I lost fifty bucks off my boyfriend during it. Don’t date someone who hates your team.
5
Notes
I didn’t get fired! Thank you to everyone who messaged me to check in. I got a small promotion, but that does mean that my updates may come slower. Which I’m sure you noticed since it’s been a few weeks since the last time I posted. Sorry about that, but I will get better. Life has just been an absolute bitch. But hey, life’s a bitch and then you die, or however that ancient cliche goes.
But you’re not here to listen to me whine, bitch, and moan about life. You’re here to watch Rowan and Milo fall in love.
Rowan
Don’t get me wrong. I liked the guys on the Scorpions, but I wasn’t sure I liked being on the team that much.
We were four weeks into the season, and we hadn’t won a single game. The talking heads at SEN loved to point out the fact that we were one of only two teams in the ALF who hadn’t won a single game this season. They analyzed the tape. They pointed out the reasons they thought that we weren’t winning. They blamed it on Liam and Jonesy and Milo and Wendell West. They blamed it on me. They blamed it on Tyriq Fell for getting hurt. They blamed it on the rest of the defense. They blamed it on the coaching staff and ownership.
Everyone had an opinion as to who was to blame, but none of it mattered. No matter how hard we practiced, we just couldn’t seem to bring it home. Our game against the Nashville Trojans had been an embarrassment. We’d only scored two field goals. Our next game, a home battle against the New York Knights had been close, but they’d had a two-point conversion right at the two-minute warning that put them in the lead. We’d not been able to come back from it. And the game against the Minnesota Timberwolves fell somewhere in between.
Meanwhile, my old team was one of three teams to still be undefeated four weeks into the season.
I knew it wasn’t right to wish I was still there, but I did. And it was affecting my attitude toward my new team. I looked at them, I watched them trying their best, and all I could think about was the fact that it wasn’t good enough. The Foxes would probably make the playoffs, and at the rate we were going, we’d be lucky to win five games all season. I wasn’t in the best mood.
It wasn’t just the team that had my proverbial hackles raised. Tucson was too hot. The air was too dry. I still didn’t have a car, and even though Milo had suggested I get decorations for my condo, I still hadn’t. The only piece of decoration I had was in the bedroom: the game ball from my first game. It sat on my dresser, waiting for me to eventually buy a display stand. If I were at my house in Fayetteville, it would’ve already been on display. I had a room dedicated to the trophies and medals I’d earned in my years playing football.
Now they were all boxed up in a storage unit across the country, waiting for me to send for them.
I couldn’t get out of my head. It was like the days leading up to the first game all over again. Nothing stopped my thoughts from spiraling. Not working out. Not music or reading or watching mindless television shows. Even running wasn’t taking my mind off things. Troy and Raina called me out on it during our weekly video call, after I could barely focus on what my niece was telling me about her day at school. That wasn’t like me. I’d always been very good at listening when my niblings told me about whatever was on their minds.
It was Milo, in the end, who came up with the solution to my bad mood.
