"We can heat up something and call it cooking," Rob whispered to Julian.
Julian wasn't happy with that option. He sighed as he looked at Danny, then he caved. "I'll watch a cooking video and see what I can make. You can heat something up if you want," he told Rob.
Now it was Rob's turn to be disappointed. He felt excluded, but plastered on a smile and said, "OK. Good luck."
Rob quickly turned away, but he didn't need to worry. Julian was already looking at his phone. "I need a bigger screen," Julian said and went off.
That left Rob and Danny in the kitchen and neither of them was happy. Rob was thinking that maybe Julian wanted to create some distance between them. Maybe he thought that they shared too much. While his heart beat in a slow, painful rhythm at the thought of Julian pulling away, Danny got his attention. "Rob, is the video just for 'growned-ups' or can I watch too?" he wanted to know.
"I'm sure you can watch," Rob told him.
"OK," Danny said and he climbed down from the chair. Taking Rob's hand, he tried to lead him away. "You watch too, Rob."
"No, but you can watch the cooking video with Julian. Just you two," Rob told him then he noticed Julian standing in the kitchen doorway with his iPad in his hand.
He was looking from Danny to Rob kind of oddly. That made Rob worry that he gave away too much. It's not like he needed to spend every second with them. Rob might like to, but if Julian didn't feel the same, he didn't want to horn in.
"Danny wants to watch the cooking video with you," Rob said to him.
"Maybe he wants to cook with me too," Julian said and smiled down at his little brother.
"You're allowed to cook with a grown-up," Rob told Danny.
"I don't know how," Danny said.
"I don't know how either," Julian told him then he looked over at Rob and held his gaze for a moment. "Rob doesn't know how either. This video is going to show us."
"And Rob can watch?" Danny said.
"If he wants to learn, sure," Julian said then he gave Rob another significant look. "Do you?"
"It might be a good idea, I guess," Rob said. He felt like Julian was challenging him to join them and cutting right through his resolve to not horn in.
Danny was happy, and all three of them ended up sitting at the kitchen table, watching cooking videos. A lot of cooking videos. Danny was in his big brother's lap, and Rob and Julian were shoulder to shoulder while Lenny meandered around their feet.
At the end of each video, Julian would say, "Too difficult." Then they would watch another cooking video marked "easy" or "for beginners" or "easiest ever", but Julian still wasn't willing to tackle it.
In the meantime, Danny and Rob munched on carrot sticks. "Any more carrot sticks and we'll turn orange," Rob said.
"Oh. I guess we better heat up something after all," Julian decided setting aside the iPad.
"We're going to do cooking now?" Danny asked.
"Kind of," Rob said. Going to the freezer, he got out three boxes of rice with teriyaki chicken. "We can add frozen peas to the rice. That's cooking." They had gotten a whole bunch of frozen vegetables they could microwave right in the bag.
Since Danny didn't know much about cooking, he was cool with that. He looked on eagerly as Julian got out a skillet.
"We need a skillet?" Rob asked.
"We saw them make rice in a skillet in the videos. We can do that too," Julian decided.
Rob didn't see how. They had three frozen bricks of food to deal with. He knocked them against the counter to demonstrate the problem.
As all three of them frowned at the frozen dinners, Julian made another decision. "Microwave then skillet."
"You're just determined to use that skillet," Rob accused him.
"I am. We didn't watch all those videos for nothing," Julian said stubbornly.
