Page 58 of Wingmen

He was surprised again when he did.

Elliot seemedimpressed with Dustin’s apartment. What he was not impressed by was his kitchen. Dustin had one pan, and even that had never been used. His cooking prowess extended to prepping and freezing produce from the farmer’s market on Sunday for smoothies all week. Force had an amazing nutrition bar, and Portland had plenty of healthy takeout.

To his surprise, Elliot cared about this. When Dustin had poured wine and asked what he wanted to order for dinner, he said, “Wait, you’re not gonna cook?”

“Oh.” Dustin frowned. “No? Sorry. I don’t really do that.”

Elliot’s eyebrows jumped. “But you know how, right?”

“Honestly? Not really.” He studied Elliot’s reaction. “Do you?”

“Of course.”

“I guess I wouldn’t’ve thought that was something you did. Where’d you learn that?”

Elliot’s eyes moved away, and he went to the kitchen island and pulled out a stool. “My mom got really busy for a while last year. So I was just trying to help her out.”

Dustin watched him set his wine glass on the counter, and weighed how he might get more out of him about that. “What do you like to cook?” he said.

“Yuca, chicken.” Elliot shrugged. “Soup, habichuelas, pasta, easy stuff.” He fidgeted with his wine glass, then put his hands in his pockets. He was nervous. Dustin was nervous. Everyone was super fucking nervous.

“Sorry, I didn’t realize you were expecting that,” said Dustin. “Which is stupid, now that I think about it: I invited you for dinner.”

He laughed nervously and Elliot laughed nervously and picked up the wine and sipped, then set it down and nudged it again, jiggling his foot. Then he frowned and looked up. “Actually…could we do that?”

Dustin blinked. “What?”

“Cook. Dinner.”

“Uh…I don’t really keep anything in the house…”

“Is there a market around here?”

“There’s the farmer’s market on Sunday.”

Elliot rolled his eyes. “No, like a store where people buy actual food, Viejo.”

The sass and the eyeroll were kind of a relief – felt like a return to business as usual. An activity actually sounded great. Dustin hadn’t expected to be so fucking nervous. It was probably because in the back of his mind was all the Reddit stuff he’d been looking at, and he wasn’t sure how to bring it up.

He watched Elliot pull out his phone to search.

“There’s a store across the river that’s still open.” Elliot looked up. “Unless you were set on takeout.”

Dustin shook his head. “No, that sounds fun. I’m gonna be hopeless, though.”

“That’s okay. I just need to eat something that didn’t come from a restaurant.”

It was twilight as they drove over the river to the East Side, to a neighborhood Dustin had never been to before, Elliot in the passenger seat with the phone out, calling out directions. Dustin was happy to let him lead the way as they parked and went into a market: he had no idea what they needed and he was enjoying letting the kid take charge.

Not kid. He wasn’t a kid.Stop calling him a kid.

On the way back, Elliot had him go a different way so he could show Dustin a mural he’d found last time he was here. Dustin frowned in surprise. “You’ve been to this neighborhood? When did you do that?”

“Took the Light Rail out a couple weeks ago.” Elliot was leaning to peer up through the window. “Have you not?”

Dustin shook his head and put his eyes back on the road. “Never had any reason to.”

“In three years?”