“What the actual fuck?”
Flint glares at the stove. “I’m generally a very good cook.”
“Clearly you would excel at smoking!”
He turns his glare to me and I swear his eyes glow. “This thing is defective!”
“Oddly, I’ve never had any trouble with it!” I shout back.
He looks surly.
I take a deep breath, smoke be damned, and try to center. Gesturing wildly with my arms, I ask, “What is this?”
"I was trying to make dinner. You’ve been lost in writing for hours, which is great. I thought I could surprise you with dinner since you didn’t appear to be surfacing any time soon. And you offered to share your home. Besides, when you’re working that hard, food is good for you.,” he finishes, lamely.
Shit. He was trying to be considerate. Damn it! I can’t guilt a man for smoking us out of house and home when it was with good intentions.
I risk a glance at him and realize I’ve embarrassed him.
Double shit.
I take a good look around the kitchen. The steaks are prepared and are being kept warm, wrapped in aluminum foil. There’s a salad in the large bowl I usually only use for cake batter and making brownies. When the hell — did he make a salad? Shit shit shit. He was trying to be nice.
“What’s in the stove?” I ask.
“Potatoes,” he mutters.
My favorite.
“I was trying to bake potatoes but this thing doesn’t have any instructions. Cooking over an open fire doesn’t require a temperature or a timer so…” he looks so defeated.
Okay. This can be salvaged. The oven is clearly a dead loss. I’m not opening it again. Fuck that.
“That’s okay. We have other ways to bake potatoes.”
He still isn’t meeting my gaze. “We do?”
“We do.”
“…can you show me?”
I smile. Reaching out, I take his hand. “Sure. It’s actually way easier. Come on.”
Pulling him to the sink, I show him how to make a microwaved baked potato.
I keep my eyes trained on the book in front of me as Ash puts her music in her ears and effectively forgets I’m here. I almost lost it earlier, watching her draw from the Earth as she smelled the flowers. I had hoped, desperately, that she would open her eyes and I would see that veil lift and she would know me. She would know all she has put away or that has gone missing, the wayshewent missing. I had to bite my tongue when she mentioned the things she sees when her brain gets “overstimulated”. I wanted, so badly, to ask what it is she’s seeing. I may have gone so far as to throw propriety out the window and pried to see what was going on in her mind, but she did not appear to be seeing anything in the moment. I tasted her surface emotions and felt the flowers calming her.
The way they used to when we were children.
I clench my jaw. It’s not time to think of that. Thinking of the before is only going to lead to more complications. More questions I won’t – can’t – answer. It’s complicated enough with her asking questions about home, thinking it's something she’s manifested in her brain and doesn’t exist. If I didn’t know the strength of the bindings around her, I’d be tempted to grab her by the shoulders and shake her. Beg. For her, I’d even beg. To remember.
Me.
Us.
Goira.
Anything.
