Page 69 of The Sound of Him

“Mine too. But I’m the fun kind of daddy, not the grumpy kind that always bitches.”

“Mmm.” I pointedly close the freezer door and give him a look. “Maybe we’ll agree to disagree.”

He lifts his drink to me in a sort of salute and heads out, probably to go find the boy he so desperately wants to be the daddy of. If the way Casey looks at him is any indication, I think it’s safe to say that’s inevitable.

I open the fridge next, staring at the contents.

I sort of… forgot that I can’t cook.

Like at all.

Shit.

I try my best to remember any of Kellan’s many recipes. He used to let me sit in the kitchen while he cooked as long as I followed his three rules. No helping, no whining, and absolutely no choice over the music he played.

We had some of our best conversations in that kitchen. He may not have wanted me touching the music, but he didn’t mind us talking over it. He’d let me tell him about the treehouseKeaton was going to build me next time he was home and the experiment I was running on which seeds the birds in the backyard liked best. He’d tell me stories of him and Keaton growing up, always painting Keaton as either the hero or the goofball, never failing to fuel my adoration of the man who saved me.

I learned a lot about the two of them during those conversations. I learned a lot about myself, even. Kellan definitely managed to learn a lot about me.

One thing I didn’t learn in Kellan’s kitchen though?How to fucking cook.

The fridge beeps at me, warning that I’ve had the door open too long. I close it. If Jake were here, I’d make a joke about the fridge being a daddy too.

He was right, though. Not about the door - or, well, yes about the door too I guess - but about everyone still being okay without a proper meal cooked for them. They’ve had worse. Hell, they’ve gone plenty of nights without anything at all, I’m sure. They won’t mind having to fend for themselves.

Except, they’ve had to spend so many years doing that already. So many years of sucking it up and taking what they can get.

I can cook for them. It’s the least I can do.

Besides, how hard can it fucking be, right?

So, cooking is hard.

I try my best. Ido. It’s just that -well, the chicken, like, burns? After only, like… fifteen minutes?

And it’s downhill from there, really.

I manage to avoid the smoke alarms going off, catching the scent of it but when I took the pan out the skin was charred black. I try to scrape some of the char off - which reveals pink meat that I’m pretty sure isn’t safe to be pink.

I toss it in the microwave instead.

That ends with a lot of weird sizzling and popping noises, and a chicken that’s still charred and pink the second I cut deeper than the tip of the knife.

I decide to cut it up and try again, since smaller things cook faster. I didn’t realize that raw chicken was so hard to cut with a steak knife, the grooves scraping the meat all jagged and weird. I spread the pieces out on a plate and toss them into the microwave.

There are less angry sounds.

Then I realize that a single chicken breast isn’t going to be enough for everyone.

I cut up more, wincing again at the knifework.What knife are you supposed to use?Not the big fat ones - those are for, like, onions and stuff. The super small one is definitely for cheese. And the long serrated one is for bread. Which means the steak knife must also be for chicken. I’m probably just using it wrong, which I can’t fix.

I get some more chicken ready for the microwave and start on making mashed potatoes.

That doesn’t go well either.

There’s bread and butter, though -which is a good start for a side dish, right?

Right.