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“Keep fucking around, Kota, you’re gonna be my breakfast.”
When he turns, I hear him quietly add, “And lunch and dinner.”
I don’t know what qualifies as fucking around but I would very much like to find out.
After I get something to drink of course. And that bacon smells delicious. I’m dying to try those pancakes, too.
Khaos reheats the pans before starting on the fruit. My glass of water in hand, I watch as he cuts up an apple, grapes, and strawberries.
“What about blueberries?” I ask him. I saw a clamshell in the fridge, so I know we have them.
“They’re too tart right now.”
“I like tart.”
“Okay.” Grinning, he retrieves the blueberries.
I love when he does that—says “okay.” He doesn’t argue. He doesn’t talk the topic to death. He just agrees. So simple, yet it means so much.
Khaos feeds me bites the entire time he cooks. A piece of crispy, salty bacon here, a chunk of warm, fluffy pancake there, with nibbles of cold, refreshing fruit in between. By the time everything is done, I’m almost too full to try the eggs. Scrambled eggs aren’t my favorite but Khaos’s have them climbing the ranks. Everything is yummy.
I’m still on the counter and Khaos is standing next to me, both of us eating quietly, when I finally push my plate to the side, and tell him, “You’re a good cook.”
“Yeah, my wife is gonna love me.” He chuckles.
Meanwhile I feel a heart attack coming on, my chest aches so bad.
Khaos notices my reaction, or more accurately my lack of one, and rushes to explain, “I’m just kidding. You know, what you said last night.”
“Right. I remember,” comes out clipped.
“’Cause I don’t have a wife.”
“I know.” Technically I don’t know. I don’t know anything about—Well, I know some things about Khaos. Now.
“I don’t even…have a girlfriend.”
It takes me a long time to respond. When I do, it’s softer, kinder.
“I figured.”
Why the words “my wife” coming out of Khaos’s mouth caused me to react that way, I don’t know.
Some of Khaos’s humor returns. “Oh yeah? How?”
“Your summer of yearning kinda gave it away.”
“Yearning.” A laugh rumbles in his chest.
“You said it, not me.”
“I said ‘pining.’”
“What’s the difference?”
“I don’t know. Pining just sounds better.”
“Yearning sounds more aggressive. And you’re…” I give him a once-over. “Aggressive.”
