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“I thought you liked tons of cream and sugar. Sugar’s right there.” He pointed to a bowl next to the coffee maker. “There’s cream in the fridge. And milk.”
“This is fine,” I said again. Add ons weren’t really my thing unless someone put them in front of me, even if I liked them. I got used to the basic shit that was available and thenused to itturned intogood enoughandgood enoughturned into your favorite. It was just easier that way.
“You like omelets?” he asked me, and my stomach lit up even though I wasn’t normally a breakfast guy.
“Yeah. Sure.”
“What do you like? Mushrooms? Onions? Peppers?” He gestured to his lineup of little bowls on the counter, cheese and vegetables and shit I didn’t even recognize chopped up and waiting. Basil? I didn’t have a clue what basil looked like, but he definitely seemed like a guy who would.
“Yeah. Anything. That sounds good.”
For a second I thought he was going to force me to pick something, and I knew having no opinion got annoying to people, but when it came to shit like this, I just… couldn’t.
“Okay,” he finally said, nodding. “Here.” He grabbed a couple strips of bacon and shoved them my way. “Sit down and drink your coffee.”
The way he said it really didn’t make it seem like there was any kind of option, and even though I would have offered to help, the shit he was doing was beyond my pay grade anyway— there was no way I could do anything but fuck it up. So I sat down in front of one of the empty plates and watched him cook while I nibbled on my bacon and drank my coffee. Last night his hard chairs were uncomfortable, but this morning they were fuckingpainful. And I didn’t mind at all.
I guess I’d have watched him do about anything, he just had that bubble of calm around him I liked so much, but he had a whole culinary expert thing going on, not just playing it up with fancy gadgets. Seemed like he had half a dozen arms, cracking eggs and scrambling vegetables, flipping and stirring and working two pans at once while he filled all the toaster slots, timing everything so perfectly that two fat ass omelets and four slices of toast ended up on matching plates on the table all at the same time.
He peeled back the paper towel, split the bacon in half, and loaded up the only empty spot on my plate. “Eat,” he told me.
Again, it wasn’t so much a request as an order, even if it was a polite one, and I picked up my fork. I fucked around, just cutting the omelet into pieces and watching the cheese string out, staring at all the colors and the shapes cooked into the egg like some kind of artwork when he dipped over to the fridge and came back with orange juice, pouring both glasses full. This was the kind of laughable, ridiculous, complete balanced breakfast you only saw on cereal commercials, and I finally took a bite of my omelet just so I didn’t accidentally bust up into hysterics.
“Good boy,” he told me, giving my shoulder one of those squeezes I’d really come to appreciate through the embarrassment, and he sat down across from me to eat.
It was so much fucking food that by the time it was just crumbs left and I drained the rest of my juice, I was a little dazed, and I picked up my coffee.
“You eat like this every day?” I asked him. “I feel like you’re going to kill me.”
Seemed fucking impossible anyone could meal out like this on the regular, or that you’d bother if you lived alone, but he nodded.
“When I have time. I like breakfast. And, you know. Chopping up vegetables makes my dick hard.”
I snorted. “You’re like watching a fucking cooking show with all your…” I waved my hand in the direction of the mess left on the counter and in the sink. “Kitchen stuff. It’s like a sport, kind of. Balancing so many things. Doing it all at the exact right time.”
He turned back around to look at the stove top, a little skeptical. “Yeah. I guess. Still waiting on that Culinary Arts scholarship.”
“I took that class. Freshman year. I got kicked out.”
He laughed. “Why?”
“Wasn’t really my fault. I took it with Ellis. We were supposed to make this garden cake that looked like dirt on top, and chop up all these Oreos in the food processor, and he kept sticking his hand in it while I was figuring out the buttons…”
“Oh no.”
“Yeah, I almost cut his finger off. It was… traumatizing for the class, I guess.”
He cringed and I could tell he was trying not to laugh. “Yeah, I remember that now, when he had that big bandage on his hand.”
“That was me. Almost ruined his football career if you believe anything he says. Which I don’t.”
“You and Ellis… friends?” he asked me, and that was a question.
“I don’t know. We were. We used to be. We hung out a lot when we were kids. We still hang out, he’s just… an asshole. Sometimes it’s funny, but mostly it’s just fucking annoying. But guys on the team…” I shrugged, not really sure how to explain it despite all the words I kept saying. “I guess we’re friends. I just can’t stand him.”
He laughed and stretched his long legs up on the empty chair next to him as he picked up his coffee cup.
“You don’t fit anywhere,” I told him, and he looked startled, and I realized that came out sounding way shitty. “No, I mean… Your body. Your legs. You’re always doing that.”
