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The muscles along his jaw rallied.
Áine’s eye curved to him as if she somehow knew his carnal thoughts.
He gasped quietly, collecting himself to come closer. “Is that milk?” The carton clearly displayed that of two Friesians. “Perfect. I’ll make us pancakes.”
Aware plenty of better things could have been made that might have impressed her, pancakes meant he could spend less time making food. Although he wasn’t sure what that gave more time to, and his mind wouldn’t allow him to wonder.
Fionn dodged around her curved form, bodies slightly brushing as he reached for the cold carton and eggs he didn’t like the sight of in a fridge.
“You’ll have some, won’t ya’?”
“It’s eleven o’clock?”
He backed out. “I’m aware.”
She huffed a smile he was sure meant she couldn’t protest her way out of this because it was just so pointless. “Go on then. It’d be rude not to if you’re offering.”
“Well, pancakes are the least I can offer you after being quite the idiot back in school,” he said with a needlessly playful tone to deflect from his poor attempt at admittance.
For their concurrent understanding of this, Áine instead reminded him of who she was now, “Don’t worry,” she closed over the fridge’s door and chose to whisper for how close their lips suddenly were. “I forgive you.”
Her sweet, inclined breath travelled onto his tongue, having his ungovernable linger transform into a wide-eyed inhale.
He felt almost out of depth in her reclamation of power. So much so, he went instead to find the right utensils to prepare pancake batter, leaving her by the fridge.
His hands were shaking a little, making him somewhat grateful the task at hand was easy for his innate skill to understand the logistics of any kitchen—except his grandmother’s, who put cutlery in separate cupboards under cloth because she swore people were less likely to rob them that way.
All the while, Áine watched on, arms folded with an accompanied smirk that suggested maybe she’d enjoyed rattling him. He couldn’t tell ifheenjoyed that by how he reacted, but deep down, or maybe not so deep, a part of him wanted her to come that close again.
When having found what he needed from the cupboards, Fionn cradled the bowl and began whisking freely. Flour blooming over milk and eggs like a mushroom cloud, drifting gentle specks into his face.
It was all of a second before Áine interjected, “For fuck’s sake, Fionn, you didn’t measure any of it!” She leaned against a neighbouring counter now, her high-browed dismay clear in his periphery—the angle he knew her best from.
“And?”
“Aren’t you worried you’ll mess it up?” Her folded arms untangled so she could use them for elongated emphasis.
“Worried? About pancake batter?” He shook his smiling head at her minor absurdity.
Fionn’s view was that cooking and baking were like the arts; perfection is rare, and the way to find it is to interpret the best outcome, to experiment, doing it a shade different every time.
“Áine, if we can’t embrace chaos in a jug of batter, we’re doomed to embrace it for ourselves.” While Fionn thought it was a great line, worthy of a slap on the back, he didn’t actually believe it. It was chaos that led him down the path of addiction he was trying to crawl out of. It was balance that had fixed him. By fixed he meant stabilised, as long as he put in the work.
Áine had found him a cast iron frying pan and was already at the opposite side of the kitchen, clicking on the gas hob.
“You must forget,” she called over her shoulder, attention fixed on the ring of blue flame. “I’m the baby of seven. Chaos was my life.”
He did forget.
And now he remembered.
“Yeah. That’s right, you were poor growing up too,” he said.
She gasped with a snorting snicker masking its end.
“Fuck you, Mr I-couldn’t-afford-my-own-poetry-book.”
Fionn laughed as the memory sweetly returned from the fog he’d locked their younger selves in.
