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“Having someone to cook him breakfast in the morning,” he says.
I frown. “Don’t tell that to a prospective girlfriend. She’ll kick your ass all the way back to the 1950s.”
He laughs and tips his head back, mouth open. “Don’t worry. I’m not in any danger of that.”
He walks to the bathroom, and I shake my head. He must have tripped over a dumbbell in the gym and hit his head.
I’ve watched ten more minutes of the lecture when Lucas comes out of the bathroom with a towel wrapped around his waist. “Call me when brekky’s ready,” he says as he walks to his bedroom.
“I’m not your housewife,” I call at his back. His very wide, expansive, muscled back.
I finish the lecture and jot down notes, then close my laptop and get started on the pancake batter.
By the time I’ve cooked up a stack, Cleo comes out of my bedroom, wearing her pyjamas. They’re light pink and made of silk, and her hair is tied up in a messy bun.
“Charlie, you’re making pancakes?” she says, taking a seat at the kitchen bench. “You shouldn’t have.”
“This is yours,” I say, handing her the plate of pancakes. I also pass her a squeezy bottle of maple syrup, a bowl of sliced strawberries and a container of vanilla ice-cream, the fancy kind with specks of vanilla bean in it.
“This looks incredible!” she gushes, picking up the silver knife and fork I’ve provided. “I’m going to get so many cavities, but it’ll be worth it.”
Part of me wondered whether things would be different after we had sex last night, but things are the same as before. Cleo eats, checking Instagram with her other hand, and I finish using the rest of the batter.
I realise too late I’ve burned half of the pancakes. They’re not completely charred, but there are a few black patches. Still edible, but not perfect. I bite back a sigh as I place them onto a plate. I’ll eat the crappy ones and give the good ones to Lucas. It’s my fault I burned them, after all.
After I set two other places on the kitchen bench, I go to Lucas’s room and knock on the slightly ajar door. “Your pancakes are ready,” I say after I poke my head in.
He looks up from where he’s sitting at his desk, writing complicated-looking equations in a notebook.
“I thought you said you weren’t my housewife?” he asks.
I give him the finger, then return to the kitchen, Lucas behind me.
“Morning, Cleo,” he says as he takes a seat at the bench, leaving the middle spot for me.
“Oh, hey.” She puts her phone down. “How’d you sleep?”
“Not bad.”
“That’s good to hear,” Cleo says, then looks at me. “Charlie, you wouldn’t have anything to drink, would you?”
I get her a glass of milk from the fridge, then take my seat between them. I dig into my food — these pancakes are pretty delicious, if I do say so myself — while Cleo passes her phone to Lucas to get his Instagram. Lucas compliments Cleo’s profile, making her glow with pride. She tells him all about her plans to work in social media, and he listens to her as if her voice is his favourite sound.
I take a look at Cleo’s Instagram too and notice that she’s posted a photo from last night — one of her by herself, with a glass of champagne in one hand, rather than the photo we took together. Not that it matters.
When she leaves to take a shower, Lucas nudges my knee with his. “Look,” he says, nodding at Cleo’s half-finished plate she’d left on the bench. “What is she, five?”
I stare at him.
“Didn’t her parents teach her to put her dishes away?” he continues by way of explanation.
That’s not what I’m confused about. For a moment, he seemed like he genuinely liked Cleo, and it’s a shock to the system to realise it was part of his act. It was because I told him to be polite.
I ignore him and fix my gaze on my pancakes, continuing to eat.
“Yum?” he asks. His knee is still pressed against mine. Just like last night, at the restaurant.
“Yes,” I say. “These aren’t bad, especially as I burned…” I pause. The black patches on my pancakes have disappeared. Where did they go?
