I looked back outside and was welcomed by the site of my house.

Well… What do we do from here? It felt like we had come to the natural conclusion for the day, but it was still only 4 o’clock. I don’t really want to split apart just yet either. It seemed like everyone else was thinking the same thing because, everyone just sat still in silence for an awkward amount of time. The hyped-up rock music going on in the background just exaggerated the awkwardness of the situation.

“Sooo…” I said to try and break the ice, “You guys want to come in for dinner?”

“Yes!” Gia immediately exclaimed in excitement.

Danny seemed to be happy too that he could spend some more time with his girlfriend, but I quickly made sure that nothing like this morning would happen, “You two won’t be alone in his room again, so I don’t know why you’re so excited.”

“What?!” Gia shouted, appalled at my rule.

Danny quickly comforted her by patting her head and whispered something smoothly into her ear that seemed to cheer her up. Rom rolled her sky-blue eyes at them as Sandy I looked at each other in disgust. I couldn’t hear what exactly he said because of the music, but I’m going to keep an eye on those two.

“Are you sure it’s fine for us to eat with you? We won’t be a bother?” Sandy asked me worriedly.

I gave her a warm smile and assured her, “Nope, it’s fine I promise.”

“I feel bad. You’ve already spent so much money on us today, I don’t want you to give us a lot of food either. Is there anyway I can pay you back? I ca—”

“Sandy,” I stopped her and put my hand on her shoulder in comfort. “It’s fine.”

A smart thought suddenly popped into my head that made me grin. “You can pay me back sitting down and eating with me.”

Her mouth dropped agape, and a smile formed soon after. “You’ve gotten into a habit of using my words against me.”

“I have no idea what you mean Sandy.” I said innocently.

She narrowed her eyes and teased, “You know exactly what I mean Mark.”

“Hey! Are we getting out or are we going to eat in the car?” Gia jumped in between us over the dash.

I nodded my head at the suggestion. “What a great idea Gia,” I sarcastically said. “We should definitely get on that. Thanks for your input.”

“Fuck you too, Mark.” She said dryly as she and Mark started out of the door.

“What?” I asked innocently, “I was complimenting you?”

I’m glad it pissed her off. I was still ticked about the photobooth thing. I turned back around in my seat with a content smile. I heard Rom open her door, and Sandy hit me on the shoulder partly for annoying Gia that much and partly to tell me, “Let’s go.”

I got my keys out of my pocket and walked with Sandy to the door. “I do have a way you can pay me back actually.”

“Mhmmm.” She walked and swayed daintily beside me with her hands behind her back, “What would that be?”

I gave her my best smile because I really needed this favor. “I need you to help me make dinner pleaseee!”

“Pffftttt hahaha!”

“W-why are you laughing?”

She wiped a tear off her cheek. I still can’t believe she laughed so hard she cried. “The nerve to ask a guest that you invited to help you make dinner!” She teased.

“I-is that not a good thing to do?!” I nervously asked. Did I inadvertently say something really bad? Ohnonono—

“Relax, I’d be happy to help!” She confirmed.

She ran in front of me and whipped her head around. Her braid acted like a small whip across her shoulder, and she lowered her head to have her eyes peak over her shoulder. She exaggerated the supposed sexiness of the pose, which she looked really cute to be fair, and she went right back to teasing, “Did you really want us to stay that bad?”

With the way she was looking at me, it almost forced me to mumble, “So, what if I did…?” but there was no way I could say that to her face.

“Hmm?” She asked and leaned forward to peer into my eyes like a puppy dog, but I turned away and folded my arms in protest. She’s just going to tease me again, so I won’t give her the pleasure. “Hmph!” I pouted.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

She leaned back up and continued her dainty journey to the door, “Well, I’m glad you did. I wanted to stay too.” She said warmly.

As quick as she made me put my guard up, she just as quickly disarmed me. “No fair.” I mumbled and followed her to the door.

“What took you so long?” Gia immediately complained when I arrived.

I couldn’t think of a clever response at once, so I just gave her a quick, “shut up” and unlocked the door. The surge of kids filed into the small house in front of me, Rom to the Playstation, Gia to the couch, and Danny to his room.

Sandy walked up beside me and asked a question that I honestly didn’t have the answer to, “So, what are we making for dinner?”

I chauffeured Sandy into the house, so I could shut the door. “Uhhh…” I tried to buy some time to go into the kitchen to look at my options.

“Mark!” A faint yell came from Danny’s room, “I’m going to be in the shower!”

“Umm, okay?” I didn’t feel like I needed to know that but whatever. I need to focus on not making a fool of myself and come up with an idea for dinner.

Sandy followed right behind me like a duckling following its mother. I assume she expected a grand reveal of a magnificent feast we have planned, but with mom working late today, we didn’t have anything planned. In fact, I was planning on going out to get some fast food for Danny and me before I suggested this.

I opened the cupboard in a grand gesture expecting an idea to pop into my mind. If you act like you know what you’re doing you can fool everyone, right? Well, when I opened the door, I was met with a bunch of what seemed to be random food items. I recognized the boxes of cereal and what could be made with that, but something told me it wouldn’t exactly be the best dinner to entertain guests. I continued to scan the messily strewn food items, and I got to one thing that I recognized and knew an actual meal to make, noodles.

I relaxed back to face Sandy and announced to her proudly, “We’re going to have pasta!”

“How long did it take for you to come up with that?” Sandy asked me skeptically.

“N-not long at all!” I argued to try and save face, “This was the plan all along!”

She moved past me with a knowing, “Mhmm.” And started getting ingredients out. I watched her go back and forth from the cupboard to the kitchen countertop to the fridge back to the countertop humming a nice song. I started to fidget around, “I’m just watching her do all the work…”

This didn’t feel right, so I interrupted her on her last trip to the cupboard asking, “I-is there anything I can do?”

“My… do you not know what to do? How were you going to make this without me?” She teased, and it almost made me leave.

“Clearly she doesn’t want my help!” I pouted to myself, but when I started back to the living room to play with her, Sandy tugged on my shirt.

“Wait, wait, wait!” She pleaded with a giggle. “I was just teasing! You look cute when you pout hehehe!”

“OW!” I exclaimed inwardly. That was a critical hit. How can she say that so casually?! I mean I think that she also looks extremely cute not only when she pouts but just normally, but I could never say that so casually. I said that her braid was really cute earlier, but that was when my curiosity and emotions filled me. She just said that like it was nothing!

Gahhh! I’m making way too big of a deal about this. We’re both about to start college! This was nothing!

Anyway, she started to move back towards the counter seemingly without a care in the world. “You can get two pots out one kinda small and the other one medium sized -ish.” She told me as she started to wash some of the raw ingredients she got out.

I pulled out two pots that seemed to be the size that she was describing and sat the down on the stove that was about 3 feet to Sandy’s left from the sink. I assumed from watching mom cook pasta after all these years that the larger part was for the noodles, and I asked Sandy to confirm, “There needs to be water put in this, right?”

She looked up from the sink and wickedly grinned. “So, you do know something about cooking. Here fill it up to about ¾ full.” She teased and moved out of the way of the sink to make way for me.

I rolled my eyes and carried the pot over. “I know this much,” I said annoyed that she apparently thought I completely helpless.

I started to fill the pot up and Sandy asked me, “You’ve never cut vegetables before, have you?”

“I-um…” I was so angry I couldn’t refute her assertation

She smiled knowingly and got a knife out of the wooden knife holder on the counter. “It’s okay,” she told me warmly. “I can teach you. Then you can finish cutting the veggies while I start the sauce and the noodles. Put the pot on an eye and turn it to high to get it boiling please.”

I turned the water off when the pot was full enough and did as she told me to. I went back up to Sandy and she was searching through the kitchen drawers for something. She opened one of the cabinets below the kitchen countertop, and I leaned down to peer in it with her.

“What you looking for?”

She nearly jumped out of her skin when she heard my voice, and she let out a high pitched yelp. She immediately put her hand over her mouth and looked over to me with widened eyes. See was just as shocked that voice came out of her mouth as I was. “Jesus!” She exclaimed with faint spots of red appeared on her ears, “You snuck up on me!”

“Pffffttt hahaha!”

“Shut up! Ahem!” She composed herself before explaining, “I was looking for a cutting board.”

“Oh, you don’t need that,” I assured her. “These countertops are like the cheapest you can get. It doesn’t matter if you cut on them or not. OW!”

She karate chopped my forehead. “It’s not about whether its good for the countertops or not,” she reasoned. “It’s about being clean! That’s rule number 1 in cooking! Always be clean, understood?!”

“Yes ma’am!” I affirmed sarcastically with a salute.

She rolled her eyes, but they still had a glitter in them, and her cheeks had become red as well. I smirked. She was still flustered from being jump scared. “A-anyway…” she continued, “Where is the cutting board?”

“Oh that?” I asked innocently.

I moved past Sandy and opened a drawer that she already opened and pulled it out. “Here it is!” I showed it to her shocked opened mouth and sat it down on the counter by the veggies she got out from the fridge.

“H-how…Where did you-?”

“It’s a trade secret.” I put a finger up to my mouth and winked at her with a smirk. Ah! That was really cringy when I do it. It’s a lot different from when Sandy did the same action.

Sandy didn’t say anything in response to me. She went silent all of a sudden and weirdly still. “Crap! I freaked her out!” I lamented to myself.

“I’m sor—” Before I could apologize, Sandy suddenly lurched forward and turned me around with a hug.

She put her hands on top of mine and guided them to the knife and vegetables. “You’re getting really cocky,” she chastised me. “Let’s start your veggie cutting training then!”