I felt Sandy’s warm breath by my cheek and a familiar sweet scent of her perfume. After about a second, she started moving her own cheek down off my shoulder to lay next to my bicep to see in front of me. Her braid trickled down my arm and tickled my side. I smiled, but not from being tickled by her hair, but I was tickled about what I suspected the reason she switched positions.

Trying my best to fight off a laugh, “Too short to look over my shoulder, huh?”

“S-shut up! This is just more comfortable!”

“Yeah, I bet it is since you were standing on your tip toes.” I retorted to her.

She squeezed closer to me. “Stop talking back,” she complained pitifully. “This is supposed to be a punishment for you…”

I smiled warmly at her sentiment. I understood what she meant by it supposed to be a punishment for scaring her and embarrassing her by finding the cutting board like it was nothing. But I have to say that really soft feeling in my back and the merging of her perfume with my deodorant felt more like a reward than anything.

She squeezed my hands to signal that she’s going to start moving now and started telling me instructions on how specifically to cut the greens. I’ll be honest I wasn’t paying attention at all at first. I was just enjoying the kind of intimate contact that I’ve only ever gotten from my mom before, but then I looked down to look at her. Her face was flushed, so she clearly felt embarrassed too, but her eyes were completely focused on the task of cutting through my hands. She looked really cool I thought until she started to stick her tongue out a little bit in concentration, then she was just extremely cute again.

She must’ve saw that I was putting literally zero effort in helping her to guide the knife, so she looked up to see what I was doing. “Mark!” She exclaimed in annoyance, “Keep your eyes on the knife!”

“Ah! Sorry, you’re right! You would know a lot about keeping your eyes on things that could kill you,” I teased sarcastically, but I turned earnestly to focus on our hands.

If she was putting so much focus and effort into this, it would be disrespectful for me not to do the same. “Maybe if they had a cooking test, you would be better,” she came back at me with a lighthearted jab before getting back into focus.

I smirked at the retort, but I didn’t respond back. I instead completely zeroed in on Sandy’s instructions and the way she was guiding my hands to cut. “You don’t need to take big chops while cutting these greens. You really just need to keep the tip on the cutting board and move the base. Keep the greens gradually moving forward with your other hand, but be super careful not to cut yourself, okay?”

“Okay, I see.” I confirmed to her.

I felt her hands gradually start to relieve pressure from mine, leaving me to gain more and more independence. Eventually her hands were completely off of mine, and I grabbed a new thing of greens. “So, like this?” I asked and started cutting the way she showed me.

She was still standing up on me and carefully observing me by my arm. I stopped cutting for a second and looked at her when I didn’t hear her immediate approval. A smile had formed on her face, and she excitedly exclaimed, “That’s it!”

I sighed in relief. I’m starting to feel like I’m an active helper in making dinner now. “Good job!” Sandy praised me as she squeezed me with a hug.

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She made my body sway with her, and I instinctively put my arms up to kind of grasp at least her arms back. My heart started to race but not because of the hug. I felt the hard knife brush up against my chest, and I laughed nervously, “Hahaaa! Thank you but remember I have a knife!”

“Oh!” She shouted and immediately let me go and backed off apologetically.

“Sorry!!”

Smirking at her absurd apology position of her hand together in a prayer like position over head with her head bowed, I assured her that it was fine. She looked back up at me with eyes of worry. “You’re not hurt, are you?” She asked while checking me up and down, “Damn it! After I just talked about how careful you have to be with a knife!”

“Sandy its fine, I pro—”

“I just got so carried away! I felt like a proud mom!”

I don’t know how I felt about that last comment, but I still put the knife down and grabbed her shoulders. I stared into her eyes and made sure she looked into mine. “Sandy,” I affirmed to her. “It’s fine, okay? Take a deep breath and say that its fine along with me. On 3… 1, 2, 3…”

“It’s fine.” “It’s fine.”

We said it in unison which was actually really satisfying to hear. I let go of her and nodded in approval. She gave a cute smile in thanks. “Okay I’m going to start getting the sauce and noodles on, you finish cutting the whole foods.”

“Will do.” I said with a thumbs up.

I turned back around to the cutting board. “Hey Mark, before you start, where’s the can opener.”

“Same drawer as the cutting board.” I told her with a point to it with the knife.

I heard her opening and closing the drawer as I started cutting the few remaining whole foods. “Thanks!” I heard her say, and I nodded in response.

This was nice. There was something about working together with Sandy making dinner that made it fun? I don’t know if fun is the right word, but being here side by side with each other working as equals made for a warm atmosphere in a kitchen that is usually lonely with just my mom.

“Umm… Hey guys? Can I help?” A quiet voice came from the entrance of the kitchen, and Sandy and I turned away from what we were doing respectively to see Rom nervously standing there.

I smiled from her fidgety cuteness. Sandy did the same and told her, “Sure! You can help Mark over there finish cutting the veggies! It’s a little tight over here by the oven for two people.”

She seemed to openly welcome the suggestion and scurried her way over next to me. “Okay,” I told her. “Can you start putting the stuff I’ve already cut into the bowl right there that Sandy got out?”

She silently nodded used her small hand to grab the cut food on the cutting board and put them over to the bowl right off of it. I stopped cutting just to be safe. Sandy would have a heart attack if she found out I was cutting on the cutting board while Rom was grabbing food from it at the same time. Although, I would have a heart attack if I knew I heart Rom. She just so small, fragile, innocent, and cute! It would be like I hurt my own little sister! Yep, that is out of the question, so I just waited.

We were shoulder to shoulder by the countertop, and I wanted to fill the void of silence between me cutting and waiting for her by asking, “So you get tired of playing the game in there?”

Rom finished up putting the diced food into the bowl and said hesitantly, “Umm… Y-yeah, Gia wanted to get on to play some.”

I looked at her, and while her face was slightly flushed, I couldn’t help but feel that there was something else going on. But I shrugged it off and went back to cutting the last few vegetables. I heard Sandy humming alongside the bubbling of the boiling water to my right. “Have you ever cooked anything before?” I asked Rom.

“I-I help my mom a little sometimes. It’s good to know how to cook.”

“Why is it good to know how to cook?” I continued to quiz her, mainly just wanting to keep the conversation going because I felt like it was up to me as an older role model to keep things not awkward.

Her voice paused for a moment, so I started to think my attempt to not make things awkward failed miserably. But she stuttered out nervously, “W-well my mother says that the best way to a guy’s heart is through his stomach.”

“Really?” I asked her.

I turned to look at her because she bumped closer to me after she said that. It was meant to just be a quick glance, but her beet red face made me pause. Why was she so red? Was she feeling okay?

I looked up to think really quick, and it was then I realized something. I could barely see into the living from where I was standing, and the game on the TV was not moving at all. Gia wasn’t playin—

“Ahhh!”

“Mark!”