“All of the fucking time.”
Zay pulls a kitchen chair out and gestures for me to sit in it.
“The kids are starting to bitch about the sandwiches, so I've decided to try my hand at cooking tonight. First time since I took home ec in high school, so this should be interesting.”
“You took home ec?” I repeat as I reluctantly sit in the chair and watch as Zayden opens the fridge. There's more food in there than there was this morning. Looks like somebody went shopping. “Why?”
“To hit on girls, of course,” Zay says as he starts tossing ingredients onto the counter. “Classic move that every teenage guy knows.” I watch as he lays out a tray of chicken breasts and a stick of butter, moving over to the cabinet for some instant rice, three cans of soup and some salt and pepper that I know I didn't buy. “Alright, here goes nothing.” He whips his phone out of his back pocket and slicks his thumb across the screen.
“What are you making?” I ask, unable to keep sitting there and staring at his ass. It looks far too sexy in those tight pants of his, the straps of his shoes twisting up to his knees. I know this sounds weird, but how often do you see guys dress up like this? With a studded belt and some bracelets on one arm, silver piercings lining his ears, hair all clean and styled into place. When I get close to Zay, I get that blackberry/cinnamon smell again and it calms my racing pulse.
“Some kind of casserole thing. The recipe says it's easy as fuck. Basically, I mix all this crap together and toss it into the oven. Bam. Done.” Zay pauses as I come up beside him and looks down at me, his eyes smiling along with his mouth. His expressions just take over him completely, from head to toe. It's kind of refreshing, the way he doesn't hold back like that. My parents and my sister were always trying to hide their emotions, chug along as if everything were A-OK. I don't want to be like them. “Want to help?”
“Sure,” I say, even though I probably know less about cooking than Zayden does. I didn't even take home ec in school; it was all STEM classes all the time. Zayden hands me a stick of butter and a knife.
“It says pats,” he tells me with an easy shrug. “I have no idea what that means, but I guess we spread the butter out across the top of the casserole. It's a make it work moment.” He snaps his fingers above his head and then grabs a knife, spinning it around his fingers in a way that makes me raise my brows. “Time to tackle this chicken.”
Zay slaps a breast onto the plastic pink cutting board I once remember my sister using and then starts to slice into it with careful motions. He's so animated, I wonder what he'd be like if he were angry? Would that emotion take over his whole body the way his joy does? Would his eyes burn and his hands clench into fists?
I look back at the butter and start cutting thin squares off the end until it's half-gone.
“How much?” I ask as Zay glances over at me and smiles, his body grooving to a Kelly Clarkson song that I hate. I smile again.
“Looks about right. You want to start mixing shit together?” I nod and dig into a drawer for a can opener, examining the three soups in front of me. Cream of chicken, celery and mushroom. Hmm. I start opening them one at a time. “That claim thing I said this morning?”
I feel myself stiffen up, but I don't stop what I'm doing.
“Yeah?” I feel Zay's muscular arm bump against mine and wonder how such a simple move could feel so good. “What about it?”
“I'm not so sure why I even said it,” he admits as he drops chicken into the clear glass casserole dish sitting in front of me. At Zay's direction, I add the soup in after it and stir it all around with a plastic spoon. “I think I'm just getting all male around you, you know what I mean?”
I wrinkle my face up as I tug Zay's phone from his back pocket and check the recipe. Two cups of instant rice. Got it. I put the phone back just so I can have an excuse to touch his ass through the jeans. It's so firm! I breathe in deep.
“I'm not sure what that means, no. Keep explaining maybe?” I glance over at him and find him smiling weirdly, not as happy, more like he's creeped out by something. Is that something me? I hope not. If so, I can't figure out what I've done. He dumps the rest of the chicken into the dish and then stops to wash his hands.
“You know, getting all excited because I'm your first and all that.” Zay turns and dries his hands off before grabbing one of the empty cans, leaning his hip against the counter and swiping his finger around the inside of the metal. I wrinkle my nose again as he slides the finger into his mouth and sucks on it. Not because of the gesture though, that's actually hot. It's his words that are making me wrinkle my nose up.