Chapter 30 #3
My jaw drops when I notice the level of devastation to the counters.
Pots and pans of all sizes are scattered in disarray—some dirty, others clean.
Bits of chopped vegetables are strewn about different surfaces, and what looks like a broken egg is dripping onto the floor.
The entire fridge seems to have been emptied onto the counter, and only god knows why.
“What are you doing?” I ask, slightly horrified as I survey my beautiful kitchen in chaos.
Luke obviously didn’t hear me come downstairs because he whirls around and stares at me like a deer caught in headlights. He bites his lower lip, shrugging sheepishly. “Making spaghetti.”
“Spaghetti?” I balk. How on earth would he need so many things to make an arguably simple dish?
“You didn’t have any pasta sauce, so I tried making it myself.”
“With what?” I dubiously eye the broken egg and other non-typical spaghetti ingredients spread across the counters. Is that…peanut butter? Oh, god.
“I honestly don’t remember.” Luke shrugs nonchalantly and turns back to the bubbling liquid on the stove.
He starts scraping away at it with a spatula in a way that a liquid should not need to be scraped.
“I started picking things out that I thought would go good in it and sort of got carried away.”
“Is that…edible?” I frown. “God, what is that smell?”
“Hey!” Luke scoffs, then he laughs. “I’ll have you know I’m an excellent cook. Everyone thinks so.”
“Do you pay them for those endorsements?”
“Okay, Mr. Judgey-Pants. Go sit down at the table. I’ll make you a plate, and you’re going to eat those words.”
I do as he asks, mostly out of curiosity, and watch as he plates two ‘spaghetti’ dishes with serious determination.
He brings it to the table and sits next to me, setting the plates in front of us.
I stare at mine blankly, letting the sight and the smell hit me in a confusing wave of conflicting aromas.
It looks sort of like spaghetti…if spaghetti sauce was supposed to be brown and somehow still bubbling ominously on the pasta.
Luke watches me intently, waiting for me to take a bite, but I notice he doesn’t pick up his own fork.
Undoubtedly, because he knows it’s inedible and wants to see what I think before he digs into his.
I honestly don’t know if it’s just because I haven’t eaten anything all day, and I’m ravenously hungry, but I pick up my fork and start twirling the pasta onto the prongs.
I send a silent prayer to any deity currently listening who empathizes with my plight and then take a bite.
Immediately, my mouth experiences a cacophony of sensations that I don’t know what to do with.
The flavor is intense, somehow both overly sweet and incredibly spicy, and it in no way, shape, or form resembles any spaghetti I’ve ever eaten in my entire life.
The texture is unusually crunchy and viscous, and I don’t think I can identify a single tomato in it.
It’s probably the worst thing I’ve ever tasted, but despite all that, I feel rude spitting it out.
It goes down rough, but I try my best not to look like I’m choking as I swallow.
“That’s…so good. Wow,” I garble out. “Thank you.”
Luke’s face is priceless. He’s genuinely shocked, staring at me with a slack jaw and wide eyes as if he didn’t expect me to actually swallow.
And when I take the fork and make a show of scooping up another bite, he seems even more hesitant.
In obvious disbelief, he twirls his fork in his pasta and takes a small bite.
His coughing fit two seconds later sends me into a fit of uproarious laughter.
“Oh, fuck, that’s revolting!” Luke gags.
“It’s not that bad.” I grin, though I feel my eye twitch as it starts to water.
“That’s so much worse than I thought it would be.”
“Honestly, I think it’s burned off my taste buds,” I joke, but then, whether out of habit or starvation, I can’t help but take another bite. It’s somehow less offensive the second time, although, at this point, that could be the hunger talking.
“God, stop! Stop!” Luke gasps in horror. “Why do you keep eating it?”
“I don’t know.” I laugh pitifully, and Luke immediately snatches the plate away.
“You’re going to make yourself sick!”
I can’t stop laughing. Even as I finish chewing the absolute garbage spaghetti, shuddering as it goes down, I feel myself loosening around the cracks. Lighter. Freer. It’s the giddy, ridiculous laughter of elated euphoria, and after the way I’ve felt all day, I can’t help but lean into it.
“You’re a horrible cook,” I tease, wiping tears from my eyes.
“Yeah, I know!” Luke groans, but he smiles delightedly as he looks at me, and I can tell he’s relieved to see me like this after what he witnessed earlier. Even if it is at his expense. “I was hoping your master-chef-ness would have rubbed off on me a little, but obviously not.”
“Thank god!” I exclaim, shaking my head. “I was beginning to think there was nothing you couldn’t do. I was worried you’d run me out of a job.”
“God knew I would have been too powerful if I could cook,” Luke sighs mournfully. “I think that’s why everything I touch turns to garbage. It’s a curse. So, rest assured. Your job is safe. I’ll leave all the cooking to you from now on.”
“How did you manage to feed yourself before I came into the picture?”
“That’s what Postmates is for.”
“You’ll find we don’t get that in these parts,” I chuckle.
“Ugh, don’t remind me,” Luke whines. “But I did order pizza about thirty minutes ago from the one lonely pizza chain that delivers this far when I knew this was a lost cause, so it should be here any minute. I’m going to clean up the mess I made before it gets here.”
“Let me help.”
Thankfully, Luke doesn’t object, probably because he’s overwhelmed by the chaos he’s created, but I genuinely enjoy the distraction.
I reorganize the fridge and pantry with the unused food items while Luke scrubs at the mess on the floor, and then I wash the dishes while he scrubs the stove, and a sense of peace trickles over me with our progress.
It’s strange, but I can almost forget what a disaster I was earlier.
This low mood was surprisingly fleeting compared to previous experiences, and I can’t help but wonder if that’s solely thanks to Luke.
He pulled me out of the thick of it and put me back on solid ground.
How long would it have taken me to get back there on my own?
I stop to watch him, marveling at his concentration as he scrubs a particularly stubborn spot on the stove.
The way the muscles in his arms flex with the motion roots me to the spot, and the way his hair hangs over his eyes has me hypnotized.
Jesus. Who knew someone could make menial housework sexy?
My face warms slightly as I think of what it might be like to push him up against that stove and have another sort of meal.