chair, and turn into a blob of exhausted pudding without eliciting any comment from the man.
And the food, oh, the food! I nearly had a heart attack the first time that the man provided me with a grocery list. "You really need all of this stuff?" I exclaimed, staring in dismay at the length of carefully written items. There had to be at least forty or fifty different things on this list!
He just shrugged back at me. "You're the one with the horribly under-stocked kitchen," he replied, no accusation or anger in his voice. "If you want me to be able to cook anything that tastes decent, I'll need what's on the list. At least you've got good pots and pans."
I did have to agree there. The pots and pans in the house were one of the Monteclaire family heirlooms, passed down faithfully from mother to daughter for as long as I could remember. Sure, I didn't know how to use most of them, but I still kept them carefully preserved, lying to myself each year when I promised myself I'd sign up for a cooking class at some point.
I thought about arguing some more, but eventually decided that this wasn't going to become a fight that I'd win. Besides, I did want to see what other skills the man possessed in the kitchen. I winced at the eventual bill, but Lance looked quite pleased when I returned from shopping laden down with bags of groceries.
Very quickly, he proved that he wasn't just bragging about his skills in the kitchen. That very night, he whipped up some sort of delicious baked chicken dish, with the meat pounded thin and wrapped around a core of thinly shaved vegetables and sauce. He didn't say a word as I wolfed down the incredibly tasty food, but I caught him grinning a couple of times when he didn't think that I was looking.
But fine, I thought to myself. Let the man feel good about showing off his cooking skills. I'm sure that it couldn't actually be that hard to properly cook a chunk of chicken. It's just meat, right? Apply some heat, wait for it to be cooked, and then cover it in sauce. How difficult could that really be?
Even better than the food, however, were the conversations. I'd always told myself that I was quite happy living on my own, that I didn't need anyone to keep a conversation going with, but it wasn't until Lance's arrival that I realized how much I missed being able to share some of the thoughts in my head.
"Lance, do you ever think about destiny?" I asked one evening, idly swirling the liquid in my wine glass as I gazed up at the wooden ceiling of the farmhouse's dining room.
He was clearing the dishes, but glanced over at my question. "In what way?" he asked back, sounding a little guarded.
I shrugged, taking a sip. "I don't know, really. But sometimes, especially late at night, I'll just stay awake and wonder whether I'm really making the most of my life, if I'm actually making the right choices. Sometimes, I just sit and think about other choices I might have made. Could they have put my life in a better place than it is now?"
He didn't reply, but I heard the running water in the kitchen as Lance washed off the plates from the night's meal. Instead of ascribing to my time-tested method of dumping all of the dishes into the sink and letting them soak until I had a full stack to clean, he insisted on cleaning up right away. I waited patiently, sipping at my wine and listening to the sound of the running water in the kitchen.
A few minutes later, Lance returned, dropping back into his chair and setting his beer bottle down on the table with a clink. "Destiny, huh?" he repeated. With his drawl, he stretched out the word a little.
"Yeah. Like, other choices that you could make in your life. Other paths that you could have taken."
"I think we all have lots of paths not taken," he mused, not really agreeing to anything. "But who's to say if those would turn out any better than what we have now? Or if we'd just end up in the same place, no matter what we choose to do?"
I turned to face him, putting
And the food, oh, the food! I nearly had a heart attack the first time that the man provided me with a grocery list. "You really need all of this stuff?" I exclaimed, staring in dismay at the length of carefully written items. There had to be at least forty or fifty different things on this list!
He just shrugged back at me. "You're the one with the horribly under-stocked kitchen," he replied, no accusation or anger in his voice. "If you want me to be able to cook anything that tastes decent, I'll need what's on the list. At least you've got good pots and pans."
I did have to agree there. The pots and pans in the house were one of the Monteclaire family heirlooms, passed down faithfully from mother to daughter for as long as I could remember. Sure, I didn't know how to use most of them, but I still kept them carefully preserved, lying to myself each year when I promised myself I'd sign up for a cooking class at some point.
I thought about arguing some more, but eventually decided that this wasn't going to become a fight that I'd win. Besides, I did want to see what other skills the man possessed in the kitchen. I winced at the eventual bill, but Lance looked quite pleased when I returned from shopping laden down with bags of groceries.
Very quickly, he proved that he wasn't just bragging about his skills in the kitchen. That very night, he whipped up some sort of delicious baked chicken dish, with the meat pounded thin and wrapped around a core of thinly shaved vegetables and sauce. He didn't say a word as I wolfed down the incredibly tasty food, but I caught him grinning a couple of times when he didn't think that I was looking.
But fine, I thought to myself. Let the man feel good about showing off his cooking skills. I'm sure that it couldn't actually be that hard to properly cook a chunk of chicken. It's just meat, right? Apply some heat, wait for it to be cooked, and then cover it in sauce. How difficult could that really be?
Even better than the food, however, were the conversations. I'd always told myself that I was quite happy living on my own, that I didn't need anyone to keep a conversation going with, but it wasn't until Lance's arrival that I realized how much I missed being able to share some of the thoughts in my head.
"Lance, do you ever think about destiny?" I asked one evening, idly swirling the liquid in my wine glass as I gazed up at the wooden ceiling of the farmhouse's dining room.
He was clearing the dishes, but glanced over at my question. "In what way?" he asked back, sounding a little guarded.
I shrugged, taking a sip. "I don't know, really. But sometimes, especially late at night, I'll just stay awake and wonder whether I'm really making the most of my life, if I'm actually making the right choices. Sometimes, I just sit and think about other choices I might have made. Could they have put my life in a better place than it is now?"
He didn't reply, but I heard the running water in the kitchen as Lance washed off the plates from the night's meal. Instead of ascribing to my time-tested method of dumping all of the dishes into the sink and letting them soak until I had a full stack to clean, he insisted on cleaning up right away. I waited patiently, sipping at my wine and listening to the sound of the running water in the kitchen.
A few minutes later, Lance returned, dropping back into his chair and setting his beer bottle down on the table with a clink. "Destiny, huh?" he repeated. With his drawl, he stretched out the word a little.
"Yeah. Like, other choices that you could make in your life. Other paths that you could have taken."
"I think we all have lots of paths not taken," he mused, not really agreeing to anything. "But who's to say if those would turn out any better than what we have now? Or if we'd just end up in the same place, no matter what we choose to do?"
I turned to face him, putting
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