Bad Friend

34. A Kiss in the Kitchen

Creeping past my dog in the mornings was one thing. Creeping past my dog and my boyfriend? Nearly impossible, but somehow I managed it. By the time I inched out of my bed and away from Harry and Cher, I sneaked into the kitchen and rooted around as quietly as humanly possible.

Before Harry left for London again, I wanted to do something special for him. After everything that happened following recording the YouTube video, things between Harry and me had gone back to normal. I worried that after I snapped at him, we would be awkward around each other, but nothing really changed. We didn't walk on eggshells around each other. Well, no more than we normally did, sometimes it felt like we were so scared of ruining what we had that we were almost too careful. It was odd to think that after dating for so long, we still acted like this. I mean, we argued on occasion, and we talked openly to each other, but there were some topics that we avoided entirely. Whether it was on purpose or on accident, I wasn't sure, but now we could add therapy to the, albeit short, list. I wanted to be open and honest about everything with Harry, and I was sure he wanted the same, but I was pretty sure neither of us knew how. Both of us were reserved in our own ways, and while Harry and I had agreed to be honest with each other, I think it still felt natural to keep things to ourselves. But we were both trying, and I knew we would get there eventually.

In the meantime, however, I would try to express my feelings through actions instead of words. It came a lot easier to me then sharing the deepest, scariest parts of me, at least. So for the last couple days, I'd been practicing my cooking skills so I could make breakfast for him. Only it wasn't going as well as I'd hoped. My fried eggs always broke, my pancakes always came out soupy, and my toast burned so bad I set the fire alarm off in my apartment. Still, even failure after failure, I kept trying. The kitchen wasn't my specialty, but I really wanted to do this for Harry. He always cooked for me, and I thought it would be a sweet gesture if I returned the favor. But it would only be a sweet gesture if the food I made for him was actually edible.

I wanted this to work, but if I still couldn't figure it out, I bought frozen waffles earlier this week and had cereal on standby.

I decided to go with pancakes, because out of all the things I tried to make, I fucked that one up the least. Getting everything out, I got to cooking, following the recipe on my phone to like it was the law. Things were going well until I actually had to start making the pancakes. Spooning batter onto the skillet was a lot harder than it looked, and keeping the circles apart from each other instead of turning into one big mess was even harder.

Before long, batter was all over the stove and countertop and my arms and my cheek. There was a slight burning smell, but the individual pancakes I managed to make were completely undercooked. I didn't understand how it could all go wrong so fast, or how I could be so terrible at something that the rest of the world seemed to understand.

"Okay, new plan," I muttered, turning the stove off and dumping everything into the sink. Guess we would be having toaster waffles, orange juice, and pre-cut fruit, because there was no way I was going to pick up a knife and try to cut something and risk slicing my hands and fingers.

After washing the skillet, I started cleaning up the rest of the kitchen. All the ingredients that I'd bought sat sullenly on my counter, flour and sugar and milk and eggs lined up, almost mocking me for my failure.

In a split-second decision, I pulled the recipe back up on my phone and gave it one more try. I was extra diligent, carefully putting each ingredient in my mixing bowl so I didn't forget one or mix up the measurements. And yet it looked even worse the second time around. It looked more like sludge than batter.

I was so focused on mixing and trying to get the lumps out—why was it still so lumpy?—when I felt hands snake around my waist.

"Why are you in the kitchen?" he asked, his nose pressed against my neck. "And more importantly, what is that smell?"