Benedict

Cooking

Benedict's POV:

Carefully I followed the flooded streets, trying to see everything in the strange mix of pouring rain and the glowing colours of the London night life.
In the last weeks I had been pretty busy, for I had to play two changing roles in the play and worked my way through all Frankenstein related stuff I could find to get an idea for their characters.
Also it helped a lot with the pain and I was finally getting better again. But that hadn't been the only reason. I had a strange feeling about Sophie since that evening and I really didn't want to figure out what it meant, being afraid of what I might find. I was lonely since the break-up with Olicia and when you're lonely you start feeling things which you very often regret later on. The more lonely you get, the more desperate you get and the more you start looking different at all the female people you know and meet. And with different I mean starting to consider them as an option, as a possible solution for your loneliness. You start seeing signs that are not there, you start imagining feelings that don't really exist.
And I really didn't want that to happen with Sophie! Our friendship meant so much to me, I really didn't want to destroy it just because my brain was going crazy. So I avoided seeing her for some time, just to prevent myself from starting to feel something I wouldn't be able to turn off again.
But as I started to feel better I was more and more convinced that I was just acting stupid and I really missed her. Feeling lonely wouldn't get any better if you avoid seeing your friends. So when some really exciting news reached me, I couln't help but to invite her for dinner.
Though, to be honest, I was quite glad that her cousin joined us. That would prevent any awkward silences.
When I greeted her, something in her reaction had been different, but I had been too excited to give more thought to it.
Maybe she's just a bit pissed cause I didn't have time for her for so long.
'So, here we are.'
I parked the car in front of the house in Hampstead Heath and led my guests to my flat on the two top floors.
'Wow, not bad!'
Leila looked around with an admiring look, catching sight of some pictures on the wall.
'You do skydiving? How cool is that?!'
'Yes he likes life-threatening activities', joked Sophie. 'You should hear his story from 2005.'
'Well that wasn't on purpose! But if you want to I can tell you the story.'
Sophie leaned friendly against me for a second while Leila nodded with excitement.
While I went cooking, Sophie showed her cousin around for a bit, then joined me in the kitchen.
'So what did you want to tell me?', she asked, while sheepishly mumbling some of my Baguette slices.
I loved that smile of hers, she looked like a little girl.
'You remember my audition for that spy movie 'Tinker, Tailer, Soldier, Spy'?'
'Sure. I thought you didn't hear from them since then?'
'Yup. Untiiil... Stop it.'
Grinning I took her hand, stopping her from grabbing another piece of bread. For the flash of a second the smile on her face faded, as her eyes fixed on my hand. But it was back so fast, I decided to ignore that.
'Sorry. Go on.'
'Right.'
I removed my hand, turning my concentration back to the now cooking water.
'Until they called me yesterday, saying that they want to have me!'
'Really? That's amazing, congrats!'
She gave me a short hug, pushing back a barely noticeable bit too early, but quickly concealing that with her excitement.
'So when does shooting start?'
'Next month!'
'What? So early? That's soon.'
'Yeah, but it's fine, cause I'm free anyway. But that's not the only cool thing.'
I gave the noodles into the water, then turned to cutting the vegetables. With a questionsmark on her face she grabbed another knife and took care of the carrots.
'I got a role in the first Hobbit movie!'
'WHAT? Really? OMG that's so cool!'
She nearly cut herself in her excitement. I couldn't help but grin from ear to ear.
'Right? And it's really interesting, cause it's going to be motion capture, not only the voice.'
'Haha what are you playing? An Orc?'
'Nop.' I popped the 'p', knowing that that makes her giggle. It did.
'Smaug.'
'That's the dragon! So cool! But how do you motion capture a dragon?'
'Well, it's basically the head moves which I already started to establish in my audition tape. And then the basic body moves. Of course they can't transform that directly into a dragon, but it appareantly gives them some ideas so the movements fit to the voice.'
'Oh goood. You're so lucky! I'm soooo happy for you!'
This time I got a long, loving hug. I was relieved my Sophie was back.
Gosh I've missed her so much!
'But wait-you'll go to NZ then!'
'Yes! Amazing right? I've always wanted to go there. And it won't be for too long, don't worry.'
She smiled down on the vegetables. Which reminded me of...
'Oh god, the noodles!'
Quickly I turned down the heat and poured the water into the sink, sieving out the noodles. They were a bit soft, but still okay. We prepared the rest of the Lasagna and put it into the oven. Waiting, we had a glass of wine and she told me about her work. That the sponsor for the one play had cancelled and they had to stop rehearsing for three weeks until they were able to start again just this week. Which suddenly reminded me of Leila and as if she had read my thoughts she turned up in the kitchen, her smartphone in her hand.
'If you two are quite done flirting I picked out a few things I just haaave to show you, Ben. Okay it's still weird calling you that.'
I saw the wine in Sophies glass curling, as if she had startled at these words. But I was already put in front of a little screen, before I could think about that.
She showed me some quite amusing, some slightly disturbing things from several social networks and we were soon all three crying with laughter. The two girls more than me though, cause it actually was a bit weird to see all the attention I got on the internet. I was glad I didn't see that everyday. But it was crazy and fun though.
'Oh Ben, if you had a Twitter account, you're WiFi would be regularily broken down, cause it couldn't handle all the messages you'd get.', Leila said with the most serious voice, which made us even laugh more.
'Also he would be rubbish at it. He could never handle telling something with just 140 characters!'
Sophie winked at me.
'Only 140 characters?? Nope, Twitter is definately not made for me.'
Grinning, I took care of the Lasagna, while the girls prepared the table and then we had a wonderful meal. I told Leila the story where I had been kidnapped and she told me more about her acting plans. It felt so good, a bit like a little family. I looked at Sophie, who was just listening to us and a little smile played around my lips. For the first time in weeks I didn't feel lonely anymore.