「 The Professor & I 」VOLUME II

(202) Cooking

Lynn's POV

Brief chuckles apart, seriousness began to seep into the room, bleeding over the burst of joyous accents as a sober canopy that overshadowed us.

Jean leaned listlessly against the low counter, ankles tucked against each other with her heels occasionally clicking against the wooden cabinets and the glare from the diamond atop her engagement ring bounced buoyantly as her fingers tapped mindlessly on the marble top, evidencing her state of troubled musing.

"Did you want to talk me?" I investigated outrightly before I began preparing Charles' late meal, knowing for sure Jean was not solely here to be my assistant.

"Well... I feel like Scott isn't quite the same after he came back from Alberta and I feel... It's got to do with Logan..." Jean confessed tentatively, conscientiously pulling out a chair and readily sat down to relief the pressure on my craning neck.

"What makes you say that?" I deliberately probed, hoping to evoke her own analysis of the imperative issue.

"Scott has never really liked me dealing with anything related to Logan. He's mentioned it before. He thinks I'm overly involved in finding him, helping him, and all of that," Jean answered, sounding mildly frustrated that her partner seemed unsupportive of her genuinely compassionate attempts.

"Are you?" I challenged calmly.

"I just feel like it's my duty. Ever since that day, I feel like it's my destiny to help him. I couldn't do much then, and now that I can, I don't want to miss it again," Jean confided and frankly, there was nothing but true sincerity resonating through her heartfelt articulation.

"I don't know why, I don't know how... I just feel this urge... It's something special... Like... Fate..." Jean claimed intermittently, her face trapped in multiple dilemmas to precisely describe her inner feelings.

"You get what I mean, right, Lynn?" She sought, looking expectantly towards me.

"I get it," I affirmed simply, faltering Jean's hopeful expression despite her understanding that I was not one who fancied intervening in her relationship.

"C'mon, Lynn. Just your two cents, please. You know it means the world to me," Jean pleaded, tugging on my arm while looking at me with those irresistible puppy eyes she acquired from her foster father and I sighed, my heart melting in compromise.

"Scott's insecure," I revealed plainly and Jean frowned in moderate disorientation.

"He loves you with all his heart but he's utterly afraid that one day, he might lose you to Logan," I elaborated cheerlessly and Jean's eyes progressively widened in shock.

Jean scoffed in a cynical tone, quickly blinking multiple times as if she was repeatedly processing the unbelievable discovery but no matter how hard her brain tried to accept the raw truth, all her puzzlement and exasperation still remained clearly etched on her face.

"I know it sounds ridiculous but you can't blame him. You need to give him that sense of certainty again," I stressed explicitly, gazing encouragingly into her confused and agitated jade irises.

Silently allowing Jean to digest my subtle yet simultaneously direct suggestion, I watched her expression of perplexity fade into one of mercy, with the annoyance and displeasure gradually regressing into her humble self.