"How is it?" Ashley asked the ladies sitting at her dining table, her hand still holding onto the soup ladle.
"Are you sure you made this?" Yassi stirred the bowl of sinigang placed in front of her before scooping up another spoonful of pork and veggie.
Ashley nodded hard.
"Really? Wow I don't know how to put it across to you..."
"Just tell me the truth! Is it bad again? I've spent a whole week trying to make it as least decent." Ashley pouted and sat dejectedly at the head of the table.
"Stop trying to scare her, Yass." Nadine laughed, "Your sinigang tastes fantastic tonight."
"Weh? You're not kidding?"
"Try it yourself." Yassi pushed her bowl towards Ashley. "Are you sure you didn't buy this from the restaurant opposite?"
She tried a spoonful of the soup. "Woah!"
"Seriously, Ash. Don't you try your own food before serving us?" Yassi teased and continued with the meal.
"Well I was in a rush!"
"It's nice right, babygirl?" Ashley looked to Nadine again.
At her friend's begging eyes, Nadine took a spoon of soup and ate it with a mouthful of rice. "Very very nice!" she exclaimed after swallowing it.
"Yay! Babygirl never lies! I perfected it!"
"And you're insinuating that I lie? Didn't you try it yourself? Don't you trust your taste buds?"
"Yass! You know I'm kidding and I love you the most right?"
"That's more like it." Yassi smiled and continued eating.
"I really have to brush up on my cooking." Ashley sighed as she took a small bowl of rice for herself. "Why did Tommy have to propose so early?"
The other two at the table laughed. Out loud.
"So you want Tom to come back later, Ash?" Nadine asked and continued laughing further.
"We can pass the message you know?" Yassi continued, trying to suppress her laughter.
"Hey, it's not like that! Stop laughing!" Ashley whined and put her hand across Nadine's mouth, muffling her laughter in a second.
"Fine, we will stop." Patting her chest, Yassi said with her voice still tinged with laughter.
The dinner continued, three of them chatting about mindless stuff. Yassi knows the clique that Nadine and Ashley were part of back when they were in the student union but she wasn't particularly close to them. She knew the two from Dance club, where they were the main dancers with a few other girls. They represented the school for competitions, official performances and etc.
"Nadz?" Yassi prompted while scooping up ice cream from the Ben & Jerry's tub. "What is this I hear about you and uhm Ashley's cousin?" Her tone was laced with excitement.
Ashley stopped the hand which was holding onto a particularly large scoop of the strawberry cheesecake flavored ice cream.
"Paulo?"
"Yeah, How's things?"
"Normal?"
"Define normal." Ashley jumped in and quickly ate her scoop of ice cream before it stained her really expensive rug. Tom will kill her if she did.
"Well he's been, nice?" Nadine knew they wouldn't go easy on her, not with Yassi around. "Like really nice."
Her two friends looked at her and nodded. They meant 'uh huh, go ahead.'
