Alia opened the door one Saturday morning to find Jason standing there holding bags of groceries. She grabbed a bag and let him in, asking in an annoyed voice, "Why are you bringing groceries? I do keep food on hand."
"Alia , a freezer full of microwave dinners and a cupboard full of canned soup is not a well stocked pantry." He replied, bringing the remaining bags to the kitchen.
"Hey! I'll have you know those are gourmet dinners and soups. I shop at Trader Joe's even," Alia exclaimed, slightly outraged. "You really don't need to be buying me food."
"I've eaten breakfast here quite a few times in the last month, the least I can do is replace what I've eaten." He began to unpack the bags.
"Yes, and you've also brought over dinner a number of times as well. I'd call us even. I probably even owe you some."
"Besides there's a new recipe I wanted to try, so you can test it out for me," Jason replied calmly, ignoring Alia's irritation.
"I'm hardly a good judge of food, Jason. I'm sure you know more professional people than me to taste your creations."
"I thought you just claimed to have a 'gourmet' selection of food here, just a minute ago." His mouth quirked up into a teasing smile.
Alia frowned.
"Besides, this is a cassoulet recipe - it cooks for hours. I'd rather spend it's cooking time doing something more ... exciting, shall we say... than watching TV at home." Jason took a ceramic covered container from the bottom of one of his bags and set in on the counter. He turned to unpack the last bag.
"Cassoulet? What's that?"
"It's like a French casserole of beans, duck, and smoked sausage." He tapped his container. "I soaked the beans last night, so that should help things."
Alia groused. While it did sound tasty, she still wasn't sure she liked him grocery shopping for her. "Are you sure you can make it here? It's not like I have a bunch of kitchen equipment," she argued.
"I brought the container to cook it in, your frying pan will suffice, and the knives Stephanie left here are quite nice." Jason countered. "While I'd enjoy the conversation, you don't have to keep me company if you have other things to do."
Alia pouted, but couldn't seem to find any more objections to his activities. It had been a while since she had duck and her stomach would be quite annoyed at her for passing up this opportunity. More over, she had been a bit bored before his arrival, so it wasn't like he was interrupting her day.
Jason finished unpacking the last bag, pulling out a glass bottle of milk and two bars of high quality chocolate. "Now, I can make some real hot chocolate first, if you'd like."
Alia shook her head, got a glass from the cupboard and sat next to the counter to watch him. Pouring herself a glass of milk and unwrapping the chocolate, she said with a smile, "I'll just pretend. Valharona chocolate is much too good to make into cocoa."
Jason quirked his brow and shook his head, then turned the oven on and began to assemble the onions and garlic for chopping.
Once situated in his work, he said, "So I've been meaning to ask you. Why aren't you dating?"
Alia finished savoring a bit of chocolate and watched him move on to slicing the sausage before she answered. "It's really just not worth the trouble." She shrugged. "First you spend a bunch of effort trying to look nice and attract attention. Which generally results in inappropriate advances and awkward dates."
Jason nodded at her to continue, as he started cutting the duck.
"Now let's say you find one guy who's not a total loser or complete bastard. And miracle of miracles, you both like each other and have something in common. Where does that leave you? In a relationship, which is more work than dating and prone to even bigger problems." Alia shook her head and had some more chocolate. "Totally not worth it."
