cupid clearly hates me.

[ 11 ]

You slowly twirled your fork around in the pile of spaghetti, watching the noodles slide around like worms as you played with them.

Alastor was not eating, but had still set the table for you with beautiful china plates and a silky white table cloth to match. He didn't bother to touch the pasta, for it "wasn't his type of food", but he did have a steaming cup of black coffee to sip on.

You were correct, he was a dark coffee type of person, but how he managed to drink the bland stuff, you were not sure. Black coffee was and always will be disgusting.

"This is really good," you told him, your mouth full of food after finally eating the bite that you had collected. "How did you get so good at cooking?"

Alastor looked down at his fingers, which were curled around the handle of his coffee mug. "Lots of practice," he sighed. "I used to cook quite often when I was alive."

Now that peaked your interest. He hadn't talked much about when he was alive. All you knew was that he used to be a radio show host when he was alive back in the early 19-hundreds. "You did?"

Alastor nodded before taking a long sip of his drink. You did not want to pry him, but you ached to learn more about his past. Why would he need to cook so much? Did he have a rangier diet when he was alive?

"I cooked for my father," Alastor answered the question you were thinking about as if he had read your mind, "when I was growing up. He... didn't like to do very much of it himself, and I was the only other person living in the house with him at the time. I grew accustomed to cooking over the years, and the habit stuck with me."

"You did all the cooking?" you asked with a small frown. That was back in the 1900's, so... "What about your mom?"

Wrong question.

Alastor's eyes visibly dimmed as if the exuberant flame behind them had gone out. His eyebrows furrowed tightly together as if a string had pulled them in, creasing his forehead. His smile remained, but if you didn't know any better, you would say it looked strained. "That is another story for another time, my dear," he said, his voice uncharacteristically soft.

You immediately dropped the subject, noticing that you had hit a soft spot. You proceeded to eat another bite of pasta whilst desperately trying to come up with another, more light-hearted topic of conversation to fill the awkward silence.

"Well, I'm shit at cooking," you blurted out. "Nate used to make all of my meals. Breakfast, lunch and dinner. If he hadn't been there to give me good food, I probably would have lived off of Poptarts and children's gummy vitamins."

The frown over Alastor's face lifted—to your relief. "Well. Now you have me to do all of your cooking."

You smiled and said, "My savior," before taking a deep drink of your water, savoring the feeling of cold running down your throat.

☆

After you finished eating, Alastor began to clean up your dishes, but you insisted on helping, feeling bad for making him do everything. Especially considering the fact that he had probably cleaned dishes all too many times for his father.

As he was placing the clean spaghetti bowl into a wide brown cupboard, Alastor said, "Are you ready to play chess?"

"Pfft. Only if you're ready to loose," you playfully satirized as you dried your hands on a paper towel.

"Okay, sure thing, sweetheart," he said sarcastically, rolling his eyes. "But with that attitude, you may actually have a chance. A small one, though."