Destined

Forty Seven

Halloween was a pointless holiday to me. I really didn't understand it. Let's dress up like monsters and scare each other half to death. Yeah....no. Instead, Vince and I decided we were going to stay in doors and watch a movie at his house. I was happily cooking in his kitchen, dancing along to some Beyonce song. He'd gone out about an hour ago to the store then called to say he was passing through the Rivers to drop something off for Celine.

I was glad that he'd somehow managed to find his way back to them after the debacle with Roger. The two parties clearly needed each other, after all that they'd lost. And I knew he was no replacement for Roger, but at least Vince could be the big brother Celine had lost.

I was almost done with the mushroom sauce I'd made for the steaks when I heard the front door open. I smiled, knowing Vince was back and I turned down the heat of the stove. He stepped into the kitchen just as I turned around placing his shopping bag on the table.

"Smells amazing in here," he said and came to me, kissing me briefly. "Hi,"
"Hi," I replied.
"I thought you said we'd cook together," he said looking around at the fact that'd I'd already done most of the work.
I smiled stepping away from him and returning to my sauce, "I don't trust you,"

Every time we'd tried to cook together recently hadn't ended well. Because somebody, mainly him, could never keep their hands to themselves and we'd end up getting distracted and forgetting our food. Have you ever had burnt eggs? Well I have, and it wasn't fun.

"So what am I supposed to do?" He asked as I turned off the stove completely.
"You're making the salad," I said as I poured the sauce over the steaks.

After cleaning the pot, I stood and watched him as he sliced up veggies for the salad.

"I need to ask you something," I said before I got lost in watching how gracefully he worked.
"Shoot," he answered and went to the fridge to get feta.
"I was grabbing a shirt from your drawer earlier, and I found your dad's gun,"
"I'd forgotten that was in there," he answered. "I'm sorry, I'll move it,"
"I put in one of the bed side drawers, but that's not where I'm going with this. I was just wondering if you've ever fired it,"
"Yeah, plenty of times actually. When I first got it, started going out to a shooting range, it's something my dad and I used to do, so I kept going,"
I nodded, "Oh, it felt strange in my hands, kinda heavy,"
"It's hard to actually shoot straight if you've never done it before, and you have to find a gun that suits you, body to weight ratio too," he looked at me once he was done. "You want to learn how to use a gun?"
I shook my head, "No, I was just curious," I said and took the salad bowl and one of the plates with a steak on them to the dining room.

He followed me with the other plate and we sat down to eat.

"How's Celine?" I asked.

I hadn't seen much of her in a while. She hadn't really been responding to my messages, or she'd respond after a long while. I kind of got the feeling she was avoiding me. Vince swallowed his food and took a sip of his water, taking his sweet time to answer my question.

"What's wrong?" I asked immediately as he placed his glass back on the table.
"I need to tell you something,"

You know whenever someone close to you says those words, it's likely something that you won't like.

"Okay, what's going on?" I asked.
Vince sighed, "Promise me you won't get mad,"

We'd both stopped eating then. He was staring at his plate as though it was the most interesting thing in the world.

I stared at him, "I can't do that,"
"Of course you can't, I just don't want this to ruin our night, but I'm sure it will," he looked at me finally.