Change (Published under The Change For Her)

Thirty-Nine

After enjoying the delicious pancakes that were Liam's 'usual order' and talking to Trish for an hour or so. We immediately went home afterward to wait for my mother to return from work.

"You've been talking about those pancakes ever since we left," Liam laughs out while he supervises me cooking.

I figured since we will be leaving right after dinner that I should be in charge of cooking, so when my mother gets home she can change and not have stress about cooking something.

"I can't help it, I never had chocolate peppermint pancakes before!" Liam shakes his head at me as he chuckles. I continue stirring together the sauce that I'm gonna have the pork lions soak in for a few minutes. "Will you stop laughing at me and help me?"

"What do you want me to do?" He walks around the counter and comes up to me.

"Grab the potatoes, wash the dirt off them and peel them afterward," I instructed him.

Liam walks to where I had placed the bag of potatoes, "How many do we need?" He asks while beginning to run a potato underwater, running his thumbs along it to get the dirt off.

I finished putting all the pork lions in a ziplock bag that has the sauce I made. "Let's do six first and if we need more than we'll add more potatoes," I answered him.

I walk over to him, nudge the side of his arm, "Can you move the faucet over to the other side and pour a little soap in my hand, please?" I ask him nicely.

Liam doesn't say anything but does as I ask. I washed my hands, dried them off with a paper towel before zipping the ziplock bag up, and placing it in the fridge to set for fifteen minutes. I then went to the small freezer above the fridge to grab a bag of frozen corn to dethaw them in the microwave.

"Okay, I clean off six potatoes. Now what?" Liam questions. I press the defrost button and set it on ten minutes. I went to grab the cutting board and a sharp kitchen knife.

"I'm going to show you how to cut them up." I grab one of the skinless potatoes, slice it in half, hold the two slices together and cut them into four sections. "Now, you do what I just did," I gave him the knife and went to grab the spare cutting board to help him as I waited for the timer to go off on the microwave.

"How did you learn to cook?" Liam randomly asks me.

I shrug my shoulders, "I after my dad passed away, I always hung around my mom and watched her cook. Later on the years, I ended up helping her cook random things."

"What's your favorite thing to make?" A small smile appears on my face knowing he averted the topic off my father since he knew it was a touchy subject for me.

"I love to cook but baking is my favorite thing to do." I look around and notice that I forgot we would need to place the sliced up potatoes into a big pot. So I walked over to where my mother keeps her pots and pans, grabbed a pot that looked like the perfect size. "I love making cookies from scratch," I told him when I came back and placed the pot in front of us. I gathered all the slices, placed them into the pot.

"Okay, fill this up with water and place it on one of the burners, set it on medium," I instructed Liam. The microwave went off, I went over to the microwave to take the bag of corn out and placed it next to the stove. I look through my mother's drawers to find her kitchen scissors, put them next to the corn then grab a pan to pour the corn in.

"What are you doing?" Liam raises a brow at me.

"Gonna make fried corn," I state the obvious.

"Fried corn?"

I look at him with shock written all over my face. "You never had fried corn?!"

"No."

"Well, today your lucky day because now I'm going to make you eat it."

******

"Chloe, you didn't have to cook." My mother gushes when she walks into the kitchen. "I was going to cook for you two."

I finish placing the pork lions onto a serving dish. "Is it a crime to treat the woman who gave birth to me?" I laugh out.

She comes over to me and hugs me from the side. "No," kisses my cheek, "I'm gonna go change." She tells me before walking out of the kitchen.

"Okay," I take the plate to the dining table and place it in the center. "My mom arrived, she went to change out of her uniform," I informed Liam. He was setting the table just like I asked him minutes before my mother walked through the front door. "Thank you, for helping me."

Liam walks up behind me and wraps his arms around my waist, "No need to thank me," He whispers into my ear. "I'm always here for you," he kisses my cheek before moving away. I can feel my cheeks heat up, biting the inside of my lip, and wishing I had my hair down so I can hide the red tint showing with it. "Is there anything else we need?"

I examine the table trying to figure out if we're missing something. My eyes went to the empty glasses realizing what we forgot to do. "Can you fill the glasses with ice? And I'll get the pitcher of sweet tea." Liam grabs two of the glasses and follows me into the kitchen.

Liam opens the freezer and starts filling the glasses with ice, while I grab the pitcher of sweet tea then make my way back to the dining table. "Mom! Food is ready to be served!" I shouted loud enough for her to hear me.

It didn't take long for her to come down the stairs and enter the room as soon as Liam came in with another glass filled with ice. "Oh my goodness! Chloe, this looks so incredible," My mother gushes.

"Thank you, mama," I thank her as we take our seats. "I didn't do all the work, Liam helped out a little." I look over at Liam to see that there is a little pink tint in his cheeks while he's fixing his plate.

"Thank you, Liam," My mother smiles over at him as she takes the amount of food she wanted.

"It was nothing, Chlo did most of the work," He shrugs his shoulders. "She just bosses me around the kitchen," He smirks at me.

"I did not!" They both softly laugh, "I didn't boss him around. He asked to help, I gave him instructions and that's all."

"Babe, calm down. I'm just teasing," My stomach did the fluttering butterflies feeling it gets every time he calls me that. "Eat this amazing dinner you created, so you won't be starving on the way back to campus."

My mother smirks and raises a brow at me, I lower my head biting back my smile and begin putting the food onto my plate.