TAKE IT EASY • TC ✔️

44: Steaks/Stakes

When Lu made her way down the stairs, it had already been twenty minutes since Marco was in her room. Twenty minutes of her sitting there, staring at the wall, smelling the lasagne cooking in the oven. Reheating, whatever.

She pattered into the kitchen in her socks. They had cauliflowers on them, although she wasn't quite sure she remembered buying them. They might have been Marco's at one point. Lu didn't know.

"She's alive!" Marco exclaimed. He was dishing up lasagne, wearing a frilly apron and a pair of sweatpants, nothing else.

Lu smacked his bare shoulder as she brushed past him. "Put a shirt on, I don't want fucking...chest hair in my food."

"Lucia!" Giulia said lowly.

"Sorry, but-" Lu didn't finish her sentence, instead reaching into the fridge for a soda. She popped it open, watched a little bit froth up and out, and then decided to put it into a glass before her mom chastised her for drinking out of a can at the dining table. Lu didn't really see the point in it herself - if anything, it was just more washing up - but she really just wanted to anticipate the upcoming storms before they got her drenched. It was easier to presume that the forecast was rainy. Easier to bring an umbrella with her at all times.

"Your sister is right though, Marco, you should put a shirt on," Giulia conceded. Pushed her glasses up the bridge of her bony nose and started to pack up the documents she was working on.

"Fine, seeing as everyone's against me suddenly," Marco drawled, untying the floral apron and dumping it on a nearby chair. "I'll be back in a min."

Lucia smiled. Watched as the last drops of soda trickled into her glass, and put the can on the side of the counter, ready to recycle.

"So...you weren't very talkative earlier," Giulia began, tapping her papers against the table so that they all lined.

"Sorry," Lu gulped through a mouthful of lemonade. Couldn't resist adding a, "was I supposed to be?"

Giulia looked at Lu for a moment or two. Took off her glasses and took the neatly folded cleaning cloth out of the case. She wiped the lenses and began to fold the cloth again. Made sure it was put away before laying her glasses on top. Closing the case. "I had hoped you would stay and...chat."

"There's a whole week for that," Lu snorted. Her lemonade went down the wrong way and she spluttered a little. "Anyway, since when do we chat?"

Giulia flipped the glasses case closed and rested it on her stack of papers. "It would have been nice if you'd said hello," she said quietly.

"I did say hello," Lu frowned, but now that she was thinking about it, she hadn't, not really.

But how else was she supposed to reply to "You're here."?

"Well..." Giulia said, by way of saying nothing. She picked up Marco's discarded apron and flapped it out briskly in front of her. Began folding it against her chest. Lu sipped on her lemonade. Set out coasters on the dining table. There was silence between them for a minute. Just knives and forks being put by place mats.

"Yeah, no, that's exactly what I thought," Marco said animatedly, ruffling a hand through his hair as he waltzed into the kitchen (this time with a shirt on). "Isn't that what you thought, Lu? Right? I know. I love how we're all just so chatty today."

Marco liked to do that. Liked to wait until Giulia and Lu were being silent, not scrabbling at each other's necks, and then he would jump in with the teasing. He seemed to think that it diffused the tension. It was also fucking annoying for every party involved bar himself, but Marco seemed to relish the fact.