Jalen watched as he pulled Tupperware containers from the bag along with some plastic cutlery. She blinked a few times before it dawned on her.
“You cooked all of this?”
“I did,” he replied, arranging the containers on the table.
“You really didn’t have to do that.”
She was touched that he had gone out of his way not only to bring her food so she would have something to eat on her break, but he’d cooked it as well. It was thoughtful, and she couldn’tthink of the last time someone outside of her siblings or Maria had done something like that for her.
“Same answer as before, gorgeous.”
When the tops were taken off the container, she saw that he’d made roasted chicken with rice, baby red potatoes, and a green salad.
From her first bite alone, Jalen knew that she definitely wanted him to cook for her again. She was no slouch in the kitchen, but she often opted for easy meals that would feed the six of them pretty quickly. Though she tried to cook different meals when she had weekends off, they would often end up getting caught up with something else.
She complimented the meal as they ate, and as if he was reading her mind, Rohan told her he would cook for her any time she wanted him to. She would definitely hold him to that.
When they finished eating, Jalen still had about twenty minutes left of her break. She decided that she probably should get up and move around. She always got tired and felt like she needed a nap after eating a heavy meal. So, she asked him if he wanted to go out to the courtyard and get some fresh air.
They exited the cafeteria and out of the West hospital exit. The night air felt good on her skin in contrast to the almost freezing cafeteria they had just left.
He reached over and grabbed her hand as they walked. It was silent between the two of them.
“So, I’ve decided that I’m going to find playmates for my mother,” Rohan spoke after the silence had stretched on for about five minutes.
Jalen laughed. “Why is that?”
“You remember how I told you she accidentally said yes to going on a date with her neighbor about a week ago.”
“Yeah, I remember.”
“Well, instead of telling him the truth, she rescheduled with him. Three times so far for him to get the message. He did not get the message.”
“So, it backfired on her.”
“In the biggest way. He showed up at the office with a picnic basket filled with who knows what. She saw him before he saw her and ran into my office to hide. I then had to hear about how this was ‘getting out of hand and ‘why can’t he just take a hint’ as if she hadn’t been leading him on. I swear she needs friends. On top of that, she kept questioning why a picnic is what he decided on, and how, ‘women don’t even like picnics.”
“Hey, I like picnics,” Jalen said as she laughed.
“I’ll have to remember that.”
“I don’t understand why she just didn’t tell him she isn’t interested. I mean, she’s only putting off the inevitable of having to turn him down, which will only make it worse. Not to mention, the two of them are neighbors. She could run into him every day.”
“Your guess is as good as mine. I asked her the same thing, and she said she didn’t want to hurt his feelings.”
“But she’s going too, regardless. It’s better to be honest and upfront about it.”
She felt like a bit of a hypocrite as those words left her mouth because she technically wasn’t being honest with him. While she had told him that she was taking care of five girls, she was sure he was under the assumption that they were her daughters, and she hadn’t corrected him.
Maybe a part of her had wanted to see if he would still be interested in her if he thought she was twenty-four with five kids. It had normally been the deal-breaker for anyone else she had tried to date, the few times she attempted to do so.
However, she knew she needed to tell him. Jalen didn’t see him getting mad that she hadn’t exactly told him the truth orcorrected his train of thought, but she could see it taking away some of the trust they were building. She was going to tell him soon. She just wanted to make sure that their relationship was going somewhere.
“Right,” Rohan responded, bringing their hands up to kiss the back of hers.
They returned to the entrance they used, and Jalen turned to look at him, thanking him for the food once again. Rohan leaned down and placed a soft peck on her lips before telling her to let him know when she made it home safely from her shift.
She could feel him watching her, making sure she got back inside safely. She got on the elevator and rode it back up to her floor with a few minutes of her break left to spare.
