Kellen
Fuck.Fuck. Fuck. Fuckety fuck.
That cute guy on YouTube made cooking look so easy. All I had to do was boil the water, add the pasta noodles, cook the sauce and?—
The front door flew open.
Marco stood in the doorway flapping his hand. “What happened?”
“Is there a right way to answer that?”
He appeared to consider. “Let’s just get it sorted. I hate to leave the door open in this cold weather, but you really need to get the smoke and smell out. Or at least as much as you can.” He hustled into the bedroom and was back less than a minute later with a sweater. “Put this on. Grab a tea towel and try to start moving the smoky air out.” He looked at my clearly crestfallen expression. “I’m sure the smoke smell will clear out of the house in the next couple of hours. And your dad can repaint that wall.” He gazed at the fire damage. “I thought the color was pretty awful?—”
“Puke green?”
He nodded. “So maybe suggest something in a nice neutral? Or something to match the forest?” He tossed me a tea towel and headed over to the wood stove to figure out how much damage I’d actually caused.
An hour later, we sat down to some KD. Pasta I probably could’ve cooked myself. But no, I had to try to go fancy.
The smell had mostly dissipated.
With the fire roaring, the room temperature was a step above frigid.
And my belly was full of good food. Well, even I knew Kraft Dinner wasn’t the healthiest of meals—but it tasted delicious.
As Marco washed the dishes—which I totally should’ve been doing, given the mess I made—I sighed.
“I heard that.”
“You were meant to.”
He put the last pot on the drying rack, hung the tea towel on a peg, and made his way over to me. “What’s up? Why don’t we sit on the couch? If we’re closer to the fire, then we won’t need as much wood.”
That felt entirely too logical.
We moved to the couch.
I plopped onto one end.
He sat in the middle. “Okay, why the sigh?”
“My dad hates me.” I picked at a loose thread on the not-so-comfortable couch. Much better as a bed, but we’d put the bed away. “Do you think the power will come back soon?” Because I so didn’t want to follow-up with my first sentence?—
“I’m sure he doesn’t.” Marco turned to face me.
Our gazes met.
“Oh, I’m quite certain he does.” I held in the tears of frustration. I hated that when I got mad or tired or frustrated, I cried. I almost never shed tears when I was actually sad.
Marco winced. “Uh…look. My reaction was knee-jerk. You have to admit your…skills are…” He winced again. Then brightened. “But your transcription was perfect, and the graphing is working. Proving my hypothesis.” He held my gaze with those fathomless dark-brown eyes. “Don’t you ever want to get a job?”
I’d admitted earlier to not having ever worked. “Sure. But the only things I’m good at are coordinating my belt with my shoes and giving blow jobs. There’s not a big market going for those things right now.”
He shook his head. Almost as if trying to shake an image away. He cleared his throat. “Well, I suppose that depends on your point of view…”
I pouted. “I’ve known you for more than twenty-four hours, and you haven’t asked me for a blow job. I think that’s a record for me. And it’s not a record I wanted.”
His eyes went as wide as saucers. He opened his mouth as if to speak. Then closed it. Then opened it again.
