“We’ll figure out a plan.” He couldn’t keep eating weird crap. “Do you have a meal plan at the dining hall when that’s open?”
Thankfully, he nodded. “Yeah, one of those credit plans where I can go a certain number of times in the semester.”
Something about his expression…
“How many of them did you use last semester?” Yep, he winced. “Chipmunk?”
He dragged out answering with a long sigh, but as I went back to the pan and flipped the first pancake, he seemed to realize I could wait him out. “A dozen or so?”
For fuck’s sake.
“Care to explain why?” When the sound effects started again, I raised one eyebrow. “It would be a tragic accident if I told your mother how bad your eating habits are.”
Tragic.
“God.” His head went back to the table as he groaned. “Fine. It’s too far to walk and I always get lazy. I’ll do better.”
“No, we’ll make a plan for you to do better.” We could fix this without the need for tattling. “I’ll cook a few times a week and we’ll go to the dining hall together for the rest.”
I didn’t mind dragging him over.
“And if we look pathetic enough, I have a roommate who loves to cook and is like full-functional-adult good at it. He’s the one who fixed the soup yesterday.” For whatever reason, that had his head coming up.
“I’m supposed to ask what he did to make that soup edible.” My glare got a snicker out of him. “It’s got good ingredients. I wouldn’t poison you.”
That didn’t give me a lot of comfort.
“He added rice and some spices to it.” What else had he done? “He was meal prepping for the week at the time and he had a few things going on the stove. He might’ve added sausage and a few other vegetables?”
I should’ve paid more attention.
“We can ask. At the time I was just a bit worked up.” His laugh let me know he realized that was an understatement. “He’ll know what he did. He’s good with that kind of stuff.”
“Thanks.” Perking up, Teddy liked this topic more than he had the others. “That’ll distract Olivia next time she’s…excited.”
Asking why they were friends was probably too rude considering how early it was, so I decided to ask about that later.
“Glad to help.” Taking the first round of pancakes out of the pan, I brought them over to the table. “Here are two, but I’ll have more ready in a moment.”
“Thank you.” His brain seemed to turn off again as he started in on breakfast, but his mouth kept going. “I thought you might’ve forgotten about breakfast. I couldn’t remember what you said last night.”
My scoff got a laugh from him. “I did not forget and you were a handful who was more interested in trying to talk me into a sleepover than going to bed on your own.”
Not looking sheepish enough, he shrugged. “It seemed like a good idea at the time.”
“Limits, Chipmunk. Limits.” I was going to keep reinforcing that. “They’re a good thing. You need to get some.”
“I have limits for strangers and regular people.” Teddy seemed to think that was a reasonable response as he took his first bite of breakfast. “You’re not either of those.”
I wasn’t sure what I was, but he probably wasn’t wrong.
“You’re going to find some limits for me too, Chipmunk.” My glare didn’t scare him nearly enough. “You’re…well…you just giggled at me when I tried to figure it out when you’re little.”
He just shrugged.
Ridiculous.
“You asked if I would run you a bubble bath.” Gesturing toward him with the spatula just got another laugh out of him as he put an oversized bite into his mouth. “We’re having a limits talk before I change your pants or put you in the tub.”
