Cecil slouched on the counter. “Not really.”
And he really didn’t, he just preferred to be here over dealing with the chaos that was no doubt going on in the rec room.
“I see. Well, you are welcome to watch, as always, or help, if you want.”
Ignoring the invitation to join him, he asked, “What are you making?”
“Lasagna, caesar salad, and homemade Italian bread. The bread is already in the oven.”
Would it be bad to admit he'd never had any of that before? “The first is pasta, right?”
“It is. I like to add a lot of cheese to my lasagna. I think you'll like it, but if you don't, I can make something else for you.”
“I like bread,” Cecil blurted out, his face instantly heating on realizing how stupid he'd just sounded. “I mean…I can just eat the bread, you don't have to make anything extra…and I'm not that picky anyway, so no reason for you to go out of your way to make something else.”
Yeah, he hadn’t really had a chance to be picky.
Sin turned around, a kind smile on his face as he said, “It's fine even if you were. It's no problem at all. That does remind me, is there anything you love to eat? Or anything you hate?”
Cecil frowned, his eyes narrowing on the man suspiciously. “Why?”
The vampire laughed. “It's not for any nefarious reason,I promise. I just like adding people's favorites to my meal plans, and knowing the latter ensures I can make alternatives when I'm cooking something someone doesn't like.”
That made sense, he supposed. The problem was that Cecil had no clue. He liked bread, and peanut butter sandwiches, but he was pretty positive that wasn't the type of food Sin was asking about. Oh, and chocolate. He really liked the chocolate French silk pie they'd had last week. Otherwise, he hadn't really had the chance to try much.
When the arcadian averted his gaze and remained quiet, a flush spreading across the young man's face, Sin held his smile in place by willpower alone.
He had thoughtlessly assumed that asking Cecil about his favorite foods would help him feel more welcome, but he'd been wrong.
It didn't take even a minute for Sin to realize why the arcadian wasn't saying anything. Cecil probably didn't know what he liked. But then, it wasn't likely the man would have had many options growing up, based on even the little he had gathered so far about his upbringing.
Sin cleared his throat. “It’s fine if you don't know. You'll have plenty of chances and time to find out. I tend to make a wide variety of food. And we can always order in more.”
“Right…” Cecil mumbled, before blurting out, “What do you like?”
The man was obviously trying to steer the conversation away from himself.
“Me?” Sin hummed. “I'm partial to fish, love salmon, but an all time favorite of mine, even if it's more of an appetizer, is calamari.”
“What is calamari?
“It’s squid, and it tends to be fried.”
Cecil wrinkled his nose. “People eat squid?”
“Sure do. Not everyone likes it, of course.”
The arcadian grunted in response, before going quiet, but as Sin turned back to the stove, Cecil asked, “Do you really find cooking fun?”
Sin smiled at the question and said, “I do,” as he went back to stirring the meat sauce.
After another moment of silence, the man hesitantly mumbled, “Maybe…I could make dinner one day?”
Cecil eyed the instructions on the cellphone Sin had bought him, frowning as he read them for the third time and still failed to understand at least half of what was being said. Which pretty much meant he didn’t understand a damn thing, because not knowing what a word meant during a step, kind of made it hard to follow.
How had Cecil gone from helping to cooking dinner himself?! He hadn’t even helped that first time he offered over a week ago, it was more that he’d just stood there and watched closely. Yep, he’d just supervised, as in he did absolutely nothing and stared, because cooking was not a life skill he had even attempted to develop.
Like, where exactly had his confidence come from, and could it stay the fuck away, because he wasn’t sure what the hell had possessed him to tell Sin he wanted to make dinner the other day.
