“You’re makin’ a lot of assumptions. We don’t know what’s gonna happen when Adam goes full-turn. They might leave, or we might have us a pack.”
“I hope they leave.”
Roscoe shook his head. “I’m hopin’ they stay. You’ve gotta admit, it’s been a lot more interesting with those two.”
“If by interesting you mean frustrating, then yes.”
“Are you and Adam still arguing?”
“The guy’s hot one second then cold the next, so I don’t have a clue. I keep trying to be his friend, and when I feel like we’re getting somewhere, he gets all pissy about something stupid.”
“What’s he pissed off about this time?”
“Let’s just say, the twerp doth protest too much.”
“I—don’t know what that means,” he said, checking the pot as it roared to a boil.
“It’s not a big deal. It’s just funny,” I said, packing the rest of the groceries away in the cupboard. “I mean, I understand why he is the way he is, but it still doesn’t make it any less annoying.” I closed the cabinet door and sighed. “I really miss Darryl. I wish he were here.”
Roscoe ran a finger under my chin. “Who knows? Maybe he’ll get sick of the ocean one day and make his way up.”
“You know that’s never going to happen.”
“Not a chance,” Roscoe said, moving away to pour the dry pasta into the pot.
“I didn’t know you were supposed to boil it if you’re gonna bake it.”
Roscoe looked like someone punched him in the gut. “How the hell did you manage to survive all these years by yerself without starvin’ to death?”
“I don’t know what the big deal is. It’s just pasta, sauce, and cheese.”
“And somehow you managed fuck it up,” Roscoe growled. “I still see that burnt atrocity in my nightmares. All that wasted food because you didn’t want to pull yer head outta yer ass.”
“I still don’t know what I did wrong.”
“See what I’m doin’ here?” Roscoe asked, pointing to the pot. “Dry pasta only works if you’re combining everything in a Dutch oven or something like that, but that ain’t what you did. Second, you can’t just dump everything into a glass pan and throw some cheese on top. You gotta layer it. And your third sin was using glass bakeware on higher heat. Nothing’s gonna cook evenly, which is one of the many reasons everything was burned on the top and raw in the middle.”
“Well, I know now. It’s easy enough to fix.”
“I’m only scratchin’ the surface.”
“All right! I never learned how to cook, okay?”
“Cooking and common sense go hand-in-hand. You didn’t bother to read the back of the pasta box before you dove in?”
“Oh my God, you’re actually angry with me, aren’t you?” I chuckled slightly as Roscoe’s ears went from pressed against his head to relaxed and pointed off to the side.
“Naw, I never get angry.”
“Then let me cook tonight.”
His ears pressed against his head again. “Get yer ass out of my kitchen.”
I laughed and jumped up on the counter while watching him give the pot a stir. After a moment, he looked back and pressed his nose into the crook of my neck.
“You smell good.”
“I’m guessing I smellskunky?”
