Page 55 of Vas

“Deal.” He kissed her cheek. “Anything I can do to help?”

“Um…” She pointed with her spoon at the pile of vegetables that sat on the counter. “I need the onions and the tomatoes diced.”

He grabbed a knife from the block, plucked up the two bags, then found some empty counter space.

“Here.” She handed him a plastic cutting board.

“Thanks.”

She continued to stir the meat. Less than a minute later, came the sound of rapid-fire chopping. She turned to see him wielding the knife with more speed and precision than any of the famous chefs she’d seen on TV.

Stunned, she sputtered, “Where’d you learn to do that?”

The chopping suddenly stopped, and his head popped up. “What?”

She pointed at the cutting board with her wooden spoon. “You’re crazy knife skills.”

“Oh.” He looked down at the onion, diced into perfect bits, then back at her with an expression on his face she couldn’t read. “I, um, took a cooking class a few years ago. Learned the tricks of the trade.”

She now knew what that expression meant. He was lying. But she couldn’t figure out a logical reason why, so didn’t call him out, instead just saying, “That must have been some instructor.”

He shrugged, “It was a fun class. I enjoyed it.” He went back to cutting the onion, but this time, she noticed he did it a lot slower.

She continued to lay on the pressure. “Well then, next time you need to make dinner for me.”

He looked over his shoulder and smiled. “No problem.”

Feeling a bit disgruntled that she hadn’t tripped him up and a lot confused as to why he would lie over something so trivial, she went back to making the enchiladas, her mind working. But she still hadn’t figured it out twenty-minutes later when she pulled them out of the oven.

“I hate to tell you this, sweetheart, but you need new furniture. Or, at the very least, more.”

Dinner was done and they were on the sofa, watching a mindless sitcom. Anna was curled around a sprawled Vas who sat with his legs up on the coffee table.

Ignoring the introduction of the new endearment, though it did make her heart go pitter-pat, she nodded. “I know. I didn’t realize how sparse and dinky my furniture was until I moved in here.”

“Do you work the late shift tomorrow?”

“Yeah.”

“We’ll go shopping in the morning.”

She lifted her head off his chest. “I can’t afford that right now. And before you say anything,” she stressed when he looked as if he were about to argue, “You’re not buying it for me.”

She thought the conversation over when he went back to watching TV until a few minutes later, when he said, “What if it’s a loan?”

She shook her head. “I don’t like to be in debt. That’s why I never took out any student loans. When my dad left, my mom went through some tough times. She maxed out several credit cards and had to claim bankruptcy. That’s when we lost the house. It was a horrible feeling and one I never want to experience again.”

“You never talk about your dad.” The hand he had resting on her hip, moved to her ass. She liked it better there.

“Because there’s not much to tell. I haven’t spoken to him in years.”

“Do you miss him?”

“Not as much as I used to.” She lifted her head, looking at him. “Do you miss your dad?”

He smiled a sad smile down on her. “Not as much as I used to.”

Her head jerked in a small nod. He understood.

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