Page 45 of The Blind Date

True to his word, Cedric was sitting on the floor in the hallway outside my door, playing Among Us on his phone. He was so focused on the game he didn’t notice me until I stopped at his feet, but he didn’t glance up. Not even when my keys clashed together noisily as I pulled them out of my purse.

"Do you plan on coming in, or should I leave you to your little game?" I chuckled as I let myself into my apartment, leaving the door open behind me.

"I may be engrossed in my game, but that doesn't mean I'm oblivious to what's going on around me." Cedric snorted, still sitting on the floor.

While Cedric finished his game, I headed into my bedroom to dump my stuff and kick off my heels. Since it didn't seem like he would finish up with it any time soon, I washed my makeup off and cleansed my face in the bathroom. By the time I had finished, Cedric had just let himself into the apartment.

“What’s with the long face?” I asked, chuckling at the childish, melancholy pout on his face.

"They voted me out because they all thought I was an imposter, but I was a basic crewmate,” he huffed, heading straight to the utility room. "I wasn't even an engineer."

"That's too bad."

I played Among Us for a few weeks during the first lockdown like everyone else, but I had no idea what an engineer was or what they did.

“I know you’re making fun of me.” He narrowed his eyes at me.

"I'm not making fun of you." I tried to deny it, but the snicker slipped through, no doubt irking him more than he already was.

“Don’t insult me by lying about it, darling.”

“I see the dramatics have already started.” I chuckled as I proceeded to make a cup of tea for the both of us–green for me and milky with one sugar for Cedric as requested.

“You always call me dramatic but trust me, you haven’t seen anything yet.”

“Is that a threat?”

“Just a warning that you haven’t seen any real drama yet.”

“Well, I’ll wait for you to throw a tantrum and see if my opinion changes.”

Cedric huffed and sifted through his tools.

“How was work?” He asked, his tone surprisingly casual.

“Good.” I stirred the sugar into his tea. “It was far more uneventful today which I’m grateful about. What about you?”

"Kind of the same," he murmured, his voice sounding distant as he focused on the job.

I dropped off his tea, but he barely acknowledged me, far too engrossed with the task at hand. While Cedric worked on fixing my boiler, I grabbed my laptop, took a seat on my sofa and scrolled through all the social media I had missed today while at work.

When six-thirty rolled around, I was hungry. Usually, I would cook dinner, but I had been too hungover on Saturday to do the weekly food shop, and I had eaten out both Sunday and Monday, so there were no leftovers. I could always quickly pop out to the shop down the road for some supplies, but the convenience of Uber Eats was far too tempting to ignore.

Even though I still didn’t like him, I figured buying Cedric dinner was the least I could do after he had spent so much time and effort helping me out. As he was so engrossed in his work, I didn’t bother asking him what he wanted. Instead, I prayed he didn’t have any allergies and decided to play it safe by ordering pizza, chips, and garlic bread.

"All done!" Cedric announced approximately half an hour later with a proud grin on his face. He walked into the kitchen and turned on the tap to test the water.

The doorbell sounded.

“Perfect timing because our dinner is here.” I matched his grin as I went to accept our food.

"And we've got hot water!" Cedric cheered as he turned off the tap. "What have you got there?" He turned around to ask me, a peculiar expression on his face.

"Dinner."

"Dinner?" His tone dripped with surprise.

"Ourdinner," I clarified. "I thought the least I could do was buy you dinner for helping me out.”

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