Page 53 of Fruit
Me
yeah
Sebastián
Good. I’ll see you then
Me
see you
**********
I show up to Sebastián’s with a packed bag and Nina in the carrier.
“Hey,” he says as he opens the door.
“Hey.” I let Nina out of her carrier, and she runs out as if she’s been jailed for a hundred years. “Drama queen.” I laugh as she leaps onto the sofa. I turn to Sebastián. “Where should I leave my bag?”
“The bedroom?”
“Sure.”
I leave the bag out of the way and step back into the living room. Suddenly, I wonder what we’re going to do for the whole weekend. I don’t think I’ve ever spent that much time with someone I’ve been sleeping with. My relationship history is filled with only casual relationships, and I wonder about Sebastián’s own. Truth be told, he doesn’t seem like the casual relationship type, but what do I know?
“Thanks for letting me stay,” I say a little awkwardly.
“No problem. Cockroaches?”
“Urgh, I know. So gross.”
“Did you see a lot of them in your apartment?”
“Just one. I definitely did not scream and get on a chair when I saw it…”
“Of course not.” Sebastián laughs. He looks over to the kitchen. “It’s almost lunchtime. I was thinking of makingropa vieja.”
I raise my eyebrows.
“I did some research. I know the dish is usually made with leftovers, but…”
“No, that sounds good. I loveropa vieja,” I say, ignoring the warmth at the thought that Sebastián had been doing research about Latin-American dishes.
The awkwardness I had been feeling at the concept of staying over at Sebastián’s dissipates in the face of the routine of cooking. We move easily around each other in the kitchen, and Sebastián obviously knows what he’s doing.
“When did you learn how to cook?” I ask him as I drain the chickpeas.
“I lived on my own after juvie. I lived off crappy microwave meals for a while. When Thiago’s—that’s the friend I told you about.”
“The one that helped you fund the youth centre.”
“Yeah. When his mom found out, she insisted—”
“Forced.”
Sebastián laughs. “Yeah, forced me to learn how to cook and would check up on me. It was impossible to lie to her, and by the time I got used to eating real food, I didn’t want to go back to nuking meals in the microwave.”
“Those things can be pretty gross.”
