French Toast

French Toast [1]

Weekends are for pancakes. Mondays cornflakes, Tuesdays grilled cheese sandwiches, Wednesdays cornflakes again, Thursdays oatmeal and Fridays bagels. Today is Friday so I'm in the kitchen slathering cream cheese on a couple blueberry bagels while my fiance puts our coffees together. We both take it with two tablespoons of cream and one packet of sweetener. We tend to take a lot of things the same way.

Sometimes he feels more like my twin than my soon to be husband as we're so in sync with each other. In fact, more than one person over the years has mistaken us for brother and sister. Not that we look alike-he's tall, muscled, tanned and dark-haired with hazel eyes whereas while I'm also tall, my figure is what I would refer to as athletically lean, I'm not tanned yet not exactly pale and blond-haired with light blue eyes.

"Babe?" He slides a steaming mug in front of me with a faint grin on his lips.

"Yes?"

"Are you attempting to empty that entire tub on our bagels?"

Looking at the bagel half sporting a thick layer of white cream, I chuckle. "Oops. Was lost in thought."

Standing on the other side of the counter, Liam brings his cup to his lips gently blowing its tan surface. "What were you thinking about?"

"You." Knife placed on a napkin, I give him his plate. "Me."

"Oh, yeah? What about us?" Golden brown eyes with flecks of green I love gazing into light up. "Our honeymoon? Have you finally decided where we should go?"

"Fiji." Following a pause I add, "Maybe."

Liam laughs. "Fiji maybe sounds good." A bagel half selected, he takes a hearty bite, a bit of cream cheese settling in the corner of his mouth. Leaning across the counter, I wipe it away with my thumb, which I promptly lick clean.

Smiling, he thanks me and instead of answering with the expected 'you're welcome' I say, "Sometimes I want French toast instead of pancakes." I'm not surprised by Liam's befuddled expression. I don't have much of a clue where I'm going with this statement as it flew from my mouth without proper analysis.

"Huh?"

It's on the tip of my tongue to say 'never mind', but then further words escape my mouth. "On the weekends we always have pancakes. Every once in a while we use the pancake mix to make waffles, but there are times when I want French toast."

"Okay." My fiance offers another smile. "We'll have French toast Sunday. I'll go shopping for thicker bread tomorrow." His expression turns thoughtful. "We might need vanilla extract and-"

"That's not it."

"What's not it?"

"It's not just the French toast. It's..." I slowly shake my head from left to right while seeking to explain my jumbled thoughts, "a lot-some other things. Like the entire week of meals. We plan everything we eat. We plan our activities. There are never any surprises."

I love Liam. He's my best friend, my husband-to-be, my soul mate. Both twenty-six, we've been in each other's lives practically all our lives. Our mothers the best of friends, we grew up together, attending the same schools from preschool all the way through college. When we were seven, he asked me to "marry" him. My twelve year old sister performed the ceremony in the backyard underneath our tree house where Liam and I enjoyed our honeymoon with cookies and milk and a few games of Go Fish.

When we were fourteen he asked me to really be his girlfriend and by the time we were high school juniors, our friends referred to us as a teenage power couple. At nineteen we moved in together and fourteen months ago Liam asked me to marry him one Tuesday morning by serving me a grilled cheese sandwich with 'will u marry me' written into the buttery toast. As I sat there with my mouth hanging open, Liam peeled back the top bread showing a gorgeous ring in the middle of gooey sharp cheddar cheese. Of course we had to wash it before I slipped it on, but I loved his creativity.