quarantine in love • chris evans (bwwm)

five

"Open." Chris spoke as he held a spoon to Andi's lips.

She opened her mouth to taste the homemade tomato sauce he'd been working on for half an hour. "So good."

After leaving Andi's house the night before, Chris flipped through her cookbook trying to decide what was simple enough for him to make without completely botching it. Most of the recipes were too complex for his low cooking level and all he wanted to do was impress her; which was proven difficult due to his lack of cooking skills. Luckily, his mom came to the rescue with a simple yet delicious pasta recipe fit for even the pickiest vegetarian eaters. "Do you really like it?"

"Yes! You know what would make it REALLY good though? A pinch of crushed red pepper."

"Crushed red pepper, crushed red pepper." Chris spoke to himself, trying to figure out if he had any. "Could you check the pantry for me?"

"Sure."

Andi took the short walk to the pantry and opened the door which was already ajar. She was pleasantly surprised to find the large pantry was so neat and organized, considering the fact that Chris didn't cook very often. Everything was labeled from the pasta to the flour and sugar.

She scanned each row slowly before a small metal tin caught her eye, causing her smirk right away. Even before lifting the tiny container with a half peeled lip balm logo, she could practically see the contents. She wasn't the least bit shocked that he had weed hidden in his pantry.

"Did you find it?" Chris asked.

"No but I found your stash." She responded casually while exiting his pantry with the tin that was the same size as a Carmex jar. "There's weed in here, yeah?"

"Weed? It's just a lip balm container for gods sake." He spoke in an exaggerated tone, pretending to be offended. "What would possibly lead you to believe a guy like me would have ILLEGAL DRUGS in his pantry?!"

Rather than entertaining Chris's antics Andi slowly screwed the lid off, revealing what looked to be less than gram of weed. "What is this? Half a gram?"

"Who are you?" Chris chuckled while approaching. He looked down at the jar resting in her palm before confiscating it.

Without a word, he walked over to one of his many cabinets to retrieve a shot glass. He then pulled out the drawer directly under to get a pair of scissors.

Andi watched intently as he dumped the contents of the tin in the shot glass and began to manually grind the weed. She couldn't help her eyes from drifting to his right bicep which was bulging with every motion.

"Should we smoke this before dinner or after?" He looked up at her, smiling to himself when he noticed she was staring at his arm.

"Um before." She answered as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. "Do you know long it's been since I smoked a joint?"

"How long has it been Andi?"

"God I don't even know." She admitted. "8 or 9 months AT LEAST. I try to limit myself to just a couple times a year."

"My mom would kill me if she knew I was still smoking." Chris told her as he pulled out a piece of rolling paper from the same drawer his scissors were in. "I've chilled out on it a lot but I can't give it up completely. I know it does nothing but hinder my ability to be productive but it calms my brain noise."

"Do you have brain noise right now?" Andi asked, her eyes following his movements as he carefully rolled the joint.

"I always have brain noise." He revealed. "But I do feel very calm and comfortable with you right now. Always really."

"I feel like such a bad influence."

"I was gonna smoke it whether you found it or not. The only difference is I would've smoked the entire joint by myself." Chris reached across the countertop to give her hand a squeeze before returning his attention to the weed in front of him.

Andi didn't respond. Instead she waited silently as he spent the next 3 minutes rolling the joint cautiously.

"All done." Chris announced. He tucked a lighter in his pocket after walking around the island counter to where Andi had been staring absentmindedly into the air for the last few minutes. He was curious as to what exactly she was thinking about and if it had anything to do with him. "Let's go outside Andi Bandi."

"Okay." She replied simply before following him to his backyard. The very first thing she noticed, besides his massive pool, was one of Dodger's chew toys lighting up on the concrete.

Chris noticed her looking at the toy. "I miss him already."

"How did the surgery go?"

"Great! He's happy and doing well, according to my mom."

"That's good to hear." Andi smiled at the thought of the characteristic dog as she and Chris plopped down on the patio loveseat that was on the other side of his kitchen window.

"For my queen." Chris lit up the joint and passed it to her immediately afterwards.

He watched as she took a hit and closed her eyes, keeping the smoke in her mouth for a few seconds before blowing it out. He had always been attracted to her but in that moment, he could hardly contain himself as the sight of her smoking turned him on immensely.

"I don't want you to go out with Richard Madden." Chris blurted the very second Andi passed him the joint.

She let out a sigh and replied without looking over at him. "Are you dating anyone Chris?"

"Casually, I suppose. Just a couple of women." He answered honestly, keeping his glare on the side of her face in the hopes that she'd meet his stare.

"Okay." Andi finally peered over at him and took the joint from his hand before returning her attention back to the horizon.

"Oh." Chris opened his mouth to speak and closed it right away. He instantly regretted his words especially since the women he was casually seeing hadn't been around in almost 3 weeks. He had no idea what Andi's response meant or how he could even follow up... he also didn't know if her lack of acknowledging Richard was a good sign or a bad one. "Okay?"

"You don't have to read into it so hard." Andi laughed when she noticed his puzzled expression. "I was just asking out of curiosity."

"I was casually dating." Chris corrected. "But it's been almost a month since I last-"

"You really don't owe me an explanation." She interrupted. "We're friends. I'm never going to judge you. Especially not for something as trivial as having sex."

"I just don't want you to think that I..." he trailed off.

"That you sleep with a lot of women?" Andi asked. "If you knew the amount of people I've slept with, you wouldn't feel so bad. Sex is fun and pleasurable. There's nothing wrong with that."

Chris sighed. Not only was he struggling to get his point across but he was growing a little bothered by Andi's nonchalant response to his dating other women. He wasn't expecting her to get full on jealous but she gave him absolutely nothing to work with which lead him to believe she didn't feel the same way as he did after all.

"Yeah, I guess you're right Andi."

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