For What It's Worth

Chapter Thirty Nine : The Storm

T H E  S T O R M

Thomas

"God where is it?" I quietly pace around the kitchen, in a frenzy.

I search high and low through the shelves, cabinets and counters for the paprika which I can't remember where I put it last. With a scuffling of feet, I whip around to where Isabelle is coming into the room with a frown on her face. She slowly takes her bag strap off of her shoulder.

"Woah. What's going on here?" She scans the kitchen. I straighten up and clear my throat out, pretending that everything is fine.

"I'm cooking." I answer nonchalantly.

"I can tell. The kitchen looks like a bomb has hit it." She chuckles. I let out a nervous laugh, taping my fingers on the surface of the counter. She falters and narrows her pretty eyes at me, coming around the side of the island. "What's really going on?"

"Nothing." I shrug, cluelessly.

"Don't you dare lie to me Thomas King." She points her finger out, stalking towards me which causes me to move backwards away from her.

She suddenly halts and tilts her head at the counter. She picks up a fancy bottle of red wine and a glass that I got out. She stares me down and I look at her, my face remaining empty.

"Why are there four glasses?" She asks. Shit.

"Okay. Fine." I sigh, dropping my shoulders. "Your parents are coming over."

"My parents?" She frowns. "Why are my parents coming over?"

"Because I invited them. For an early Christmas meal type thing."

"Oh." She chirps. She seems pleasantly surprised with that.

"But you weren't supposed to know until they got here and now I can't cook what I wanted to." I complain with a defeated huff.

"Okay. Well where's the recipe? I'll give you a hand." She spins around, looking for it.

"That's not the point though. You're not supposed to be helping, you're supposed to be surprised and then eat a lovely meal prepared by yours truly." I gesture to myself.

"So you want to serve my parents food that you, quote on quote, can't cook?" She asks, using quotation marks in the air. I pause.

"Okay. Fair enough. It's over there." I point to the recipe I've been using which is on the counter behind her.

She goes over and reads through it. I anxiously join her, by her side and she scans each line of instruction and list of ingredients. She quickly ties her dark hair up with a scrunchie from her wrist.

"Right, looks good. Let's get started." She says enthusiastically.

"Okay great." I return. She gets a few things out of the drawers that we'll need as I check over the recipe for the hundredth time.

"Here's the paprika by the way." She hands it to me and I roll my eyes as we both start laughing.

**

While things have been cooking, we both took that time to get changed into nicer outfits. It's nothing too formal so I just put on a pair of smart grey pants with a nice white shirt. Isabelle asked me to help pick out something for her.

I found a pair of tight but flared black pants which she put with a lilac crop top. She keeps on the little necklace I bought for her which is nice. Now thinking about it, I don't think there's been a day where she hasn't had it on.