Not The Only One - A Winter Soldier Story

Chapter 22

     Seven o'clock was approaching and the spaghetti had not yet been started. I began to pull out the ingredients when Bucky came over to assist me.

     "You don't have to help," I told him frankly.

     Honestly, I felt bad having Bucky help me since he only had one hand.

     He turned to me with his kind blue eyes. "I know. But I want to help you."

     "Fair enough," I relented, somehow knowing that there was no way to get rid of him.

     "What can I do?" he offered.

     "You could grab the frying pan and spatula for me."

     Bucky handed me the desired items.

     "Thanks."

     The ground beef was cooked and the fat drained off a few minutes later. I put the meat on two paper plates for the time being.

     "How are we going to cook the noodles without a pot?" Bucky asked with a slight frown.

     "We can cook the noodles in the frying pan, silly."

     His frown deepened, but I did not know if it was because I had instantly presented a solution to something that was never even a problem or because of my playful name-calling.

     Deciding it did not matter which one it was, I put the noodles in the frying pan and poured some water over them before turning on the stove eye. The noodles were soon done to perfection.

     I showed Bucky the result. "See? Told you it would work."

     He tried a noodle and then raised his eyebrows in surprise.

     "It's better to do them in a frying pan than in a pot," I informed him as I dished the noodles equally between three paper plates.

     When I was done, Bucky took the frying pan over to the sink.

     "What are you doing?" I asked.

     "I was going to dump out the noodle water," he explained.

     I was appalled. "No!! You don't dump it out! You use it in the sauce!"

     "It's just leftover noodle water," he said, obviously ignorant.

     "Yeah and throwing it out would just be wasteful." I scowled at him.

      He shrugged and put the frying pan back on the counter with the water still in it.

     I added a few cans of tomato sauce and the cooked ground meat into the pan before placing it back on the stove.

     "What are you going to season the sauce with?" Bucky asked.

     "Just salt, I guess? That's all we have."

     "Uh-uh, that ain't going to work, Doll."

     Irritated, I asked him, "What else do you want me to do?"

     "I'll get Steve to pick something up."

     Bucky took a device out of his pocket. It was the same kind of device I had seen Steve use when I first saw him.

      "What's that? Some type of miniaturized two-way radio?"

     "It's a cell phone," he replied.

     I was shocked. "That little thing is a cellular phone?!"

      Bucky nodded.

     "But how? It's so small!?"