Wax

Thirty Two

And now, to the chapter. 

Enjoy this one. :') It was so personal and tough writing it, to be honest. Hehe. 

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[Leroy]

He was wearing my jacket.

It looked good on him and though it wasn't exactly something I'd expected him to look good in, somehow at the back of my mind was a corner reserved for moments like these. Exceeding expectations. There's a thing about bomber jackets; they're not like the sweaters you'd wear indoors, or bathrobes you'd put on after a bath before bed. Underneath the jacket was his favorite silk pajama set and the look on his face said it all.

"Leroy?"

And then my attention turned to the kitten in his arms.

I think I said nothing for a good minute trying to take in and process the whole... picture-perfect, good shit before my eyes before actually holding out the paper bag with takeaway boxes in it.

The past week had been flames all around; I spent mornings at the firehouse as the crew's personal chef for breakfast before heading to Andre's bistro for the afternoon tea shift and then back to the firehouse in the evening after heading the kitchen for five-six hours. I'd bring Chicken along so that he'd spend the day in the station, and then when it was time to head back home to my apartment, he'd be there too.

No one knows, but while the crew's out running calls, I was all up in the common fridge and transforming all the shit they'd brought back from the grocery store into the magic stuff. Well not really. To be honest, this wasn't much of a difference from when we'd take turns making lunch or dinner for the crew—just, doing it alone. I'd even pulled out the stopwatch for knife skills. Not dicing onions or tomatoes by the way 'cuz those were basic. Julienning carrots, paper-thin radishes, bias-cuts on the scallions and shishito peppers, and maybe just a fine brunoise. Kinda like dicing, but smaller. Not too shabby, but still. Slower than sixteen-year-old Leroy.

Point is: I'd spent the week pretty much alone, but not quite. I spent the week with myself. It sounded so fucking abstract and shit when I first thought about it but like, a couple of hours in and it wasn't that hard to understand that it was something people needed to do every once in a while but never really knew they needed it. I was one of those people.

Desserts were... not yet. I was avoiding them, no doubt; partly 'cuz some of the crew really only allowed sweets on special occasions to stay in shape but mostly due to the fact that I'd have to face that shit again. I had no problem serving up disaster to the crew, don't get me wrong. Love to see them suffer for a bit, ha. Just... deep down, didn't think I was ready for it yet. Which was stupid because I knew somewhere along the way, I'd have to do it.

Also, I wasn't all that heartless. Jaeger even came up with a cool idea for the sake of my practice. Three meals a day and every morning, they'd take turns to pick out random, weird-ass ingredients after stopping by the grocery store. One time, Zales came back with some... spiral-shape vegetable stems called Fiddleheads. I didn't know what they were. Marseille would be disappointed. She taught the class on vegetable produce.

Back to Andre's.

Things were tamer there. I'd see Siegfried stop by every now and then, checking in on me. And when I say that, I mean just standing at the window while I called out orders to be fired which was pretty much it. Nothing new. The special menu though, was the only way I could work around Andre's rigid, conservative dishes that honestly tasted kinda... shit. I mean for that price point, people should be getting legendary-ass food, really.