365 Days

238

238 -

I've had my coffee and my shower so I'm relatively awake for such an early hour on a Saturday. I'm walking to Luke's in the 10am sun, in my floral skirt and long-sleeve, white lace, crop. My hair is in curls from when Olive experimented with my hair and the curler during movie night last night and on my feet are my Doc Martins, because it's not that warm.

I arrive at Luke's cute little brick house and turn up the path and knock on the door. He answers almost immediately, in a t-shirt and jeans, his classic look. "Hey, Dakota," he grins, hugging me before inviting me in. We end up in the kitchen, where Luke has out what look like ingredients.

"Oh no," I say upon seeing them all.

"Oh yes," he says, grinning like Jafar. "You want to learn how to cook something more advanced than toast so that's exactly what you're going to do. I'm going to teach you how to make pancakes."

"Oh no," I repeat, as he pushes me towards the kitchen. "This isn't going to work."

"Yes it will." He says, and sets me up with measuring instruments and a bowl. He sits opposite me at the bench and instructs me.

It sounds really easy, but Luke ends up giving me his mother's apron to put on so that I don't get my clothes dirty. The flour just does not like to stay in the darn bowl.

"Okay, now we have to cook them." Luke tells me.

"Nope," I say, shaking my head. "I'm out. I've come this far and-"

"And I won't let you back out now. Come on, this is the easy bit."

Me and flames are not a good mix. I don't think anything about this will be easy. I tell Luke this and he lights his gas stove for me, and gives me a large non-stick frypan. "Now pour some mixture in so that it makes a circle in the middle of the pan," he tells me. That I can do.

It's not exactly a circle but it's close enough.

"Now you wait until there are bubbles on top and you flip it over," Luke explains, much like a brother would to a sister. Then again, that is our relationship; brother-sister.

"But how do I know when there are enough bubbles?" I ask, sighting a single bubble atop the pancake.

"You just do."

"No, you do. I don't. I don't cook, Luke."

In the end, I make a total of three edible pancakes. Luke promises he will get me to master these pancakes and I wish him luck, but I can officially cross that off my list now.

For the rest of the morning we watch movies and talk, avoiding all Alex-related topics. I think Luke has figured out how much I don't want to talk about him, so he leaves the issue alone until I tell him why I have to go home.

"Alex is going over?" He asks, raising an eyebrow. "Just friends, hey? How's that working out for you?"

"Shut up," I say, hugging him and then walking away. The sun is warm now as I walk home, probably meaning that Mum will have taken Quentin to the park. She has been meaning to lately but every time she wants to go, it starts raining. I can almost guarantee that's where they are.

When I get home, Alex is sitting on the front porch steps, looking up when he hears my footsteps.

"Hey there you," he smiles pulling me into a hug. I smile, wrapping my arms around his middle. "How are you?"

"I'm good," I say, thinking over my morning with Luke. It was a good morning with him, made even better that I can now cross another item off my To Do List.