A Story Left Untold

II

𝓑𝓾𝓻𝓷𝓲𝓷𝓰

"𝓘f we want to catch our flight, we have to go now, dad." Sean got up from the sofa, looked at his father, and then at his little sister whose eyes glossed over. "But before we go." Sean took a package out of his bag and gave it to Nova. "It is from all of us." Nova gently tore away the gift-wrapping paper and looked at the frames, including pictures now lying in her lap. "All of your favourites are in there." Nova laid them aside and stood up to give her brother a tight hug. "I am going to miss you, shortcake."

"I am going to miss you, too."

Max and I shifted in our seats as we watched the goodbyes. We both felt like this wasn't something we were supposed to witness, but felt like walking away at that point would be rude as well, so we kept our mouths shut and let them have their moment uninterrupted.

But things got more awkward when Brandan had to say goodbye to his little girl. It was clear he didn't want to do so, even though he could see she would be in excellent hands with Max and me. We had made sure of it.

Brandan spat out a waterfall of words that sounded like conditions they had made for Nova to move out. Not just out of her parental house, but the country as well. His little girl, all alone in the big world, needed the best start she could get and the loving father believed all those conditions were the best way to do so. It wasn't hard to see he didn't mean for them to be restricting.

When they moved to the front door to leave and most likely say one last goodbye, Max and I walked to the kitchen to start on dinner. We started cutting all the ingredients we would need first.

"What are we having for dinner?" Nova walked into the kitchen.

Truthfully, we did not know what we were doing, even though we were following a recipe.

I glanced at the cookbook my mother had given me when I first moved out. "It is supposed to become lasagna?"

Nova chuckled as she looked over my shoulder into the cookbook. "Looks like that, doesn't it? Unless you flipped the page and forgot about it." She turned the cookbook a page back and then looked at what Max and I had already done so far. "Yeah, definitely not the recipe in front of lasagna." She leaned back against the kitchen counter and took a piece of bell pepper I had already cut. "Do you need any help?" Her bright eyes looked right into mine. "I'm getting the feeling neither one of you knows what you are doing."

Max laughed. "I think I might be the one who knows what we are doing best, and that is very much concerning."

Nova started walking to the sink to wash her hands so she could help us, but I stopped her.

"Not a chance. You are going to sit down somewhere and let us cook for you. Tomorrow, you may cook something for us, but this is your first official night with us. You will not cook for the three of us."

Nova threw her head back with a chuckle. "Don't blame me if you burn down the house."

"We have been getting by without you so far, and the house is still standing. I think we can do this."

Nova threw up her hands in defence, the smile still on her face, and left Max and me alone to cook dinner.

"We have been getting by mostly on pre-cooked food by either your trainer or ordering in." Max looked at me with a frown on his face.

"She doesn't have to know that. Yet." I continued to cut the vegetables we would put in the lasagna and we went on preparing our dinner for another thirty minutes until the lasagna was cooking away in the oven. And it hadn't even tasted half bad when it went in. All it had to do now was cook the lasagna sheets. Nothing could change the flavour anymore, so Max and I left the kitchen with a smile, happy with what we had made.