It's Friday night, and it's mine and James' second date.
The thing is, our second date isn't your typical kind of second date, where the guy has to try and outdo what he did on the first date.
Our second date, is James coming over and us having a cooking competition as James claims he's a better cook then me. Which is probably true, I can't deny that, but I will not take this competition lightly as I wanna beat his smug ass.
So. Like I said, not your typical kind of second date.
But the whole out to dinner thing is kind of cliché anyway.
Besides, James and I have gone out to dinner many times. So it really doesn't bother me what we do, as long as we both know it's a date.
There's no need for fancy dresses tonight, so I just chuck on some echt leggings, and a crop top.
Hm, we'll see how you like that Worpel... I think as I walk downstairs and plonk myself on the couch, waiting for him to arrive.
Marcus and Em are upstairs watching a movie in the theatre room, and they have promised to not crash our date. Which I am a bit skeptical about because Marcus ALWAYS has to know what's going on. He's a bit of a sticky beak, so I wouldn't be surprised if I see him down here "getting water" or snacks or something, just to keep an eye on what we're doing. The shifty bastard...
Not long later the doorbell rings, and I smile to myself, getting up off of the couch and walking over to the front door and pulling it open.
"Hey gorgeous." James says with that adorable smile of his, which makes me melt.
He is wearing grey nike tracksuit bottoms with a black jumper and white runners. He really knows my weakness is this whole outfit.
"Hey." I say, moving aside so he can come in. I close the door before I face him with a smile.
"I brought you something." He says and I frown, before noticing he's brought me a bouquet of flowers and I look at him, shaking my head as he hands it to me.
"You didn't have to get me flowers." I say looking back up at him and he chuckles.
"It's the least I could do." He says and I smile, throwing myself at him and wrapping my arms around his neck. He does the same thing, wrapping his arms around my waist, pulling me closer to him.
We pull away from our hug and walk through the hallway and to the couch where we both take a seat.
"So, what are we going to make tonight chef Worpel?" I ask. "Cause I'm hungry." I add and he chuckles, shaking his head.
"Whatever you want to make." He says and I nod.
"Hmm." I say thinking about all the possible foods we could make.
"I don't know, you pick." I say and James chuckles.
"Alright, how about you choose a dessert to make, and I'll do the main meal."
"Sounds good to me." I say getting up from the couch and pulling him with me.
"What would you like me to make?" James asks once we're in the kitchen and I chuckle.
"Make your specialty, like something you enjoy cooking a lot." I say and he nods.
"Okay." He says, in deep thought. "How about something that's healthy and will fill you up."
"That would be ideal." I say and he chuckles.
"Something like a calamari salad."
"That sounds delicious." I say and he smiles.
"The big question is, should we do salt and pepper calamari, or just have normal calamari without the bread crumbs."
"Salt and Pepper please." I say and he chuckles.
"Thought that would be your answer."
"Do you know how to coat the calamari yourself though?"
"Of course, if I didn't I wouldn't be making it for you would I now?" He smirks and I roll my eyes.
"I guess you do have a point."
"So what ingredients do you need for the coating?"
"Calamari obviously." He says and I laugh, pulling out the freshly bought calamari from the fridge. Marcus makes calamari sometimes, but he eats it like that without the coating, as it takes time to coat them.
"Yep, what else?" I ask.
"Vegetable oil, for shallow frying, rice flour. Do you have peppercorn medley?"
"Peppercorn medley?" I repeat, as I open the spices cupboard, trying to find this spice I have never heard of before.
"I take you never heard of it?"
"Never in my entire life." I say and he laughs.
"Well, it's this."
"Em must've bought it, I had no idea that spice even existed." I say which makes him laugh again.
"You're hilarious."
"I know." I say as he reaches up and grabs the spice, before walking back over to the bench.
"Obviously you need the salt and pepper." I say placing that on the bench in front of him and he smiles.
"Anything else?"
"Some chilli flakes, and whatever we can put in the salad."
"Alright, would lettuce, cucumber, cherry tomatoes, feta cheese, Kalamata olives and red onion be good?"
"Perfect." He says as I grab the ingredients out of the fridge and place it on his side of the bench.
"Need anything else before I start searching up recipes for dessert?"
"Nah I got everything, thanks hun." He says and I smile at the last word.
I walk over to the coffee table, picking my phone up and turning it on, before searching up some easy dessert recipes on google.
"Chocolate mousse sounds really good." I say and James laughs.
"Chocolate mousse is like easy to make, maybe make something else as well. I am a bit of a sweet tooth."
"Maybe for you chocolate mousse is easy. But I'll make the cake in a box you can buy from Coles after I make the mousse." I say and James shakes his head.
"That's cheating making it from the box."
"Hey you didn't set any rules, so therefore it's not cheating."
"Alright fine." He says sighing as I smile and walk over to the cupboard, pulling out the box and placing it on the bench.
"Alright." He says with a smirk. "Ready, set, go."
And I laugh as I read the recipe of the chocolate mousse.
Step 1: Place chocolate in a heat-resistant bowl over a saucepan of gently simmering water. Stir for 2-3 mins until melted. Remove from heat.
I walk over to the cupboard, grabbing out a bowl, before taking a sauce pan out and filling it with a bit of water. I place the pot on the stove, turning it on and letting it heat up, before I place the chocolate in the bowl, placing it on top.
I let the chocolate melt before moving onto the next step...
The mousse surprisingly isn't a disaster, so I pop it in the fridge to let it set, before walking back to my bench and starting the cake mix.
I look over to see what James is doing, and he's cutting the vegetables up, placing them in a bowl to make a salad. The calamari is already cut up and coated with the salt and pepper, all he needs to do is shallow fry them.
I quickly whip together the cake, before placing it in the oven and watching James do his thing.
"Smells so good." I say as the smell of the calamari frying fills my nostrils.
"It sure does!" He says as he watches the pan carefully, making sure not to overcook the calamari.
"Can I ask you a question?" I say and James smiles, turning around to face me.
"Of course."
"Where did you learn how to cook like that?" I ask and he chuckles.
"Mum used to get me to help out when she would make things, like dinner, and desserts and what not. And I guess I just really loved it." He says and I smile, then nod.
"That's cute." I say and he smiles, before turning around and focusing his attention back on the pan.
Not long later, the calamari is cooked. James halves the batch, putting it in the two bowls of salad he had prepared earlier and I smile.
"Looks so fucking good." I say as James places the pan back on the stove top, that we'll clean up later.
"Thanks." He says, grabbing both the bowls and carrying them over to meals table, where we both sit down and dig in.
"James." I say with a mouthful of food. "This tastes amazing, like restaurant quality." I add and he chuckles.
"Thanks beautiful." He says and I smile.
"You definitely won."
"Hang on, we haven't tried your mousse yet."
"I guess, but we probably won't get to try it as it'll probably take all night to set."
"Nah, we'll just grab one early." James says and I laugh.
"Alright, we'll see." I say as I continue to finish off the salad.
"What's a memory from high school that you'll never forget?" James randomly asks and I smile.
"Hmm, probably muck up day in year 12." I say and James raises an eyebrow.
"Really? What did you guys do?"
"We put oil on the door handles so that no one could open the doors, streamers and toilet paper thrown all over the school, egged the teachers cars, threw flour at the younger year levels." I say and James laughs.
"Wow, you guys really went all out."
"Yep, we sure did. What's yours?" I ask and he chuckles.
"Probably year 12 camp."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah." He says. "Just so many hilarious things happened. The teachers were playing pranks on some of the boys, we had like parties both nights, karaoke and shit."
"Sounds like fun." I say and he chuckles. "Muck up day we didn't go to the extreme you guys did."
"Yeah I mean we were just a bunch of trouble makers I guess."
"Muck up day was probably the only time you were a trouble maker."
"You're not wrong." I say and we both laugh.
"So you're telling me, if you weren't an AFL player you wouldn't be a chef?"
"Probably not, I like cooking as a hobby, but I couldn't see myself doing that full time you know."
"Yeah I totally understand." I say and he smiles, then he frowns.
"What's that smell." He says turning around to try and work out where the smell is coming from and I frown.
"Smells like something is starting to burn..."
"SHIT THE CAKE." I say jumping up and running over to the oven.
I turn the oven off, before chucking on some oven mitts and pulling the cake out of the oven.
"Is it alright?" James asks suddenly beside me.
"Looks a bit burnt, but should be right." I say letting it cool down and James chuckles, placing the plates and cutlery we used in the dishwasher, and starting to clean up the other things he used to make our dinner, and I couldn't worship him more.
I decide to start making the icing for the cake, hoping that maybe the icing will take out the burnt taste.
It takes me no longer than 5 minutes to whip up some icing. I then walk over to the stove, grabbing the cake and bringing it over to the bench as it has sort of cooled down.
I begin to spread the icing on it, and it starts out okay, before the heat of the cake gets to the icing and starts making it melt.
I put my head in my hands knowing that this cake turned out to be a disaster.
That's when James digs his hand into the cake, before smudging it on my face, making my mouth drop open.
"You did not just smudge cake on my face." I say and James smirks.
"Maybe." He says and I shake my head at him.
"You're gonna regret that."
"Am I now?" He flirts and I nod.
"Oh you sure are." I say as I pick up a chunk of cake and smash it to his face with a laugh.
"Oh you're on." He says picking up another chunk of cake before chasing me around the house, before he catches me and smudges it gently in my face again.
We continue throwing cake at each other before the whole cake has been used and there is nothing else we can throw at each other.
I walk over to the other side of the kitchen, grabbing the pack of wipes that we have, before walking back over to where James is standing, placing them on the bench.
I grab some wipes out and begin wiping my face, and James does the same.
"Is my face all good?" He asks and I nod,
"Yep, good as new." I joke and he smiles. "What about my face?"
"You got a bit of chocolate icing there." He says, grabbing my arm and pulling me closer to him, which immediately makes my heart rate increase.
He opens his mouth, then closes it, leaning in closer it seems as though he's going to lick it off my face, but he suddenly stops, grabbing a wipe out and gently wiping it, just as Marcus walks into the kitchen.
"What a mess." He says clearly shocked at the state of the kitchen, then he turns to us and smirks. "What are you two doing?"
"Nothing, just cleaning the chocolate off my face." I say quickly grabbing a wipe out and wiping the spot that James just wiped, before taking a few steps back from him.
"Hm you sure? Cause it doesn't seem like that." Marcus says as he grabs two glasses out of the cupboard and fills them up with water.
"One hundred and ten percent certain." I say and Marcus chuckles.
"Sure sure."
"We should probably start cleaning up this mess." I say looking at James who just nods. James grabs a rubbish bag from out of the cupboard and starts to chuck the chunks of cake in there that hadn't been smashed completely on our faces.
I go and fetch a mop, as there's no way I'm going to get the icing off of the floor with baby wipes.
Marcus slowly makes his way back upstairs, carefully observing us. He is still suss on what was going to happen if he didn't walk in.
"You two were going to kiss weren't ya?" Marcus randomly says from the stairs and both James and I look at him.
"No." We both say and he laughs.
"I swear Marcus we weren't."
"Okay." He says, before turning around and walking upstairs whilst I start mopping the floor.
"You know I wasn't going to kiss you right?"
"I know. My brother is just trying to speed up the process." I say and James smiles.
"You're right about that."
"Although, I was going to lick the chocolate off your cheek." He says with a smirk and I roll my eyes.
"I knew you were going to do that."
"Sorry, just can't resist myself when I have a gorgeous girl standing in front of me with chocolate on her face." He says and I laugh.
"So I see you've been in this situation once before?" I flirt and he shakes his head.
"Believe it or not, I haven't. You're the first."
"Hm, dunno if I believe that."
"Trust me, you are." James says and I nod, then smile, as I finish mopping up the kitchen.
I take the bucket of dirty water to the laundry where I pour the water down the drain. I then tip the bucket upside down, placing it on the bench to let it dry up.
Once that's done, I make my way back to the kitchen to see it spotless by James who has managed to clean everything up.
"Good work Worpel." I say and he smiles.
"You too Bontempelli. I think we make a good team."
"Can agree with that there." I say as I grab his hand and pull him over to the couch where we both plonk ourselves down.
I sit a few inches away from James, as he grabs the remote and turns the Tv on, clicking onto the Netflix app and waiting for it to load. I love how he is comfortable enough around me to just grab the remote and chuck something on the Tv. Usually, if it was any other guy, they'd probably just sit there and wait for me to do it, but that's not how it works with James.
A few moments later, he pulls me closer to him, wrapping his arms around me and holding me, placing a kiss on my cheek which makes me melt into his arms. Butterflies arise in my stomach, as my heart rate begins to quicken anticipating what's going to happen next.
I snuggle into him, resting my head against his chest as we put a recent movie that has come out in 2022, called Through My Window.
I look up at James who is watching the opening scene of the movie intently and smile. He looks so adorable. His eyebrows are turned into a frown, showing that he is concentrating pretty hard. He bites his lip, something I've noticed he does when he's focused on something, before turning his head in my direction.
He looks down at me and smiles, that adorable grin before we both turn our heads to watch the movie.
It was at this moment, I began to picture a future with James Worpel....
***
HOW CUTE WAS THIS CHAPTER?
THE FOOD FIGHT AT THE END 🤩🤩🤩
Definitely not your typical kind of date, but definitely was adorable!!!
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Next update out Friday!!
Also, hoping my boys can get the win tomorrow night! Will be a tough one though and I am not too confident about winning, especially with how terribly we played last week... but in saying that, Go Dogs!!!