For leobrat
He's rushing to put the roses in a vase before the water boils over the top of the pot. Then he hurries to get the pasta in. He's got maybe fifteen minutes before Liz drops her off and he needs everything to be ready when she gets here.
Also he's rather not have hot water around in case she decided to throw something at him.
He jumped when he heard the key in the lock. Damn it they were early.
"Cruz," she called.
He rushed in, "Hey baby," he said grabbing her bags for her and kissing her cheek, "Happy Valentine's Day."
"Why are you wearing an apron?" she asked, as she held onto his shoulder and slipped out of her shoes.
"I'm cooking," he said slowly wondering if she was going to hit him with the shoe. They had very high heels.
"I thought we were going out."
"Well, I just thought, after a day out shopping you'd be tired. Plus, with the way you've been feeling lately…Oh! Crap." The shoe hit him right between the eyes. That was his Lulu—she hit what she aimed at.
"You don't want to be seen with me anymore because I'm fat and ugly," she yelled then promptly covered her face and broke into tears.
"Lulu, querida, that's crazy."
Exactly the wrong thing to say.
She looked up and glared through her tears, "So now I'm crazy. Crazy pregnant freak of a wife."
"Lu, you are not crazy. And you are not fat or ugly." Slowly he came closer. "You," he said as he pulled her hands gently away from her face, "Are the most beautiful mommy to be in the world. And the most beautiful woman in the universe."
"Really?" She sniffled and leaned closer to him.
"Of course, baby. Listen why don't you go change and I'll take out. I never canceled out reservation so…."
"Cruz, do I smell smoke?"
"Shit!" he ran to the kitchen. The water had boiled over and the garlic bread was burning—the smoke pouring out of the oven. He ran to turn both off before opening the window and waving his arms trying to get the smoke out. He stopped when he heard laughter.
Lulu, his 6 month pregnant, insanely hormonal wife, the one that had been on edge since last week when she discovered she could no longer see her feet was standing in the doorway of their kitchen, hand over her belly, foot stamping, face red and positively giddy with laughter.
"That makes you happy. Hours of cooking and me burning it all makes you laugh for the first time in days," he said this all in one breath and then collapsed into a kitchen chair.
Still giggling softly she walked over and sat down in his lap, "I'm sorry, babe, really. It was just so funny."
"I noticed."
She stopped laughing completely, "It was also really, really sweet." She pressed a kiss to his cheek, then one to his nose and finally a soft, but firm press of her lips against his.
"Good, I was aiming for sweet."
"You succeeded."
Suddenly Lulu stands up and yawns, "You know, I'm really tired from all that shopping. You wanna….go to bed?" She wiggled her eyebrows at him.
"Bed….yeah, let's go to bed." Anxious to get her upstairs before she changed her mind and started throwing things again, Cruz quickly got up and double checked that nothing was still on that might burn the house down. Then he grabbed her arm and pulled her towards the stairs.
Despite the mess in the kitchen and the black and blue on his head he felt confident in calling this Valentine's Day a success.
