Standing over the old plastic chopping board, Jason glided his knife through the button mushroom, cutting it into even slices. Putting the slices into the white ceramic bowl next to him, he grabbed the next mushroom and without much thought cut it up evenly, like the first. Darting his eyes over to where Stephanie stood to his left, he noticed that she was taking the skin off an onion, preparing it. He watched how her fingers gently peeled the skin away and put it to the side, how they held onto the knife and cut the onion in half in one even motion. Something about Stephanie being domestic in his kitchen made him feel something, it was warm and fuzzy and a feeling he wasn't used to.
Concentrating back on what he was doing, he placed the cut mushrooms into the bowl and grabbed the tomatoes out of the other bowl, this one a green ceramic, and washed them, making sure they were clean and shiny before he lined them up to cut them into chunks for the sauce. Hearing Stephanie sniff, Jason turned to her and watched as she wiped away the tears from her eyes with the back of hand. The onions had gotten to her.
"Jesus Christ!" Stephanie proclaimed, blinking rapidly as more tears rolled down her face.
"You got onion in your eye, didn't you?" Jason said, softly shaking his head as he gently held onto her forearm and guided her over to the sink, making sure she didn't bump into anything.
"How did you guess?" Stephanie replied with her eyes tightly pressed shut as she tried to stop the stinging. She had one hand firmly holding onto Jason for support.
"I'm going to need you to open your eye in a minute so we can flush it, and before you ask I actually have a proper eye bath with saline, I keep it in the kitchen for emergencies like this."
Getting Stephanie to hold onto the sink, Jason prepped the eye bath, making sure he had extra saline out just in case it was needed. Helping Stephanie to rinse out both of her eyes, Jason got her to lean her head forward as he held the bath over her eye, one hand gently cupping the back of her head as he tilted her head back to rinse out her eyes. Making sure they got all the onion out, they repeated the eye bath a few times until Stephanie's eyes stopped stinging. It was a bit challenging in the beginning as Stephanie was having trouble keeping her eyes open but they persisted and got there in the end. Grabbing a couple of tissues from coffee table, Jason carefully cleaned up Stephanie's face, being careful to make sure he didn't irritate her eyes any further. "Are you feeling any better?"
"A little, thank you, I don't know why I did that," Stephanie replied, noticing the top of her shirt was wet.
"I have a pile of clean shirts in the dryer if you want to go grab one," Jason offered, scratching his head as he watched Stephanie pull at the neckline of her shirt.
Watching as Stephanie walked into the laundry Jason took a deep breath in and cleaned up the sink, waiting for her to return. Seeing Stephanie re-enter the kitchen, Jason felt something stir inside of him as he saw her coming towards him, wearing his favourite black shirt. Offering her a smile he felt good about himself when she smiled back. "I'll finish the onion if you want to start on the tomatoes."
Hearing Stephanie agree with him, he got to work on dicing up the onion and putting it into a bowl next to the rest of the prepared food. They were making spaghetti bolognese together and Stephanie decided that it required vegetables, much to Jason's dismay.
Putting a pot of salted water onto the stove top to boil, Jason got busy getting everything ready to be cooked. Watching as Stephanie started to cook the mince, he smiled at how right it felt that they were in the kitchen together. Setting the small table, he made sure he put out extra parmesan cheese for Stephanie before returning to the kitchen and getting them both a cold drink to go with dinner.
Gracefully moving around each other and taking turns at cooking the food, they smiled at each other when it was done. Serving it up into two bowls, they sat together at the table and ate their food, the television on it the background. Watching as Stephanie slurped up some of her pasta, Jason softly smiled at her and wiped the little bit of sauce off her nose with his finger. Feeling Stephanie's soft hand touch his, he felt her soft lips wrap around his finger as she sucked the little bit of sauce off, giving him a wink before she went back to eating her pasta, leaving Jason sitting there, bright red and flustered.