AUTHOR'S NOTE:

Special thanks going out to gigundoly yet again for help with this one! She always has such great ideas whenever I need to find ways to get myself out of a creative rut! Leave us a review below if you are enjoying this story so far!

Chapter 16: Thursday July 5th, Part Two

ARTIE

Phase two of their stay-at-home date that Artie had put together was dinner. After the way Quinn was so impressed by his picnic basket packing skills on their first date, Artie had promised her that he would cook her a real meal sometime, and he was glad that the time had finally come. He really did love the independence that came along with being at home in his own modified kitchen space, and it excited him to get to show off his skills to Quinn.

"So, I was thinking I'd maybe make us a summertime favorite of mine," Artie told her as he retrieved his handwritten recipe book from a low cabinet and donned his apron (he had to do all he could to protect his khaki pants and the brand new crisp white polo shirt he'd bought for the occasion). "Lemon pepper chicken, with some pasta salad and watermelon on the side. Is that cool with you?"

"That sounds amazing," she replied, taking a seat at the kitchen island.

Artie began coating and seasoning the chicken breast, and as he did his thing, the two of them chatted about everything they could think of– from how Sebastian's first day of work had actually gone (as he'd later fessed up to Artie that, while most of the day went pretty good, there were some not-so-great moments sprinkled in there as well), to Quinn's recent babysitting gigs, to Artie's preliminary college search (while he didn't want to discuss Quinn's going off to college, he was fine talking about where he was at in his own application process).

"Do you, uh… need– or want– any help?" Quinn hesitantly wondered after a while.

He definitely didn't need anyone's help– not here in the kitchen– but Artie knew that her question hadn't come from a place of patronization. He just knew that someone who was as type-A as Quinn preferred to be given a job to do, rather than just sitting around and twiddling her thumbs as she watched him do all of the work. He supposed he could find something for her to help out with so that she wouldn't feel useless.

"While I cook the chicken and cut up the fruit, do you want to maybe take over the pasta salad?"

He already had the pasta boiling in the pot on the stove, so he had gotten her started, but her help gathering all of the other ingredients and preparing them could definitely make the process go by a bit quicker.

"Yes, chef!" Quinn replied all formal before giggling and immediately jumping up from her barstool, heading to the sink to wash her hands and get to work. Artie made this chicken recipe so often that he knew the steps by heart, so he took a moment to find the page in his cookbook where the pasta salad recipe was written so that Quinn would have the list of ingredients and their measurements to follow.

Usually, Artie hated having people hovering around and above him while he was in the kitchen. He could manage just fine on his own, and between him and his chair taking up more space than the average person would, his seated position providing him with a bit of an odd angle to cook from (even with the lowered countertops), and all of the moving parts involved with preparing three dishes at once, having other people hanging around was usually more of a nuisance than it was helpful. Despite all of that, he was willing to make an exception to his typical rules for Quinn.

"Hey, would you mind straining that pasta for me?" Artie asked her when the timer went off.

"Yeah, of course," Quinn replied, setting down the knife and red onion she'd been cutting before wiping her hands on a dishcloth. She turned off the burner and poured the pasta and boiling water into a colander that Artie had already placed in the sink. Artie actually found himself to be glad to have her extra set of hands around to help with that tricky task.

"Thanks," Artie told her. "That's the hardest part for me since I can't just hold the pot with both hands and sidestep on over to the sink. The pot's kind of heavy already, and it's, you know, an open flame and can get kind of hot. I mean, don't get me wrong, I have massive guns and can usually manage just fine by myself, but it's better to be safe than sorry. Or so I've learned."

Quinn laughed at Artie's word choice as she ran cold water over the steaming pasta to cool it off. "I take it that you've had bad experiences in the past, then?"

"Oh, yeah," Artie nodded. "Nothing crazy, but a few times I've accidentally set a hot plate or bowl on my lap without thinking. And, you know, since I can't feel it, I find out a few hours later when I go to shower that I burned myself. It's usually not anything worse than a blister, but skin stuff for me can be pretty annoying."

"I see," Quinn replied, returning to her task of cutting the onions as if Artie hadn't just been a little revealing with his tendency to overshare. That was one of the things he loved about her, though: that she was able to just take everything in stride and didn't dwell on any moments that had the potential to be awkward. He appreciated that, as someone whose life came with a lot of awkward moments.

"Have you ever considered doing this for real?" she asked.

"Like… as a career?"

"Yeah. You're so good at it."

"Well, that would require restaurant kitchens to be accessible," Artie reminded her. "Which the grand majority are not. So, no, I haven't really considered it." After a thoughtful pause, he added: "Plus, I think it's nice to, you know, save something for yourself." He shrugged. "Not every hobby needs to be… monetized."

"As opposed to… directing?"

"You don't think I can make it as a director?" Artie asked, feigning hurt even though he understood the point she was trying to make.

"That's not what I'm saying," Quinn calmly corrected him. "I'm saying that you're very good at lots of different things that you enjoy doing. And plenty of those avenues could lead you to a successful career down the line. That's not a bad thing, it's just something to think about. It's good to have options."

"Alright, I see what you mean," Artie told her. "But… I don't know. They're different to me, directing and cooking. One feels like a way to express myself and my ideas, and the other… is something I enjoy, yes, but it's mostly just to stick it to myself and other people, you know? To prove to everyone that I'm capable of doing things in spite of my disability." He shrugged, heaving a sigh. He'd never actually assigned words to these feelings before, and he wasn't sure he was doing a very good job. "Or it's what I turn to in order to relieve stress when I'm frustrated by the first thing. I don't know if that makes sense, but that's how I see it."

"You're a creative guy. Of course it makes sense that you would have passions for both of those activities, even if they differ in some way," Quinn acknowledged. "And that just goes back to what we were talking about earlier: being artistic has many meanings. Making movies is being artistic. And you know, formally, cooking is referred to as the 'culinary arts'," she pointed out.

"Okay, okay. I get it," he relented, giving in to her well-intentioned argument. "Maybe I'm all kinds of artistic. Except, you know, in the literal sense of the word where drawing is involved."

They shared a laugh at that.

After cooking his chicken fully, Artie then moved on to the fruit. The last time his mom had gone to the grocery store, the watermelon quarters had been part of some pre-Fourth of July buy-one-get-one-half-off sale. She'd sliced up the first one yesterday for the kids to snack on while they were swimming, and that left Artie with free reign of the second one. He preferred it when the watermelon was already quartered like this because it made the task of chopping it up slightly less awkward, if that could even be achieved.

Artie took it upon himself to go ahead and set aside two extra Tupperware containers– one of plain pasta and one with some of the watermelon chunks he'd cut up– in the fridge for Sebastian. He knew that his brother would be coming home from work later and would want food, but that he wouldn't touch the chicken (or even the pasta, once all of the ingredients had been mixed in). Artie had never actually asked Seb why he needed his food prepared a certain way. He didn't know if it was a sensory thing or what, but regardless, Artie knew that he was in no position to push back when someone else needed any kind of accommodation.

"Speaking of those 'massive guns' of yours," Quinn said as Artie was focused on sautéing the butter, garlic, chicken broth, and lemon juice in the skillet to make the sauce for the chicken. "You wanna get the lid off this jar for me?"

Artie smirked up at her before flexing the muscles in his arms to show off. She rolled her eyes and handed him the brand-new jar of black olives she was holding. He was able to pop it off with little effort.

"Superhuman upper body and hand strength," Artie explained, handing her back the jar and its lid. "Mostly from all of the wheeling, gripping the push rim of my wheels, and lugging around the parts of my chair. That kind of stuff. Tends to come in handy, though, doesn't it?"

"I'll say," she agreed, turning back around to focus on her task again. "Man, I craved these all the time when I was pregnant," she shared, beginning to slice the olives into smaller pieces. "I guess they have a lot of some kind of healthy acid in them, which makes them actually good to eat during pregnancy, but it was still so weird."

"I remember," Artie replied with a sly grin. He remembered hanging out with Quinn after school, studying for the honors chemistry class they had together during her second trimester and her going through entire jars of olives in a single sitting. He hadn't commented on it at the time, but her bizarre cravings had left him scratching his head for sure. "Can you still eat this stuff? Or did eating them so often make you sick of them? Because we can leave them out of the recipe if you want…"

"I can definitely still eat them," Quinn assured him. "Beth changed a lot about my body and my life during those nine months, but my food preferences were not one of them."

"Yeah, how is she?" Artie wondered, looking over his shoulder. "I know she and Ms. Corcoran came to the graduation ceremony at the school, but I didn't see them at your party. Everything good with them?"

"Yeah, they're good," Quinn said with a smile. Artie knew that things had been kind of rough between Quinn and Beth's adoptive mother Shelby over the last year, so he was glad to see they'd worked through it. "They went to Rachel's graduation party first, and they were supposed to stop by mine afterward, but Shelby said that Beth got fussy because she missed her nap."

"Ah, I see," Artie nodded. "I saw her from afar in the auditorium and I can't believe how big she's gotten. She really looks like you, with her little blonde curls and her, uh, full lips, and-and her cheeks…" Come on, Artie, seriously? "That's a good thing," he quickly clarified. "I just mean that she got lucky to inherit all of your good qualities. She had a fifty-fifty shot of being born with a mohawk."

Artie couldn't help but grin at his own lame joke that caused Quinn to stifle a laugh and shake her head as she mixed in the last of the olives into the pasta salad. "Thanks. She just turned two last month. That's crazy, isn't it?"

"Wow," Artie realized suddenly, his eyebrows raised. He'd only been a freshman the day Quinn's water had broken immediately after they performed at Regionals. The majority of the team had rushed to the hospital to camp out in the waiting room for moral support during Beth's ridiculously speedy birth before they returned to the venue in time for the awards ceremony. Now Artie was about to be a senior. Time sure does fly. "That feels like yesterday," he added in disbelief.

"Do you remember when you drew me for your duet partner?" Quinn asked, going way back into the archives of Glee Club for that one. When Artie nodded, she looked like she had something she wanted to say but wasn't quite sure how to say it.

"Yeah, I thought fate had put us together," he said, teasingly, still unsure about how to read her expression. "Of course, it might have been the duck…"

They both shared a laugh at Brittany's completely innocent confusion of the words 'mallard' and 'ballad', which had become one of the legendary hilarious stories that were retold at every Glee Club get-together over the years. But then Quinn's expression became serious again.

"I wanted to be excited about the thought of singing with you," she said. "But there I was, hiding this completely horrible, horrible secret about what I did to Finn, plus I think I was on the verge of throwing up, as always. Anyway… I don't want you to ever look back and think there was a time when… when I didn't want to… sing with you."

Artie remembered thinking her surprised look mingled with amusement when he'd drawn her name had been because she was embarrassed to sing with him– he, a dorky freshman and she being… well, being who she was back then.

"I'm just sorry we didn't end up singing anything else together over the years," he said. "We could have been really great…" He was getting a truly wonderful idea now. "Maybe… we haven't missed our chance."

A karaoke date, of course! Why hadn't he thought of that before?

"Maybe we haven't," Quinn agreed with a slight smile, probably catching on to what Artie was hinting at.

They'd finished all of the cooking by then, and Quinn took a step back from the kitchen so that Artie could expertly plate their food before taking two trips to bring their meals over to the table. He would have taken his gentleman act a step further and pulled out her chair for her, too, but she beat him to it by taking her seat before he had the chance.

"This looks so good," Quinn said as Artie set his brake in the spot across from her at the table, where the chair was perpetually missing to make things more convenient for him. "How is it that I've known you forever and didn't know that you could cook?"

"I could say the same thing about you being a closeted artist," Artie teased without missing a beat as he picked up his fork and knife.

"Touché," Quinn acknowledged as she ate her first bite of the chicken he'd made and made a face of pure pleasure, causing Artie to smile. "But seriously. How?"

"I don't know," he shrugged. "Like I told you, my mom taught me after my accident, and the passion for it just kind of fell into my lap. I guess it was because it was something new that I could strive to be good at for the time being since I didn't have school or extracurricular activities going on in my life. My siblings had sports– that was their thing– and I had cooking. I guess I just don't talk about it much because it doesn't seem like such a big deal to me anymore."

Despite his abundance of affection for Quinn, Artie still found his shy side to come out with her in this new role as her boyfriend. He was simply unable to hold eye contact with her for extended periods without turning a deep shade of red– which was proving to be quite the issue since Quinn was constantly catching his eye while wearing this look of love and admiration.

"It was something that I didn't need anyone's help with," Artie further explained, downplaying her compliment and looking away as he felt himself begin to blush again under her gaze. "That was pretty hard to come by, in those days. I liked that it could be just mine."

Quinn nodded. "That makes sense," she acknowledged. "I don't know any other guys who are as comfortable here in the kitchen as you are, and I like that. It's different."

"Well, I have a list of little things that are 'Uniquely Quinn' that I like about you too, you know," Artie told her nonchalantly as he took a bite of his pasta salad. "I've learned a lot about you just by being observant."

"You have?" she asked skeptically.

"Sure."

"Like what?"

"Well, lots of things. Like how you have color-coded school supplies. Science is always green, math is always red, English is blue…" Artie told her, beginning to list off some of the mental notes he'd taken over the span of several years and had kept quietly tucked in his brain. He had never uttered a word of any of these quirks he'd observed to anyone before, but it felt surprisingly natural to be recalling them all for Quinn right now.

"And I like the way you get these two little lines on your forehead when you're thinking really hard while trying to figure something out," Artie continued, leaning across the table and using his fork to point at the spot between her eyes where said lines usually form. Then it was her turn to be bashful and appreciative of his rapt attention.

"Oh, and when you're bored, you do this, like, blank stare look with your eyebrows just slightly raised, and it makes you look like Margo Channing."

Quinn was amused by all that he was saying, he could tell.

"You know, Bette Davis' character from All About Eve?"

She shook her head, still not understanding his film reference.

"Oh, well, we've gotta watch it sometime. It's this great movie from the fifties about a Broadway actress. You'll like it."

Quinn tilted her head to the side and smiled sweetly at him. "I like that we've been friends for years and you are still finding ways to surprise me."

Artie returned her grin and held his glass of water up for a toast. "Cheers to always finding new things to know and love about one another!"

"Yes, cheers to that!"