Bleed Until You Heal

9- Homemade Dinners

"This was a terrible idea," I say with a laugh as Jasper tries to open the package of raw chicken on the kitchen counter.

"Shut up, no it wasn't," He refutes, also laughing, as he starts skimming through the recipe that he had printed off earlier in the day. "We are fine dining tonight!"

With my expensive SLR camera in my hands, I put it to my face and look through the little window before snapping a picture of Jasper who finally succeeds in cutting open the thin plastic with a knife.

"Why don't you stop taking pictures and help?" He wonders with raised eyebrows.

"Okay, okay," I appease him and put my camera down in the living room (far away from food) and then I go over to where he's standing with the printed out recipe and all of the ingredients splayed out on the countertop. Earlier this morning, I was online and saw a picture of some really tasty-looking food and when I complained about being a horrible cook, Jasper decided that we were going to go to make a really awesome meal tonight for dinner. So we went grocery shopping a little bit ago and now, it's time to actually try making the mushroom chicken that Jasper found a recipe for online.

"What do you want me to do?" I ask him, standing beside Jasper at the counter.

"Um, okay, here, cut up the mushrooms like they are in the picture and then start sautéing them in the pan. And add this stuff, it says right here. Basically, just read this part here," He instructs me and then points to the paper that has the recipe for the mushroom sauce. I look at the paper but before I get started, I hook Jasper's phone up to the speaker system that we have (it was here when we got here and it's really nice) and play our favorite playlist loudly through the apartment, but not too loud to cause others to complain.

"Yes, sir," I joke, taking the cutting board and I start to cut up the mushrooms as he takes care of the chicken.

"And we bought too much chicken so we're either going to have a lot of leftovers or-"

"I'll call Scott," I chirp before he can finish his sentence.

He offers me a raised eyebrow and then he laughs but he doesn't say anything. I can feel his judgment though.

"What? It's not like you have any friends here yet, do you?" I remind him jokingly. "I'm just being friendly."

"I thought that his girlfriend doesn't like you," Jasper says.

"She doesn't," I sigh. "But that doesn't mean that we can't be friends. I promise that I'm not going to try and seduce him with mushroom sauce. I'm not going to try and seduce him at all. He's just really nice and it's been so long. I feel like we have like eleven years to make up for, you know? Anyway, if you don't want me to call him, I won't. It can just be me and you, that's fine too."

"No, you can call him," He concedes.

"Please tell me that you don't hate him," I plead with him. It'd really suck if my new best friend and my old best friend didn't get along.

"I don't hate him, Jo," He assures me. "I'm just worried about the girlfriend thing. It just sounds like the potential for a lot of drama."

"You know me better than that," I defend, continuing to cut the mushrooms into slices on the cutting board as he stars making the breading for the chicken. "I may have questionable morals when it comes to boys but I'm not going to mess around with a guy who has a girlfriend, even if it is Scott. He's awesome, but he's not worth my dignity."

"I know that I know you better than that, it's just worrisome," He justifies. "But what do I know? Go call him so that he can fall in love with our cooking because it'll be amazing."