1994~Kai Parker

Coexisting

   A few weeks had passed, and living with Kai in the Salvatore house had turned out not to be so bad. His behaviour had been mostly upstanding, apart from continuing to eat jam with his fingers and munching way too loudly on pork rinds, and I was pleased to see what I hoped was improvement. I tried to keep to myself as much as possible, which was made much easier when I had an entire house to explore. There were so many books to read and movies to watch, and I had tried to keep myself occupied. A couple of evenings ago I had decided to watch The Breakfast Club, and Kai happened to crash the screening.

   "What are you watching?" he said.

   "The Breakfast Club." I responded.

   "Ooh, I've never seen it."

   "You've never seen the Breakfast Club?" I asked, aghast.

   "No."

   "Well, then you're lucky that I'm only a couple of minutes in."

Although I still wasn't entirely comfortable with him yet, I couldn't deny him such an iconic movie. I rewound it back to the beginning, and he got up without saying a word. Confused, I waited a second before I heard him shuffling around in the kitchen. My curiosity was piqued, so I got up and followed him to see what he was doing. Kai was at the stove, moving a pan of Jiffy Pop over the flame.

   "Oh my gosh, Jiffy Pop! Like in Scream!"

He turned around, surprised to see that I had followed him.

   "Scream?"

   "Oh, it's a horror movie. It came out in 1996 though, I think."

He was silent, watching closely as the foil began to expand; soon popping sounds were rattling off in rapid succession. Once it was finished, he took it off the stove and carried it into the living room. I went back as well, and he placed the popcorn on the cushion between me and him before he ripped open the foil. The buttery aroma was intoxicating, and I reached down to grab some.

   "Who said that you could have any?"

I stopped in my tracks, about to mumble a disgruntled apology.

   "I'm kidding! I made it for the both of us."

I rolled my eyes before I took some, mulling over the word "us"; it had sounded strange coming from him, but I had to admit that I liked the sound of it. Savoring the flavor of the warm popcorn, I started the movie.

   A couple of minutes in, Kai said, "I like this Bender guy."

   "Of course you do."

As we got to the scene where Bender talked about his family, I noticed in my periphery that Kai was shifting around on the couch. I looked over to see his fists curled up and his jaw tightly clenched, and I realized that this must have stirred up some memories from his past. Averting my eyes so that he wouldn't see me looking at him, I practically held my breath, waiting for some kind of outburst. However, when the scene passed, I saw the previously tense Kai become relaxed again. I was impressed-he had managed his anger relatively well. When we got to the end of the movie, I looked over at him to see him lost in thought.

   "What did you think?" I prompted.

   "I liked it." he said, still a little zoned out.

   "Good."

Today, by my count, was two weeks before Christmas, and I decided to bake gingerbread cookies and make my favorite kind of boozy hot chocolate. I put on a red and green flannel to try and get in the Christmas spirit before I went downstairs to gather the ingredients. Luckily I had gotten some butter, molasses and flour at the store yesterday, so I began to assemble everything on the kitchen counter. Hmm, maybe I could make some sugar cookies too. And a pecan pie. Though the baking would probably take me all day, I was glad to have the distraction. I decided to start on the pie first so I could get it in the oven, and I hummed Jingle Bell Rock as I got to work.

   "Woah!" Kai commented as he entered the kitchen and saw everything splayed out on the counter, "What are you doing?"

   "Baking."

   "Yeah, I see that. Is the Tanner family coming over or something?"

   "Haha, very funny. No, I just felt like getting into the holiday spirit."

   "Cool, cool", he said, walking over to dip a finger in the pie filling.

   "No!" I protested, motus-ing him away.

He went backwards into the cabinet, and I gasped at my inadvertent reaction.

   "Oh my gosh! I'm sorry!"

   He wiped a flash of anger off of his face before he just laughed a little and said, "It's fine. I guess you're very defensive of your pies."

I smiled at him, relieved to see that he had made a light quip. He came up behind me and rested his head on my shoulder, watching as I went along. I was startled by the move but I didn't push him off-his skin was warm against mine and I found it to be quite pleasant.

   "Can I help?" he asked softly.

I was surprised by the request, but I figured there was no harm in granting it.

   "Uh, sure, if you want you can help me with the gingerbread cookies because I'm about to pour this into the pie shell and then put it in the oven."

   "Ok." he said before he lifted his head off of my shoulder.

I turned to pour the mixture in the pre-prepared pie shell and put it in the oven.

   "Alright," I began, "First things first, you need to wash your hands."

   "Already done."

   "Ok, good."

As I turned around I saw that he had also put on an apron, a red one with frills at the bottom. Before I could stop myself, I let out a little giggle at the strange ensemble.

   "You like it?" he said, striking a pose.

   I covered my mouth with my hand to keep from laughing any more before I said, "Oh yes, very much so."

Kai followed me as I walked over to where I had set out all of the gingerbread ingredients, and I began to assemble them together, instructing Kai to add some of the ingredients as we went along. When we finished with the wet ingredients and got to the dry, I asked him to add the flour. He took the first cup of it and threw it in the bowl, causing a cloud of it to hit my face, sprinkling it with white specks of flour.

   "Agh!" I gasped out in surprise, blinking rapidly as flour fluttered down from my eyelashes.

Kai burst out laughing at how ridiculous I must have looked, and I glared at him for laughing at my expense. I wasn't really that mad, but I didn't want him thinking that I found him at all endearing...even though I did at times, this being one of them.

   The look on my face made his laughter die down a little, and when he finally stopped he said, "Here, let me help you with that."

He reached into a drawer and grabbed a kitchen towel, wetting it in the sink before he walked back over to me. Thinking that he was going to hand it to me, I was startled when instead he held the side of my face with his hand, gently turning it towards him as he wiped the flour off of it with the checkered cloth. I could feel the coolness of his rings against my cheek as he continued to clean my face, and I gazed up at him, watching him concentrating on getting the flour off of my face. He had the slightest wrinkle forming between his eyebrows as he focused on the task, and I admired it until he stepped back and let go of my face.

   "There we go." he said, booping my nose before he put the washcloth down on the counter behind him.

I just stared at him blankly, and he tilted his head at me in confusion.

   "Hello, earth to Sloane!" he said, waving his hand in front of me.

   Embarrassed, I shook my head back and forth a little before I said, "Oh, uh, thanks for...that. So, back to the recipe..."