Callan strove to dissemble his edginess as he stood in front of Orla with a tray in his hands. He had chosen to prepare scrambled eggs and sablefish in hopes that she would love them.
He was certain of the fact that she must have eaten scrambled eggs a couple of times, but he knew for a fact that she had never had something as good as this and the mixture he just thought up.
Orla was enthusiastically positioned on the dining chair, one of her eyes ceaselessly studying Callan. She could detect that he was keyed up and she smiled slyly.
Callan could never be tensed up, maybe she was imagining things. But then it was obvious from how his shoulders toughened whenever Orla looked down at the food, the small smile that followed after he looked at her. They all read nervousness.
Something within her urged her to trust Callan's cooking dexterity. She smiled again, keying into whatever that was.
"You should sit too." She said, motioning to the chair opposite the one she was seated on.
Callan smiled like a little child waiting for candies to be served to him. "Eat and tell me what you think. I will sit after that."
"Why? This is not an exam that I have to judge before you sit or something." She waved her hand off, prompting him to take a seat, but he blatantly refused. "Callan, you should sit."
Staring at her as she ate might be a bit too much for her and she just wanted him to focus his attention on something else.
"How about I feed you? You are talking too much." He stood close to her, hovering above her. Orla tried to protest, but he yanked the cutleries off the plate before she could reach for them.
"No, Callan. I can eat." She cried out frustratedly. This man was doing too much.
"I don't think you can," he cut the eggs into morsels and picked them up with the fork. "Now open up," Callan brought the fork closer to her mouth.
She did and he gently placed it in her mouth. She chewed slowly, a frown popping on her face in the process. She seized chewing and glared at Callan with a grim expression.
"It's been months since I cooked last and trust me when I said that I could cook. I really can. Maybe something went wrong when I left the kitchen for a moment." He lowered the fork back to the plate, a surge of chagrin infusing him.
He wanted her to say something about the food. Good, bad, horrible. He would take any but he expected something more, something pleasant, but with how her face was scrunched up in disgust, she might give a response that he wouldn’t love and it would shred his heart.
He had to come to his defence, so he clasped his hands together and started. "Orla, I really can cook but maybe something went wrong while I was checking the fish. Maybe the seasoning wasn't enough or too much, I didn't have a taste while cooking."
He looked so cute when bothered.
Orla smiled. "It's good!" She shrieked, tired of his unending rants.
"What? What? You mean?" His eyes widened in shock.
"I was being overly dramatic. The scrambled egg is very nice and I am certain that everything here is as amazing as this." She smiled reassuringly.
"Oh, I thought I flunked." He heaved a sigh of relief and for a moment, Orla could swear that her heart forgot how to regulate its beats.
It was still strange that Callan cared so much about her and she was trying to find everything real.
"You cook pretty well. Where did you learn?" She took the cutleries from him, dug them into the food and scarfed down the food. "And, er… What is this called?" She pointed at the sablefish.
"Scrambled eggs and smoked sablefish." He took his seat next to her. "Ever had it?"
She stared briefly at the food like she hadn't taken note of the look before now and then, she shot her head up to Callan.
Their eyes met for a few seconds. They stared closely into each other's eyes, neither of them looking away. When Orla discovered that Callan would turn it into a staring competition, she cleared her throat and let out a sheepish smile.
"I have had scrambled eggs a lot of times, but this is my first time having sablefish with it." She told him.
"I figured that. This combination is not common and I wouldn't have known about it if my brother didn't love it." Shrugging his shoulders, he had dropped the words before he realised that he just spat what he never planned to talk about.
"Your brother?" Orla caught the words. "You have a brother that I don't know about?" She tried to sound comfortable, but it didn't work.
She didn't know many things about Callan, but she sure knew that his mother was his only family and now it surprised her that he mentioned a brother.
"Yes, he was older. He's late though, we don't have to talk about him." Orla could vividly see the pain that flashed through his eyes.
Even though she wanted to know all about his late brother, she took note of his gloomy countenances after that and decided to bury the topic if that was what he wanted.
"I am sorry about that, I know he's in a better place than this lonely world."
"Orla." Callan smiled sadly. "Maybe he is."
She gazed at him.
Callan was a tough type, and it was always difficult to read his emotions. But right there, she could read everything he felt. His sad eyes, how his body tensed when he talked about his late brother and the depressing expression he'd had on since then. Orla had experienced them all.
“Yes." She returned the smile.
"So, how about you?" He nudged his head at her and Orla was confused at first.