Chapter Ten:Elena
Just as Gerard had asked, Elena had taken the time that he had been gone at work to look into prospective vacation destinations. She went with her initial thoughts on going to Barcelona, figuring that Gerard wouldn’t mind a chance to spend a few days on the beach. Plus, Barcelona had some very romantic destinations, which she was sure the two of them would be able to take advantage of now that they had become a couple. She chose to pay for the trip herself, figuring that at the worst that Gerard would reimburse her for it later. Humming gently to herself as she finalized her order, she rose from where her laptop was sitting and walked to her bedroom so that she could start deciding on what she wanted to pack. Since it was going to be warm there, she figured that there was no real reason for her to pack pants or other warm clothing like that, though she might decide to take a pair of sweatpants with her on the off chance they wanted to sit out on a balcony at night when it got cooler.
Feeling content with what she had accomplished for the day, she decided that she was going to kill time until Gerard’s return by going out to buy some food to prepare for their dinner tonight. Sure, she had plenty of groceries, but she figured that he would appreciate her taking the time to prepare some of his favorite dishes for him. He’ll be so surprised that I remembered his favorite foods. She thought with a giggle, bouncing on the balls of her feet as she threw on a clean pair of jeans and a white Journey t-shirt that her dad had picked up for her last time he went to one of their concerts. Grabbing her keys and wallet from where they sat on her nightstand beside her bed, she headed to the grocery store.
An hour later, she returned to the house with her trunk filled with bags of groceries. She had been worried that she was going to be forced to carry all the bags up herself, but fortunately, a few of her college-aged tenants happened to be going inside and offered to lend her a hand. She knew that they were only doing it because they found her attractive, but she appreciated the help nonetheless. Once she had said goodbye to them and closed the door, she went about pulling out all the items that she planned on cooking. No one will be able to say that I’m not a considerate girlfriend.
Time seemed to fly by as she was preparing everything, the chopping up of ingredients taking a good half an hour alone. She would pause occasionally to wipe up the sweat that was beginning to drip from her forehead with one of the clean dish rags she had handy before returning to what she was doing, smiling to herself all the while. She had queued up her Pandora app to play some music for her, her head tilting gently back and forth in time to some Daft Punk music. She could have been a bit faster when it came to chopping things up, but she didn’t want to risk cutting herself and ruining the hard work that she had already put into preparing everything. Patience, she figured, would go a long way here.
Once everything was cooking in the oven, she walked over to her couch and sat down with a weary sigh. Now all that was left was to wait, which was the easiest and most difficult part of the process. Easy because all the hard work had been done already, but hard because the mouth-watering scents soon began to fill her apartment, causing her empty stomach to rumble with hunger. She was the kind of person who usually only ate one meal a day, so this was the time of day that she would usually eat. She told herself to be patient, knowing that the end result would be more than worth the wait. Plus, it would mean that she would be able to enjoy Gerard’s company while she ate, which only seemed to sweeten the deal for her.
By the time five o’clock rolled around the food was done and ready to be eaten. It turned out to be a good bit of timing on her part since she had no sooner finished pulling the last of the dishes out of the oven when she heard a gentle knock on the door. She didn’t even have to look through the peephole at the top to know that it was Gerard, pulling the door open to find her boyfriend standing there with another bouquet of flowers held gently in his hand. “Something smells good around here. I take it that you went all out with cooking?”
“You could say that,” she said shyly, blushing at the sight of the flowers. She had never realized how much of a romantic he could be. “I decided that I would make some of your favorites to celebrate us hooking up.”
“An interesting reason, but not one that I disapprove of,” he said kindly, his eyes closing as he took a deep breath, drawing the different smells into his nose. “It seems like you didn’t leave a single thing out, judging by the smell of this place.”
“I only made four dishes, but I know that the quality is going to more than make up for the quantity,” she replied casually, leaning up to give him a gentle kiss before taking the offered flowers, giggling gently as she wondered where she was going to put them since her vase was currently filled with the bouquet he had sent yesterday. She suddenly remembered that she had another vase sitting in a box in her closet; a souvenir from the last time that she had been to Paris on holiday. She figured that would be more than sufficient for the flowers, and soon the vase in question was sitting on her living room table, offering a nice touch of freshness to the room.
“Well, now that I am here, how about we take advantage of the delicious feast that you’ve prepared for us?” Gerard said, pulling off his tie and draping it carelessly over the back of the couch along with his suit jacket. “I’m starving.”
Elena nodded with delight, pulling two plates out of her cupboard and offering one to Gerard. He took it gratefully and stood before the stove, stroking his beard lightly. “Man, this all looks so good. I don’t know what I should try first.”
“Maybe you could try the bacon wrapped pork roast? It gave me quite a bit of trouble when I was trying to keep it from falling apart, but I think I managed it just fine. It probably is going to fall apart the instant you cut a piece off, though. Nothing I can really do about that,” she admitted, rolling her shoulders in a casual shrug.
“To be fair, I don’t think I’ve seen a bacon wrapped roast that hasn’t fallen apart when you cut it,” Gerard said, setting his plate on the counter top so that he could pick up the sizeable knife sitting beside the pan and slicing a thick chunk of the roast off. He set it carefully onto his plate, then sliced off another piece for Elena, going so far as to set it carefully onto her plate for her as she held it out to him.
“I went ahead and reserved the tickets for our flight as well as renting the hotel room. I decided that I want to go on a trip to Barcelona, and I figured that you probably wouldn’t object to that. I hope you don’t mind,” she added, glancing over at him to gauge his reaction.
“Barcelona, eh? Not a bad choice at all. It is one of the few places that I’ve never actually gone. If you remember, when we were supposed to go together on a mission a year and a half ago Charlie suddenly decided to send me to Rome instead,” he said conversationally, serving himself some food from the other dishes before sitting down at the kitchen table to wait for her.
When the two of them had both made their plates and took a seat at the table they could finally begin to eat. Elena watched with anticipation as Gerard cut a small piece from the roast and lifted it to his mouth, letting out a small sound of approval. “This might be the best roast I’ve ever had.”
Elena blushed at that, waving her hand dismissively. “You are just saying that,” she insisted, secretly pleased by his obvious praise.
“I never say things that I don’t mean,” he said seriously, though a small smile tugged at his mouth as he inclined his head slightly. “Well, at least not in situations like this. It’s a different story when I am on a mission.”
Elena nodded at that, not needing to say anything. She knew exactly what he was talking about since she understood only too well the level of subterfuge that was required in their line of work. Still, it was flattering to know that he thought so highly of her cooking, and she decided to just take his compliment for what it was. “Thank you. I was worried that it wasn’t going to turn out the way I was hoping it would.”
“Well, it seems to have turned out just fine to me,” he said smiling, offering her a bite of roast from off his own fork, which made her blush even brighter. She still ended up taking the offered morsel though, going so far as to offer him a bite off her fork to make them even. Elena couldn’t remember the last time she had felt as wanted as she did with Gerard, and if he was treating her this well only one day into their relationship she couldn’t wait to see how he would be as their relationship went on.