Love Coming from the Least Expected

Chapter 9

Out of kindness, I decided not to cook caramelized pork anymore.
Instead, I opted for trying my hand at pan-grilled fish in an
attempt to show off my culinary skills.
Christopher laughed as he leaned against the sink, watching me
roll my sleeves up dramatically.
I gave him a sidelong glance. “What are you laughing at?”
He shook his head, but his eyes were still sparkling with mirth.
“Let me clean the fish. You might get hurt.”
He took off his coat as he said so, draping it over my head and
using me as a human coat hanger. The faint, intoxicating smell of
tobacco enveloped me, and I almost couldn‟t bear to take the
coat off.
In no time, he was done and promptly took over the rest of the
preparation process; pouring oil into the pan, frying up some
chopped onions and garlic, and finally putting the fish in the pan.
Unfortunately, he had put it down a little too quickly, and drops
of boiling hot oil splashed out of the pan as soon as he did.
Thanks to Christopher‟s quick reflexes, the oil didn‟t splash onto
me but onto his outstretched arm protectively covering mine. I
noticed his skin instantly start to become an angry shade of red
in certain spots.
“Are you okay? I‟m going to go grab the first-aid kit,” I fretted,

holding his hand up close to inspect it. For some inexplicable
reason, I felt my heart clench at the sight of his reddened hand.
“I‟m fine.” He pulled me into his arms as he patted my head
comfortingly. “I‟ve dealt with worse before.”
I raised my gaze to meet his. “You‟re used to cooking for
yourself?”
Lyle could never cook or do anything useful in the kitchen, so I
had naturally assumed that Christopher couldn‟t either,
completely forgetting the fact that just because they were friends
didn‟t mean that they were the exact same person.
Christopher shrugged and silently turned back around to focus on
the fish in the pan.
At that moment, I had the sudden urge to hug him from behind
and comfort him. It must have been hard living by himself all this
while.
But I didn‟t do so for two reasons; the first being that I couldn‟t
muster up the courage, and the second reason was that the
doorbell rang.
I was about to go and open the door when he suddenly said, “I
swear, I‟m going to remove the doorbell one day.”
“Why?” What had it done to offend him?
He reached out to hold my chin while replying playfully, “I don‟t
want it to keep interrupting us in the middle of our sessions.”
The doorbell rang once more, and I didn‟t dare keep the mystery
guest waiting.
I opened the door to see Lyle‟s mother, Wendy standing there
with a gloomy expression on her face. “Why did you take so long?
What were you doing? Needed some time to hide away your boy
toy, huh?”
I was aware that she was never particularly fond of me, but her
words caught me off guard and caused my palms to grow
clammy.
Fortunately, she was just picking on me and spouting nonsense
like usual before squeezing past me to conduct a cleanliness
check on the house.
She brushed her finger against one of the decorations on display,
squinting at it in disdain. “This is dusty.”
Of course, there‟s dust. We‟re on earth, after all. There‟s dust
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