she asked. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Well…I guess it was bound to come out sometime.
I stopped my pacing for a moment and mumbled, “I may have snuck a few seasonings in the sauce when you weren’t looking.”
She was quiet for a moment, as if processing what I’d said. Then, seeming to catch on, she said in a louder voice, “You spiked my food?”
“I prefer to say I tweaked it.”
“And is this something you do a lot? Or just tonight?”
I started pacing again. “Do I have to answer that?”
“Yes.”
I sighed. “I do it basically every time you cook for me. I know you probably thought I was just being helpful in the kitchen but…”
“But the only way you can stomach my cooking is if you fix it first.”
I pressed my lips together, wondering if I should just deny it. But since the truth was already out there, I said, “Basically.” And when she didn’t say anything for a while, I added, “Is this the part where you tell me you’ll never cook for me again? Because I really hope not.”
“But if it’s so gross, why would you keep putting yourself through the torture of it?”
I sighed and sat back down. In a quiet voice, I said, “Because you love it so much.”
The line was silent for a beat. Then in a confused voice, she said, “What?”
I leaned back against my couch and thought about how her face lit up every time she made a new recipe and watched me for my reaction—the way she got all giddy and clapped her hands together when I told her I loved it.
Seeing the joy on her face each time she was proud of creating the perfect recipe and sharing it with her followers made it so I couldn’t let her stop.
She loved it.
Cooking truly made her happy.
So, whenever she offered to cook a new recipe for me, I’d always shown up early to read through her ingredient list, and yes, sometimes type in different seasoning combinations and measurements into the app she used for all her recipes when she wasn’t looking.
My grandma Kekoa had taught me all about different seasonings and what they could do to a recipe when we lived with her in Hawaii. And since I’d realized that kind of thing didn’t come naturally to Arianna, I just did the recipe tweaking behind her back.
“I’m sorry if you feel betrayed,” I said. “I never wanted you to feel like that. I just—I know how much you love to cook and share it with your friends and family, so I didn’t want to ruin the joy for you.” I took a deep breath, hoping she could see it hadn’t been malicious at all. “And I don’t know how long it’s been since Chad has tasted your cooking, but it really has gotten better this past year.”
“I did start using a timer instead of guessing when things are done,” she allowed. “And yes, I started using measuring spoons instead of eyeballing things.”
“See,” I said, feeling slightly less bad for helping behind her back. “Cooking is an art. It just takes some of us a little longer to get better at it than others.”
I grabbed my water from the coffee table and drained half the glass while Arianna seemed to process everything I’d said.
“So let me get this straight,” Arianna said in a much more subdued tone. “While Chad tasted my cooking a handful of times and refused to give me another chance after a few bad recipes, you spent the last three years enduring some pretty bland, mushy stuff just so you could make me happy?”
“Yeah…”
“Well…” she said. “While I can’t say I agree with your methods one hundred percent, I guess I have to admit that you’re kind of the best friend a girl could have for putting up with everything.”
“It wasn’t all bad,” I said.
I mean, it had given me lots of quality time alone with her since Chad made himself scarce anytime she mentioned a new recipe.
But she didn’t need to know about all that.
“So I guess that since you were watching our video, it probably means you heard Chad talk about why he’d said ‘I love you’ so soon.”
“I did.” I nodded even though she couldn’t see it. “I’m guessing he’d never told you his side of the story before?”
“That would be correct,” she said, sounding deflated.
And now was the time where I needed to decide if I was going to be the type of guy who lifted her up