Stitches

“What can I do?” he asks.

“You want to help?” I ask, lifting an eyebrow.

“Sure, why not?”

I shrug, watching him open the container of grape tomatoes. “No reason, I suppose, just not used to it. Sebastian doesn’t cook. I’m not sure he can.”

Griff shakes his head. “Seb’s an ass. He can cook, but he exaggerates how bad he is at it so no one ever asks him to.” Griff grabs a knife out of the block and points to the cabinets. “You got a cutting board somewhere?”

I eye him up with interest as I walk past. “A man who can cook, huh? I like it.”

“Most of us are capable. You found yourself a fifties throwback, I swear to God.”

I grin as I reach into the cabinet for the cutting board. “When I first met him, he sort of reminded me—now, don’t ever tell him I told you this,” I add, realizing Sebastian probably wouldn’t find it as amusing as I do.

“Of course,” Griff says, taking the cutting board and grabbing a handful of grape tomatoes. “Quarter these?”

I nod my head. “That’ll be perfect. Okay, so, when I first met him and realized how… helpless is the wrong word.”

Griff snickers. “If you’re talking about household chores, helpless is exactly the word. He used to make his hook-ups do the laundry if I wasn’t around.”

“That does not shock me at all.”

“Sometimes I think he brought girls home specifically because the basket was full.”

Laughing a little, I admit, “That wouldn’t surprise me either.”

Griff shakes his head. “Anyhow, go on with whatever you were saying.”

“Okay, so, you never met him because he died a year or so before I met you guys, but I had a grandfather who had married three times. His first wife died and he was living with someone else within a month or so. His second wife died and he got together with someone else just as quickly. Then his third wife died, and he got married three weeks later. It was appalling.”

“Was he a serial killer? Why are all these women dying?”

“Well, they were old. Not his first wife, that was just bad luck, she had an aneurism, but the other two… just health issues due to old age, I guess. No, he wasn’t a murderer. But my mom thought it was so tasteless the way he would just get remarried like it was nothing, how he could not live alone.”

“Seb’s not like that, though. He’s good at being alone.”

“Well, that’s the thing,” I tell him. “We always assumed Granddad was just bad at being alone, but when my mom asked him about it, you know what he said?”

“I’m afraid to ask.”

“He couldn’t cook. Didn’t know how to do laundry. If he walked into a grocery store, he didn’t know where to find anything. He and his first wife got married in a different time; they got married at 18, he went to work, she stayed home and took care of the house and their family. Obviously Sebastian and I do things this way because that’s what we like and it works for us, but back then… it was just what they did. So, from the time he moved out of his mother’s house and into his own, Granddad always had someone to take care of him. When Grandma died, he literally didn’t know how to take care of himself. So he just got remarried.”

Griff shakes his head. “That’s crazy. Seb knows how to do this shit, don’t ever let him tell you he doesn’t. He’s just an ass who thinks his time is too valuable to waste on shit like this. He’s not much of a cook, but he could chop up some fucking tomatoes.”

I shrug my shoulders. “It doesn’t bother me. I like serving him. I know it’s not for everybody, but I get a little charge out of it.”

He quirks an eyebrow and looks over at me. “Out of serving people?”

“Out of serving Sebastian, not people. It suits our dynamic.” So he doesn’t feel left out, I add, “And you, too. I like this, but I’m happy to do the work myself. It makes me feel good to take care of my loved ones.”

“Needed?”

“Yeah, I guess so.”

“It doesn’t bother you that it’s something anyone could do?” I frown at him, so he clarifies, “Like, your grandfather needed your grandma. But when she died, he just brought in a replacement.”

“Well, sure, if literally my only use here was doing chores I could be replaced. Hell, I could be replaced with a housekeeper. That’s not all it is though.” I recall their boorish conversation that woke me up the other night and I narrow my eyes at him with mocking reproach. “I don’t just cook food and drain balls.”