"Wh- what are you doing?"
"Cooking you something, you need to take medicine, Laurel! you are burning up." He said and my hands immediately went up to my forehead, it felt warm, but not that warm.
"I will be fine on my own, I don't want to be a nuisance."
"Never Laurel, not once were you a nuisance to me, not when your brother asked me to look after you, not when I got to know that you left Ms. Valor's apartment all broken and even if you completely ruin me, you will be everything for me, but never bad, never a nuisance Laurel, never!"
His determined words came down to me as severe shock, my eyes spread and so did my pupils.
"Calm down, and just rest, I will make something for you." After giving me a sweet smile he vanished behind the kitchen wall, and after a minute returned with a glass of water in his hands.
"Here, drink it, there are some ingredients that are missing, so I havae asked someone to bring them, till then I'm doing the preparation...you should go and lay down, I will call you when it's all ready, okay? So go." He ordered around handing me the glass of water, and I drank it, slowly without any protest.
I remained on the couch for five more minutes, as I then began cleaning up the mess I left in middle again. Collected all the scattered papers, everything and then kept them in my bedroom, I could constantly hear the slow, and gentle clink of culinary.
And it gave me a weird kind of peace, I don't know how to put it, but it didn't felt foreign, it felt good.
I went to my bed and laid down on it, reading the novel, when the door bell rang, and Luca opened it, he was talking to someone for a minute or two the closed the door, and his shoes clicked against the floor as he walked back in the kitchen, after 20 minutes, he knocked on the dor of my room.
"Laurel, dinner is ready, I'm setting the table, come quickly."
His soothing voice spoke as he walked away.
When I walked out of the room, aroma of delicious food hit my nostrils, as I closed my eyes at the heavenly smell, as Luca spotted me coming, he pulled the chair for me, removing his apron before serving me.
The table was filled with dishes, soup, lemon garlic chicken, russian salad, pasta, and juice.
"You... cooked all of this?" I asked, almost shocked.
"Well not... everything! Just the soup...the rest of it...I had them...ordered." he replied with his hand caressing his nape, his face red with embarrassment, as I couldn't help but laugh out loud.
"Hey don't laugh, you were sick, and I don't know how to make anything other than soup, and it wasn't going to be enough to fill your stomach, I'm sorry." He looked so ashamed, and for me he looked like an innocent puppy, with his head lowered.
"Hey don't be sorry! thank you, it smells so good, and it really means a lot." I exclaimed and took a sip of my soup, as my taste buds got in contact with warm soup I let out a hum.
"Oh my god! Luca this is so delicious, how did you learn to make this? I mean this is amazing!" I said, devouring the soup.
And I wasn't joking, the soup was actually really delicious, the last time I remember I had soup was actually an instant corn soup that tasted nothing like this one, that was too shitty.
Within a few seconds I had finished the whole bowl of soup, and my stomach was already full with just it.
"I think you ordered, too much, I'm already full after drinking the soup." I said.
"What? You are full just with that, and here I thought I must've found a foodie To match my hunger." He sounded a bit shocked, and a bit sad.
"I'm sorry, but I really don't have that much of an appetite." I shrugged my shoulders.
"It's fine, just relax and eat as much as you can, I will clean the kitchen before I leave, so don't think much about it either, you are sick and all you need right now is sufficient amount of rest."
Even though he was joking here and there, he still had much of concern filled in his tone for me, feeding me medicine, cleaning up the kitchen afterwards, despite me telling him to let it be.
"Okay, now I'm leaving, I will call you in the morning to know if you are okay, I do have a meeting or else I would've brought some breakfast for you, but I'll try to send it over by someone, okay?" He said while wearing his jacket.
I frowned at him, why is he acting like if he won't send me food I would doe out of hunger.
"Luca, why do I feel like you think that I don't know how to cook, like you brought me dinner few days ago, and now too." I was hesitant to ask this question, because I thought I was jumping too far to conclusions.
"I–I'm sorry if I had you feel that way, actually, Kalix had told me that you don't know how to cook, so he told me to look after you, and keep sending you homemade food, since, eating takeaways won't be good for your health, and whenever I didn't bring it, it was actually because Kalix used to inform me that he would be coming over so I thought he would bring it for you..." He explained everything that had happened, to which I simply nodded.
"Thank you, but you don't have to keep bringing me any food now, I have learned how to cook, but if I do crave your handmade soup, I will surely let you know." Bidding his goodbyes he left for his home. It was 11 p.m and I thought it's better to sleep now, or else the fever might get worse.
And I got ready to sleep, changed in a nightwear, and laid down on the bed, but couldn't fall asleep.
My mind began replaying all the events that took place today, the delivery, the misunderstanding, and the most importantly, how Luca handled me, but how did he got here? Like who told him? Because of everything, I couldn't even ask him, how he got to know, he might have an extra key of every single apartment in this complex, but still, someone might have told him about what had happened right?
Unknowingly tears started streaming down my cheeks, remembering what had happened this evening, getting absorbed in the pillow beneath my head, even if I had my heart and mind understand one thing that this world is not mine, it still hurts, the way they both began judging me, not once did they gave me a chance to explain anything, but what would I have said to them? What could I have said to them, was there anything I could say for my right?
Nothing... Nothing was to be or could be said in my justice.
Plus it's not like it was a big thing,
Or so was what I thought.
The next morning when I woke up after a couple of hours of sleep, I looked down outside the building while standing in the balcony, my eyes widening in shock, at the crowd of reporters standing outside the complex, security guards, police officers, everyone present there was trying to stop them from entering inside.
The hell happened overnight?