Hockey Fic - 5 Meals Brandy Bollig Made For Andrew Shaw +1 He Tried To Make For Her
Title: 5 Meals Brandy Bollig Made For Andrew Shaw +1 He Tried To Make For Her
Rating: T
Beta:puckling
Pairing: Brandon Bollig/Andrew Shaw
Summary: Basically what it says in the title.
Brandy isn’t really surprised when Andy follows her to her car after morning skate - they’d been talking about video games, chirping a little, and Andy’s competitive streak is worse than Tazer’s, almost. It makes perfect sense that Andy would feel the need to back up his talk, and Brandy’s already made it clear that she has no intention of going over to his and Leddy’s place, like, ever. Neither of those two dumbasses actually knows how to clean.
As soon as they walk through the door to her apartment, Andy starts sniffing at the air, and Brandy grins. “Smell something, Mutt?” she asks, and Andy scowls at her.
“Fuck off,” he says, glaring. “What is that smell?” Her apartment does smell good - the warm, hearty scent of homemade clam chowder. Brandy takes a deep breath and holds it, smiling.
“I made chowder this morning,” she says, shrugging. The weather’s been getting to her, recently - St. Louis gets cold in the winter, but they don’t call Chicago the Windy City for nothing - and she felt like making comfort food. Andy’s face immediately goes slack with longing, and he turns the big pleading eyes on her.
“Can I have some?” he asks, and Brandy laughs at him, because his pleading eyes are the most ridiculous thing she’s ever seen, and she’s seen Kaner’s playoff mullet.
“If you can beat me at MarioKart,” she says, smirking at him, and Andy basically runs into the living room to get the game set up.
Andy doesn’t win, but he whines so much that Brandy gives him a bowl of chowder just to shut him up. “This is the best thing I have ever tasted,” he says, spooning more chowder into his mouth. Brandy goes pink with pleasure - she knows she’s a good cook, but she hasn’t had a chance to cook for someone else in a while. It’s always nice to be appreciated.
“Are you cooking tonight?”
Brandy turns and gives Andy a raised eyebrow. “No,” she says. His face actually, literally falls, his mouth turning down at the corners as he heaves out a massive sigh. It’s simultaneously one of the best things she’s ever seen and one of the saddest, so she sighs and props her hip against her car. “I’m too tired to cook tonight, Mutt. I’m cooking tomorrow.” His face lights up, and Brandy mock scowls at him. “Did I say you could come over and eat my food?”
“No, but please?” He pulls out the pleading eyes again, and Brandy gives in to the urge and reaches out to ruffle his hair.
“Because you asked so nicely,” she says, sighing at him, and Andy actually punches the air in celebration. It’s one of the dorkiest things she’s seen him do and it’s kind of stupidly adorable.
That’s a terrifying thought, so she shoves it very, very far away and goes home to crash. When she wakes up the next morning she doesn’t think about it as she surveys her cabinets for ingredients. She doesn’t think about it when she finally decides on meatloaf and starts writing up a grocery list. She definitely doesn’t think about it while she’s making dinner.
Andy shows up early, which is basically unheard of, and he’s brought beer. Brandy squashes the warm fuzzy feeling that wants to take root in her stomach at the hopeful look on his face and chases him out of the kitchen.
“Dinner will be ready in 20 minutes, now get out,” she says, putting her hands on his shoulders and steering him towards the living room while he pouts and tries to snag a roll. “No,” she says, smacking his hand away. “Bad dog.” He glares balefully at her but doesn’t say anything, probably because he’s worried she’ll chase him out of her apartment without feeding him.
Andy basically doesn’t even breathe, he’s eating so fast. “Slow down, buddy,” she says, concerned. “My Heimlich’s a little rusty.” Andy snorts but slows down anyway, looking blissed out.
“So good,” he basically moans, and Brandy knows she’s smiling like an idiot but she doesn’t really care. It really is nice to be appreciated.
Brandy isn’t sure whose idea it was to have a potluck dinner, although her money is on the BlackhawksTV guys, since while most of the team isn’t terrible in the kitchen, there aren’t that many who enjoy cooking. She does, though, and she knows Hoss and Oduya aren’t bad, but Kaner’s a disaster and not even Tazer supervising can prevent her from burning things. Brandy suspects that most of them will be getting their significant other to cook for them, although in some cases they’ll probably just bring take-out and try to pass it off as their own cooking. Kaner and Seabs are the most likely culprits - Seabs and Dayna are both awful cooks, and Brandy has long suspected that Duncs and Seabs got houses so close together to prevent Seabs and Dayna from starving to death.
Brandy hasn’t had to cook for more than one hockey player in a while (or two, because Andy’s been hovering recently trying to score more dinner invites, and she’s a total sucker for his sad face), but she decides pretty quickly that lasagna is the way to go. She’s sure that there’ll be plenty of food at the potluck but she makes a couple just in case, because she’s been known to put away half of one on her own.
There is plenty of food at the potluck, although Brandy is kind of proud when she sees that her lasagna is one of the first things to go. Andy sits next to her at the table carrying a plate with a healthy portion of lasagna and wearing a smug expression.
“What’s that look for, mutt?” she asks, digging into the stew Hoss brought. It’s delicious - she’ll have to ask him for the recipe. Andy’s smug look intensifies as Leddy sits with them and sighs at Andy’s plate.
“No fair,” he complains. “You got a ton of lasagna and I didn’t even get any.” Brandy starts laughing at that but Leddy just pouts harder, while Andy takes a huge bite of lasagna and chews it obnoxiously. Brandy stops laughing and looks at them incredulously. It’s just food, after all - why all the fuss?
“Seriously?” she asks, and Leddy gives her a huge sigh and turns to face her, pushing out his lower lip in an attempt to look more tragic.
“Everyone’s going on and on about how good the lasagna is,” he says, mournful. “And I went up to try some, but there wasn’t any left. He probably took it all,” he says, glaring at Andrew, who smirks. Brandy rolls her eyes.
“I’ll make some more for you sometime,” she says absently, going back to her stew. When she looks back up, Andy and Leddy are both staring at her. Which, huh, apparently Andy hasn’t told anyone about her skills in the kitchen. She isn’t hiding them, per say - no, who is she kidding, she’s totally hiding them. She works hard enough to feed herself and Andy when he’s over, she doesn’t want to have to deal with a horde of hungry Blackhawks descending on her kitchen.
“You made the lasagna?” Leddy asks, while Andy says, “Like fuck you will!”
“Yes, I made the lasagna,” she tells Leddy, before turning to Andy. “And like fuck you’ll tell me who I can and can’t make food for,” she says, glaring at him dangerously. “I’ll make lasagna for Leddy if I want, and you are not invited.” She stands and picks up her plate, going off to find Hossa and get the recipe for the stew. Andy follows her, because he’s a persistent little fucker.
“Don’t do it,” he demands, and Brandy turns to face him.
“Don’t do what, Andrew? Don’t cook for my friend and teammate?” Her voice is soft and dangerous, but Andy isn’t picking up on it.
“Don’t cook for Leddy,” he says, and Brandy would take him by the shoulders and shake him except she’s still carrying her plate.
“I’ll cook for Leddy if I want to cook for Leddy, you arrogant jackass,” she says, and she’s only not yelling at him because the whole team is around. “What, you think I should only cook for you?”
“Yes,” he says, shameless, and Brandy just - can’t. Because she wants to, is the thing - she wants to cook just for him but for him it’s just food and for her it’s something else and she’s so very tired of the status quo.
“Fuck you, Shawzy,” she says, tiredly, before turning her back on him and walking away.
Lately Andy has been acting even more obnoxious than usual, and it’s pissing Brandy off. It probably has to do with how she basically ignored him for a week after the potluck. Ridiculous as it was, it got under her skin, and instead of just having it out with him like she normally would when he does stupid shit, she avoided and ignored him. By the time she got over her hurt feelings or whatever the fuck, Andy’d started being even louder and more obnoxious, chirps acquiring a vicious edge they’d lacked before. He’s been bouncing around the locker room, getting up in everyone’s face but hers. He’s been pointedly ignoring her.
The team is starting to give the two of them sidelong looks, and Brandy would really like to know when she got designated Official Andy Wrangler, because, no. Just no. But Kaner is starting to look like she’s about to kick his ass, Tazer’s got the crazy eyes on even more than normal, and even Saader is starting to look like she’s about to strangle Andy with her skate laces, so. Brandy sucks it up and gets Andy in a headlock after practice.
“I’m making dinner tonight,” she says, ignoring his angry shouting as he tries to get free (which, good luck, dude - she’s got three inches and thirty pounds on him and she fights people for a living). “You can come over and eat some of it, if you want.”
“Is Leddy coming too?” Andy asks, and Brandy pushes him away so that she doesn’t give in to the urge to punch him in the face at his snotty tone.
“He can come if he wants,” she says evenly, once she’s got her temper back under control. “I wasn’t going to invite him, though, so that’s on you.” She turns around and stalks off before she can rescind the invitation, even though she kind of wants to.
She’s in a slow, simmering temper all the way through making dinner - apple and fennel roasted pork tenderloin with broccoli and wild rice - that comes to a boil when she hears her doorbell ring. She stomps over to open the door and finds Andy standing on her porch, looking about as sheepish as it’s possible for him to get and holding a bottle of wine. Her temper boils off just that fast, and she holds the door open wider as he shuffles in.
“Leddy not coming?” she asks, because she might not be about to punch him in the face anymore but she’s still kind of upset. Andy ducks his head and mumbles something into her kitchen counter. “What was that?”
“I said, he said I needed to apologize,” he says, peeking up at her. “I’ve been kind of a dick, lately.”
“You’re always a dick, Shawzer,” she says, before reaching out and giving him a noogie. “It’s okay, though. You’re our dick, and that’s what counts.” He perks up after that, and starts sniffing at the air.
“So, what’s for dinner?” he asks, and Brandy laughs and shoves him out of her kitchen.
After they’ve made up from their weird fight things go pretty much back to normal, with Andy kind of hanging around and angling for dinner invitations as often as he can get them. Brandy’s given up on stressing about it in favor of focusing on playing her heart out as they come down on the end of the season She doesn’t give out the dinner invitations nearly as often as she used to, though, because while she’s paid to get punched in the face for a living she’s actually not a masochist, thanks.
Andy’s been acting a little weird, too - he and Leddy have been having whispered conversations that always stop whenever she gets near. She asked Saader about it but Saader just kind of patted her on the shoulder and took her out to get margaritas. Which, Saader’s not even legal yet, so Brandy had to buy the margaritas, so she’s not sure how that was fair. Saader’s just an evil genius, she guesses.
She calls home, eventually, and her mom listens to the whole thing before humming thoughtfully. Brandy hates that sound - it means her mom is going to say exactly what she needs to hear, and she’s going to hate hearing it.
“Oh, honey,” her mom says, and yep - Brandy already hates it. “Have you tried telling him how you feel?”
Brandy scowls at the phone. “We’re hockey players, Mom,” she says. “Half the point is that we don’t talk about feelings. It’s written into our contracts somewhere.”
Her mom sounds amused. “You’ll never know if you don’t ask,” she says, and then changes the subject. “Brittany wants to know if you mind making Lisa’s birthday cake when you’re home for the summer.”
“Nope, not at all,” Brandy says, spinning her hat around her finger idly. “What’s Lisa into these days?”
“Mermaids,” her mom sighs. “I swear we’ve been to the pool every day this week.” Brandy grins.
“I can make a kickass mermaid cake,” she promises, and they talk a little more about news from home and how the season’s going and how well the Hawks are going to do in the playoffs before hanging up.
The thing is, Brandy keeps thinking about it and eventually decides that not talking about it is actually worse than talking about it would be. Andy’s still hovering and fishing for dinner invites but he’s stopped doing it quite so often and to be honest she misses him. So she nuts up and invites him over for dinner - like, an actual invitation and not one that he had to fish for. He accepts, but spends the rest of practice giving her the side-eye, like he’s not quite sure what’s going on. Brandy rolls her eyes at him but spends the afternoon at home cooking and trying not to psych herself out.
Andy shows up at her door promptly on time with a bottle of wine, wearing clothes that don’t actually look awful on him. Brandy eyes him suspiciously as she takes the wine, and then doubletakes, because this is a good bottle of wine. Andy looks like he’s about to bolt, though, so she pushes him into the living room and goes back to determinedly not freaking out in the kitchen instead of giving him crap about it.
The meal is ready before she is, but she goes out and sets it up anyway before calling Andy in. Which is also suspicious - normally he hovers around the entrance of the kitchen even after she’s shoved him out the first time, trying to sneak bites of everything, but this time he actually went into the living room and turned on the TV. He turns it off and comes when she calls him, though, sniffing the air with his trademark hopeful face on, only to stop dead when he reaches her dining room.
Brandy’s face feels like it’s on fire, because she got out the nice plates and the wine glasses. She almost got out the candles, too, but put them back at the last moment because she didn’t want to freak him out too much. She was kind of counting on him not noticing, but apparently he’s more observant than she’d given him credit for, and he raises his eyebrows at her, nodding towards the table. She ignores it, sitting down at her usual spot and gesturing at him impatiently.
“C’mon, Mutt, let’s eat before it gets cold.”
Andy sits down, rolling his eyes back into his head and groaning after the first bite. “Fuck, Brandy, what is this?” he asks, and she keeps her eyes on her plate.
“It’s called Coq au Vin,” she mutters. “It’s French, means Chicken with Wine.”
“This is the best thing I’ve ever tasted,” he says, digging in fervently. “Oh, my god. It tastes like sex on a plate.”
They both freeze after he says that, staring at each other with identical wide-eyed expressions. Brandy wasn’t aware that her face could get any redder and yet it does. Andy’s equally red, and it belatedly occurs to Brandy that Andy probably wouldn’t have gotten awkward about it unless. . .
“This is a date,” she says, less of a question and more of a statement, and Andy grins at her, still bright red.
“Knew you’d figure it out eventually,” he says, and Brandy narrows her eyes at him.
“Just for that,” she says, pointing at him with her fork, “you get to do the dishes.” Andy squawks in protest but she gives him a dirty smile. “If you do them well enough, well,” she shrugs. “I might even put out.”
Andy chokes on the mouthful of Coq au Vin he’d just taken and starts swearing at her, while Brandy gives him her best shit-eating grin and keeps eating. Yeah, they’re both a little slow, but they got there eventually.
+1. Scrambled Eggs and Toast
Brandy wakes up to the sound of Andy cursing at her stove and the smell of something burning. Tempted as she is to ignore it, roll over and go back to sleep, she doesn’t want to be the asshole who wakes up everyone in the building by setting the fire alarm off. She pads out into the kitchen and opens the window, yawning.
Andy is standing at the stove, poking at something that she’s pretty sure used to be eggs. There’s a thin curl of smoke coming from the toaster and Brandy’s betting that her favorite frying pan is never going to be the same.
“It’s too early for this,” she mutters, hip-checking Andy out of the way as she unplugs the toaster and turns off the stove. He starts to protest but Brandy just carries the frying pan over to the sink and scrapes off as much as she can into the garbage disposal before filling the sink with soapy water and leaving it there to soak. When she turns around, Andy’s using a knife to try and pry the toast out of the toaster, and she rolls her eyes at him. “Don’t do that, you idiot.”
“You unplugged it,” he says, mulishly, as Brandy carries the toaster over to the trash can and upends it.
“Menace,” she says, surveying her kitchen. Luckily, he’d managed to confine his mess to the stove and the toaster, but she doesn’t feel like dealing with it right now so she leans over to kiss him into silence. It works surprisingly well..
“You’re buying me breakfast,” she says, once he’s quiet enough. “C’mon, Mutt. And afterwards, we’re coming back and you’re cleaning this up.” When he starts to protest, Brandy just laughs at him. “Next time,” she says, padding back into the bedroom to pull on some clothes, “leave the cooking to me.”
Rating: T
Beta:puckling
Pairing: Brandon Bollig/Andrew Shaw
Summary: Basically what it says in the title.
Brandy isn’t really surprised when Andy follows her to her car after morning skate - they’d been talking about video games, chirping a little, and Andy’s competitive streak is worse than Tazer’s, almost. It makes perfect sense that Andy would feel the need to back up his talk, and Brandy’s already made it clear that she has no intention of going over to his and Leddy’s place, like, ever. Neither of those two dumbasses actually knows how to clean.
As soon as they walk through the door to her apartment, Andy starts sniffing at the air, and Brandy grins. “Smell something, Mutt?” she asks, and Andy scowls at her.
“Fuck off,” he says, glaring. “What is that smell?” Her apartment does smell good - the warm, hearty scent of homemade clam chowder. Brandy takes a deep breath and holds it, smiling.
“I made chowder this morning,” she says, shrugging. The weather’s been getting to her, recently - St. Louis gets cold in the winter, but they don’t call Chicago the Windy City for nothing - and she felt like making comfort food. Andy’s face immediately goes slack with longing, and he turns the big pleading eyes on her.
“Can I have some?” he asks, and Brandy laughs at him, because his pleading eyes are the most ridiculous thing she’s ever seen, and she’s seen Kaner’s playoff mullet.
“If you can beat me at MarioKart,” she says, smirking at him, and Andy basically runs into the living room to get the game set up.
Andy doesn’t win, but he whines so much that Brandy gives him a bowl of chowder just to shut him up. “This is the best thing I have ever tasted,” he says, spooning more chowder into his mouth. Brandy goes pink with pleasure - she knows she’s a good cook, but she hasn’t had a chance to cook for someone else in a while. It’s always nice to be appreciated.
“Are you cooking tonight?”
Brandy turns and gives Andy a raised eyebrow. “No,” she says. His face actually, literally falls, his mouth turning down at the corners as he heaves out a massive sigh. It’s simultaneously one of the best things she’s ever seen and one of the saddest, so she sighs and props her hip against her car. “I’m too tired to cook tonight, Mutt. I’m cooking tomorrow.” His face lights up, and Brandy mock scowls at him. “Did I say you could come over and eat my food?”
“No, but please?” He pulls out the pleading eyes again, and Brandy gives in to the urge and reaches out to ruffle his hair.
“Because you asked so nicely,” she says, sighing at him, and Andy actually punches the air in celebration. It’s one of the dorkiest things she’s seen him do and it’s kind of stupidly adorable.
That’s a terrifying thought, so she shoves it very, very far away and goes home to crash. When she wakes up the next morning she doesn’t think about it as she surveys her cabinets for ingredients. She doesn’t think about it when she finally decides on meatloaf and starts writing up a grocery list. She definitely doesn’t think about it while she’s making dinner.
Andy shows up early, which is basically unheard of, and he’s brought beer. Brandy squashes the warm fuzzy feeling that wants to take root in her stomach at the hopeful look on his face and chases him out of the kitchen.
“Dinner will be ready in 20 minutes, now get out,” she says, putting her hands on his shoulders and steering him towards the living room while he pouts and tries to snag a roll. “No,” she says, smacking his hand away. “Bad dog.” He glares balefully at her but doesn’t say anything, probably because he’s worried she’ll chase him out of her apartment without feeding him.
Andy basically doesn’t even breathe, he’s eating so fast. “Slow down, buddy,” she says, concerned. “My Heimlich’s a little rusty.” Andy snorts but slows down anyway, looking blissed out.
“So good,” he basically moans, and Brandy knows she’s smiling like an idiot but she doesn’t really care. It really is nice to be appreciated.
Brandy isn’t sure whose idea it was to have a potluck dinner, although her money is on the BlackhawksTV guys, since while most of the team isn’t terrible in the kitchen, there aren’t that many who enjoy cooking. She does, though, and she knows Hoss and Oduya aren’t bad, but Kaner’s a disaster and not even Tazer supervising can prevent her from burning things. Brandy suspects that most of them will be getting their significant other to cook for them, although in some cases they’ll probably just bring take-out and try to pass it off as their own cooking. Kaner and Seabs are the most likely culprits - Seabs and Dayna are both awful cooks, and Brandy has long suspected that Duncs and Seabs got houses so close together to prevent Seabs and Dayna from starving to death.
Brandy hasn’t had to cook for more than one hockey player in a while (or two, because Andy’s been hovering recently trying to score more dinner invites, and she’s a total sucker for his sad face), but she decides pretty quickly that lasagna is the way to go. She’s sure that there’ll be plenty of food at the potluck but she makes a couple just in case, because she’s been known to put away half of one on her own.
There is plenty of food at the potluck, although Brandy is kind of proud when she sees that her lasagna is one of the first things to go. Andy sits next to her at the table carrying a plate with a healthy portion of lasagna and wearing a smug expression.
“What’s that look for, mutt?” she asks, digging into the stew Hoss brought. It’s delicious - she’ll have to ask him for the recipe. Andy’s smug look intensifies as Leddy sits with them and sighs at Andy’s plate.
“No fair,” he complains. “You got a ton of lasagna and I didn’t even get any.” Brandy starts laughing at that but Leddy just pouts harder, while Andy takes a huge bite of lasagna and chews it obnoxiously. Brandy stops laughing and looks at them incredulously. It’s just food, after all - why all the fuss?
“Seriously?” she asks, and Leddy gives her a huge sigh and turns to face her, pushing out his lower lip in an attempt to look more tragic.
“Everyone’s going on and on about how good the lasagna is,” he says, mournful. “And I went up to try some, but there wasn’t any left. He probably took it all,” he says, glaring at Andrew, who smirks. Brandy rolls her eyes.
“I’ll make some more for you sometime,” she says absently, going back to her stew. When she looks back up, Andy and Leddy are both staring at her. Which, huh, apparently Andy hasn’t told anyone about her skills in the kitchen. She isn’t hiding them, per say - no, who is she kidding, she’s totally hiding them. She works hard enough to feed herself and Andy when he’s over, she doesn’t want to have to deal with a horde of hungry Blackhawks descending on her kitchen.
“You made the lasagna?” Leddy asks, while Andy says, “Like fuck you will!”
“Yes, I made the lasagna,” she tells Leddy, before turning to Andy. “And like fuck you’ll tell me who I can and can’t make food for,” she says, glaring at him dangerously. “I’ll make lasagna for Leddy if I want, and you are not invited.” She stands and picks up her plate, going off to find Hossa and get the recipe for the stew. Andy follows her, because he’s a persistent little fucker.
“Don’t do it,” he demands, and Brandy turns to face him.
“Don’t do what, Andrew? Don’t cook for my friend and teammate?” Her voice is soft and dangerous, but Andy isn’t picking up on it.
“Don’t cook for Leddy,” he says, and Brandy would take him by the shoulders and shake him except she’s still carrying her plate.
“I’ll cook for Leddy if I want to cook for Leddy, you arrogant jackass,” she says, and she’s only not yelling at him because the whole team is around. “What, you think I should only cook for you?”
“Yes,” he says, shameless, and Brandy just - can’t. Because she wants to, is the thing - she wants to cook just for him but for him it’s just food and for her it’s something else and she’s so very tired of the status quo.
“Fuck you, Shawzy,” she says, tiredly, before turning her back on him and walking away.
Lately Andy has been acting even more obnoxious than usual, and it’s pissing Brandy off. It probably has to do with how she basically ignored him for a week after the potluck. Ridiculous as it was, it got under her skin, and instead of just having it out with him like she normally would when he does stupid shit, she avoided and ignored him. By the time she got over her hurt feelings or whatever the fuck, Andy’d started being even louder and more obnoxious, chirps acquiring a vicious edge they’d lacked before. He’s been bouncing around the locker room, getting up in everyone’s face but hers. He’s been pointedly ignoring her.
The team is starting to give the two of them sidelong looks, and Brandy would really like to know when she got designated Official Andy Wrangler, because, no. Just no. But Kaner is starting to look like she’s about to kick his ass, Tazer’s got the crazy eyes on even more than normal, and even Saader is starting to look like she’s about to strangle Andy with her skate laces, so. Brandy sucks it up and gets Andy in a headlock after practice.
“I’m making dinner tonight,” she says, ignoring his angry shouting as he tries to get free (which, good luck, dude - she’s got three inches and thirty pounds on him and she fights people for a living). “You can come over and eat some of it, if you want.”
“Is Leddy coming too?” Andy asks, and Brandy pushes him away so that she doesn’t give in to the urge to punch him in the face at his snotty tone.
“He can come if he wants,” she says evenly, once she’s got her temper back under control. “I wasn’t going to invite him, though, so that’s on you.” She turns around and stalks off before she can rescind the invitation, even though she kind of wants to.
She’s in a slow, simmering temper all the way through making dinner - apple and fennel roasted pork tenderloin with broccoli and wild rice - that comes to a boil when she hears her doorbell ring. She stomps over to open the door and finds Andy standing on her porch, looking about as sheepish as it’s possible for him to get and holding a bottle of wine. Her temper boils off just that fast, and she holds the door open wider as he shuffles in.
“Leddy not coming?” she asks, because she might not be about to punch him in the face anymore but she’s still kind of upset. Andy ducks his head and mumbles something into her kitchen counter. “What was that?”
“I said, he said I needed to apologize,” he says, peeking up at her. “I’ve been kind of a dick, lately.”
“You’re always a dick, Shawzer,” she says, before reaching out and giving him a noogie. “It’s okay, though. You’re our dick, and that’s what counts.” He perks up after that, and starts sniffing at the air.
“So, what’s for dinner?” he asks, and Brandy laughs and shoves him out of her kitchen.
After they’ve made up from their weird fight things go pretty much back to normal, with Andy kind of hanging around and angling for dinner invitations as often as he can get them. Brandy’s given up on stressing about it in favor of focusing on playing her heart out as they come down on the end of the season She doesn’t give out the dinner invitations nearly as often as she used to, though, because while she’s paid to get punched in the face for a living she’s actually not a masochist, thanks.
Andy’s been acting a little weird, too - he and Leddy have been having whispered conversations that always stop whenever she gets near. She asked Saader about it but Saader just kind of patted her on the shoulder and took her out to get margaritas. Which, Saader’s not even legal yet, so Brandy had to buy the margaritas, so she’s not sure how that was fair. Saader’s just an evil genius, she guesses.
She calls home, eventually, and her mom listens to the whole thing before humming thoughtfully. Brandy hates that sound - it means her mom is going to say exactly what she needs to hear, and she’s going to hate hearing it.
“Oh, honey,” her mom says, and yep - Brandy already hates it. “Have you tried telling him how you feel?”
Brandy scowls at the phone. “We’re hockey players, Mom,” she says. “Half the point is that we don’t talk about feelings. It’s written into our contracts somewhere.”
Her mom sounds amused. “You’ll never know if you don’t ask,” she says, and then changes the subject. “Brittany wants to know if you mind making Lisa’s birthday cake when you’re home for the summer.”
“Nope, not at all,” Brandy says, spinning her hat around her finger idly. “What’s Lisa into these days?”
“Mermaids,” her mom sighs. “I swear we’ve been to the pool every day this week.” Brandy grins.
“I can make a kickass mermaid cake,” she promises, and they talk a little more about news from home and how the season’s going and how well the Hawks are going to do in the playoffs before hanging up.
The thing is, Brandy keeps thinking about it and eventually decides that not talking about it is actually worse than talking about it would be. Andy’s still hovering and fishing for dinner invites but he’s stopped doing it quite so often and to be honest she misses him. So she nuts up and invites him over for dinner - like, an actual invitation and not one that he had to fish for. He accepts, but spends the rest of practice giving her the side-eye, like he’s not quite sure what’s going on. Brandy rolls her eyes at him but spends the afternoon at home cooking and trying not to psych herself out.
Andy shows up at her door promptly on time with a bottle of wine, wearing clothes that don’t actually look awful on him. Brandy eyes him suspiciously as she takes the wine, and then doubletakes, because this is a good bottle of wine. Andy looks like he’s about to bolt, though, so she pushes him into the living room and goes back to determinedly not freaking out in the kitchen instead of giving him crap about it.
The meal is ready before she is, but she goes out and sets it up anyway before calling Andy in. Which is also suspicious - normally he hovers around the entrance of the kitchen even after she’s shoved him out the first time, trying to sneak bites of everything, but this time he actually went into the living room and turned on the TV. He turns it off and comes when she calls him, though, sniffing the air with his trademark hopeful face on, only to stop dead when he reaches her dining room.
Brandy’s face feels like it’s on fire, because she got out the nice plates and the wine glasses. She almost got out the candles, too, but put them back at the last moment because she didn’t want to freak him out too much. She was kind of counting on him not noticing, but apparently he’s more observant than she’d given him credit for, and he raises his eyebrows at her, nodding towards the table. She ignores it, sitting down at her usual spot and gesturing at him impatiently.
“C’mon, Mutt, let’s eat before it gets cold.”
Andy sits down, rolling his eyes back into his head and groaning after the first bite. “Fuck, Brandy, what is this?” he asks, and she keeps her eyes on her plate.
“It’s called Coq au Vin,” she mutters. “It’s French, means Chicken with Wine.”
“This is the best thing I’ve ever tasted,” he says, digging in fervently. “Oh, my god. It tastes like sex on a plate.”
They both freeze after he says that, staring at each other with identical wide-eyed expressions. Brandy wasn’t aware that her face could get any redder and yet it does. Andy’s equally red, and it belatedly occurs to Brandy that Andy probably wouldn’t have gotten awkward about it unless. . .
“This is a date,” she says, less of a question and more of a statement, and Andy grins at her, still bright red.
“Knew you’d figure it out eventually,” he says, and Brandy narrows her eyes at him.
“Just for that,” she says, pointing at him with her fork, “you get to do the dishes.” Andy squawks in protest but she gives him a dirty smile. “If you do them well enough, well,” she shrugs. “I might even put out.”
Andy chokes on the mouthful of Coq au Vin he’d just taken and starts swearing at her, while Brandy gives him her best shit-eating grin and keeps eating. Yeah, they’re both a little slow, but they got there eventually.
+1. Scrambled Eggs and Toast
Brandy wakes up to the sound of Andy cursing at her stove and the smell of something burning. Tempted as she is to ignore it, roll over and go back to sleep, she doesn’t want to be the asshole who wakes up everyone in the building by setting the fire alarm off. She pads out into the kitchen and opens the window, yawning.
Andy is standing at the stove, poking at something that she’s pretty sure used to be eggs. There’s a thin curl of smoke coming from the toaster and Brandy’s betting that her favorite frying pan is never going to be the same.
“It’s too early for this,” she mutters, hip-checking Andy out of the way as she unplugs the toaster and turns off the stove. He starts to protest but Brandy just carries the frying pan over to the sink and scrapes off as much as she can into the garbage disposal before filling the sink with soapy water and leaving it there to soak. When she turns around, Andy’s using a knife to try and pry the toast out of the toaster, and she rolls her eyes at him. “Don’t do that, you idiot.”
“You unplugged it,” he says, mulishly, as Brandy carries the toaster over to the trash can and upends it.
“Menace,” she says, surveying her kitchen. Luckily, he’d managed to confine his mess to the stove and the toaster, but she doesn’t feel like dealing with it right now so she leans over to kiss him into silence. It works surprisingly well..
“You’re buying me breakfast,” she says, once he’s quiet enough. “C’mon, Mutt. And afterwards, we’re coming back and you’re cleaning this up.” When he starts to protest, Brandy just laughs at him. “Next time,” she says, padding back into the bedroom to pull on some clothes, “leave the cooking to me.”