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[dinnerfor1_girl]

Sally occasionally hated kitchens.

Sure, they provided you with food and yes, they gave you the place to store bottles and bottles of lovely wine, but they were also occasionally jam-packed with food that had loads and loads of calories in them. This very morning she had woken up, looked in the mirror, and her bottom seemed as though it might

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[remnantofjoseph]

Unremarkably oblivious to Sally's plight was one Joseph Toye, already seated at one of the tables with the fruits of his foraging through the pantry shelves. Today had turned out to be one of those mornings where Gene didn't like the look of him, and he'd gotten that face, where he told Joe without speaking that he had to eat a decent lunch, and Gene would know if he hadn't, because the little woodland creatures that came to do his saintly bidding would tell him, or some shit.

A decent lunch in this instance means comfort food, and the only thing more comforting than a couple of baked potatoes drowned in butter was a slow-cooked roast, maybe, or the grilled cheese sandwiches Hera sometimes insisted on eating.

Obliviousness to her plight never really made him oblivious to her voice, though, and even if he has to chew through another bite of his lunch to do so, he's helpless not to reply; "Hoping someone'll bring it over on a canoe?"

[dinnerfor1_girl]

"It's something simple," she said, opening the door only to close it only to open it and repeat the pattern four times more. "It's something comforting. You come home after a crap day and you get a pizza for one delivered by a potentially gorgeous bloke and then you can wallow in grease and cheese. It's a time-honoured tradition," she insisted stubbornly.

[remnantofjoseph]

"The place is already air-conditioned," he says idly, listening to her mess with the door.

"Grease sure sounds comforting," he adds, his face hopefully conveying how much he thinks it isn't. "Maybe you could make one and ask a guy to bring it to you later. Then you'd already know if he's up to your standards."

[dinnerfor1_girl]

"In this place? He'd much rather be screwing my male neighbours rather than me," Sally said and then winced. "I promise that would make sense if you knew my friend Jane and her...tendencies with pizza delivery men." Though it wasn't like Jane was entirely wrong about it. The man did tend to have his own transport. "Sorry," she said, finally smashing back with reality. "Did you want something from the fridge?"

[remnantofjoseph]

"So ask a guy who wouldn't," he suggests, though, wincing in turn, it sounds more like a question. "I barely understand the idea of someone bringing me hot food beyond handing it over a counter or ladling it into my fuckin' mess tin, if I'm being honest." He'd been about to add, much less screwing the guy over it, but that's probably the only part he has any real experience with.

Waving off the apology--since most conversations with Sally go this route, though he'd probably call it a short-cut through the woods that gets people lost for hours--he picks at his remaining potato and shakes his head. "All set, thanks."

[dinnerfor1_girl]

Sally finally set herself to actually opening the fridge and pushing past any discomfort to actually find something resembling fruit salad and heaping it into a bowl while she studied him. "Do you cook?" she asked thoughtfully. "Or did you before the war and this place?"

[remnantofjoseph]

"Sometimes," he admits, figuring it covers whatever level of cook she means. "More now than then, though my girl wasn't much better at it than I am." It's been a good long while since he last thought of her, but it doesn't exactly sting, now. "Didn't have the patience for it, I think," recalling the times he'd come home to her chewing through an overcooked steak, fork in one hand and book in the other, the pot of vegetables boiling over on the wood stove.

[dinnerfor1_girl]

Sally gave a bemused sound at that. "The only time I ever really cooked was when I had people over. And then you're doing it more for the fact that you want to prove to them that you're not absolutely deficient in the kitchen. Well, for guests and for men. Men like a woman that can cook. Or so we've been taught."

[remnantofjoseph]

"Men just like coming home to a meal 'cause their ma got them used to it," Joe judges, not really caring one way or the other. "I don't think you can like or dislike a thing like that any more than you can like eating it at the table or having a table to eat at, when that's how it's always been."

"Rather have a woman that liked to cook," he adds, ignoring the fact that he doesn't exactly favor or have one.

[dinnerfor1_girl]

"I always liked a man who could find the best restaurants and pay for them," she admitted. Cooking had the reminder of home and home meant domesticity and she didn't really want to be that woman for another fifteen years or so. "Of course, here, we have the option of a Pub, which is admittedly good and...well, and a kitchen."

[remnantofjoseph]

Joe huffs a laugh at that, inclining his head in what could be taken for agreement; he's never really thought of anything like that, since back home he'd never be in any position to let a man take him out for dinner.

"Or you can wait around for somebody to throw a party," he adds to her list. "Probably still end up eating out once a week."

[dinnerfor1_girl]

"Parties are made for drinking. People who eat at parties are people who don't get laid at parties." She took a moment to think about that. "I'm sure there are studies about that. It seems like one of those things a sociologist would waste their time doing."