Sean

I was really glad for once Flora didn't whine about going outside or inviting all of our friends over for an impromptu party. She seemed perfectly contented with taking refuge in the beach house with me. Apparently the antidote for boredom was sex. To me nothing beat this; cooked up in an isolated place where it seemed like the end of the world, where the only things necessarily were the two of us and lots of condoms.

I was exaggerating, of course. "We still have to eat some time," I said.

"Yeah." She sighed unhappily as if eating was hard labor. "Maybe you can rummage around the cupboards and refrigerator to see if there's anything edible."

The kitchen was glorious, gleaming white and fully equipped with appliances, yet very empty. Flora explained they almost never cooked. I managed to come across some dry pasta, a chunk of cheese, a can of tomato paste, as well as various dried up spices.

"Do you want to have pasta?"

"You can cook?" Her eyebrows rose.

"Not really, but I can follow instructions. We can search for a recipe online. It shouldn't be harder than a chemistry experiment, right? And there's more room for error."

"A chemistry experiment? You're so romantic, Sean." She shook her head and smiled. "Since you're the expert, I'll let you conduct the experiment."

I started with the cooking and Flora started with the interrupting. She leaned against the large island in a silk robe, the very definition of distracting.

"My brother Edward is an epicure," Flora started telling me. "He's extremely picky and thinks of himself as some kind of food critic, and whenever he's eating he comes up with pretentious descriptions like simmering, robust, and crusts up in all the right places." She rolled her eyes. "But the thing is, he takes a small bite and never finishes his food."

I placed the spaghetti in the pot as the water came to life with bubbles. It took seven minutes to be ready. She came over to taste the tomato sauce, making an exaggerated sound of appreciation. "Yum!"

"Just yum? Not simmering and robust?"

She chuckled. "I appreciate fine food, but I'm just not good with compliments. The sauce is really tasty though. You're awesome."

She stared at me with unmistakable admiration in her eyes, and I couldn't believe how I missed that before. Like savoring cuisines, we didn't need well-structured lines to describe how we felt. I could probably name a hundred special things about her, although Flora never asked. She probably couldn't tell me anything other than she liked my face, even if I put a gun to her head, but I wasn't insecure anymore. We loved each other and words were redundant, the way we showed our appreciation with food by simply cleaning everything off the plate.

She hopped on the counter and crossed her legs. I glanced at her and our eyes met. It was inexplicable how I still felt a bolt of electricity, the way Benjamin Franklin probably did on the day he decided to fly a kite with a metal key into the storm clouds.

"Sean." The way she said my name had this strange, unexplainable pull to it, like it had claws. I dropped the wooden spoon and went over to her, and she wrapped her long legs around my waist and tugged me closer. I couldn't fight her even if I wanted to.

I cupped her face and kissed her slowly. A soft sigh fell off her lips, and my brain completely stopped functioning. It was like a feather falling off a cliff. I was floating, drifting, with nothing to hang on to. The attraction was stronger than gravity.

The timer sounded, indicating it was time to take the noodles out.

"I should turn off the stove," I murmured, not really caring. My hands moved to her breasts, and in the presence of those everything else paled in comparison.

"Hmmm." Flora responded by sticking her fingers in my hair and pulling me in to kiss her deeper.

The noodles were getting softer and limper by the second while I...well, I was not.

It's true: once you have sex, it's hard to go back to holding hands. At the rate this was going we were never going to eat. I finally picked her up to carry her off to the living room.

"Just wait here for 20 minutes, okay, baby?"

She giggled. I set out to work while she lounged in front of the TV. When I brought out two plates of spaghetti, she dove in like a hungry canine and gave me a somewhat insincere speech about how she felt the tomatoes punch one another in a steamy fist fight on her tongue.

"It's really hard to be with someone who's so perfect," she claimed.

I took a bite and it was awful. I was no foodie and even I knew that the noodles were completely over-boiled, but at least it was hot and salty, which was usually all I asked.

"We need some really good wine with it," she suggested.

"To be honest really good wine is a waste on me."

"Come on, even you should be able to tell the difference. I want to enlighten you," she said enthusiastically, already hopping off the couch. She proceeded to grab her silk scarf and ordered me to close my eyes.

"No peeking," she instructed. I could feel her tying the cool material around my eyes. "You need to open your senses."

"Is this really necessary?" I asked, hoping to finish my food.

I heard her padding off to the kitchen, ignoring my question as she often did. There was the sound of the cork popping. The clinking of a glass against the counter. The faint sound of liquid bouncing off the glass. Then I heard her walking back to me.

"I have two bottles here, and one of them is a 1975 Bordeaux, and the other is cheap supermarket wine left over here by Janet," she explained in my ear. "Let your senses be awakened."

Only Flora would spring a bizarre wine tasting on me out of the blue. What I wouldn't give to have a can of Pepsi right now. I knew exactly what it tasted like: sugar and empty calories, which was what made it so freaking good.

"Okay, the first one." She let me smell the thing first, then I felt the cold glass press up to my lips lightly. I took a sip.

"Do you like it?" came the eager question.

It tasted like...wine.

"I like it." That wasn't exactly a lie. I liked anything with alcohol percentage over 10%.

She fed me again. "How about this one? Which one do you like better?"

I really couldn't tell the difference. I took a random guess. "Maybe the latter." Surely the good wine should come later?

I heard Flora set down the glass with a sigh, and there was strong disapproval in her tone. "Sean, I fed you from the same glass."

I removed the blindfold. "That's unfair. It's a trick question!"

"I love you so much I couldn't bear to feed you cheap wine."

I smiled. "I really don't care. Cheap wine suits me fine, especially if you're the one feeding me."

"Cheap wine is bad for health."

"As long as it gets me drunk."

Flora exhaled, frowning in displeasure. "You just don't appreciate the finer things in life. It breaks my heart."

"That's not true," I protested. "I appreciate you. You are the finest thing in my life."

"But this is part of me." Flora gestured to the wine bottle. "I'm about haute couture, expensive gifts, luxury food, extravagant parties... these are the things that define me."

I knew it. We had already lasted more than 24 hours without fighting, and now the evil War God had decided to wake up and stretch. Getting mad at me for not caring about something created 40 years ago in France seemed really extreme.

"Flora, come on, you're not just about money."

"No, it's not about money. I knew you would say that because you just don't get it. It's about developing taste," she said, getting more offended by the second. "It's about wanting to try new things. If you're so comfortable eating fries and wearing Gap all the time, you'll miss out on a lot."

She didn't sound mad. Just disappointed.

"But I'm still in high school," I offered as an explanation. I sure wasn't tired of fries yet, and I was so broke after Linda's party and her spa treatments, I couldn't even afford Gap right now.

"It's not related to your age. It's your state of mind. I feel like I'm trying very hard to please you but failing all the time."

"Flora, you please me by your existence. You don't need to try at all," I said, extremely surprised. I always thought I was pretty easy to please.

"But when I try, I wish you could be a little more appreciative, and at least make some efforts to understand me," Flora complained. "Sorry, I know you think I'm over-reacting. But ever since we declared our undying love for each other I felt a little wacky because I want us to work so much."

"Me too." I felt touched, although I still didn't get why loving each other had anything to do with showering in money. Flora really cared about my opinions, though. "I'm sorry. Let's try again. Tell me what's so amazing about this bottle so I can have some knowledge to show off at my next luxury dinner party."

She smiled as I made a big show of searching for a piece of paper so I could jot down notes, urging her to give me a lecture on French Wine 101.

"So what's this supposed to taste like?"

She took a long sip. "Flowers...berries...minerals...and truffles," she reported.

Truffles? I knew what that tasted like. Flora made me truffle cream sandwiches for the picnic yesterday, and it was nothing remotely similar to this.

"Are you sure you are not just reading off the label?"

Flora glared at me. "Don't insult my extraordinary taste buds."

"Alright then. You mentioned flowers. What kind of flowers?"

"What do you mean what kind of flowers?"

"Well, not all flowers smell the same. Can you be more specific?" I placed my pen over my notes, where I had put down the list of ingredients already. "In case you don't know, I'm a really good student and I demand a perfect understanding of this subject."

"This is not a written test." She pouted. "But if you must know, I'd say violet."

I crossed out the word flower and put violet underneath.

"What kind of minerals?"

"You're impossible." She shook her head, but then she laughed despite herself. That was what I loved about her, how she was such a good sport and that she always forgave me within seconds. She went on to teach me about everything I should know about the sacred wine as if it was the blood of Christ, and I nodded and tried my best to embrace the new knowledge, all the while still wishing I had a can of Pepsi instead.

I couldn't care less about this lesson, but it didn't matter as long as I could make Flora happy.

***

In the late afternoon Flora flipped through the TV channels and decided on watching a very cliché teen movie. I thought only 12-year-olds watch those but I reminded myself to keep an open mind, although even Flora couldn't argue that it was one of the fine things in life. If I followed my impulse to roll my eyes everytime the opportunity came, I'd have muscle strain in my eyes.

"Why do you enjoy watching movies that depict cheerleaders as boy-crazy zombies who can't carry on a normal conversation?" I asked.

"They are amazingly right-on, don't you think?" Flora joked. "I can totally relate to it."

The movie consisted of a very simple plot, a guy who thought he was in love with the soulless cheerleader, not realizing his female best friend was the one for him. I could see the best friends ending up together from the first scene, then I got ninety excruciating minutes to prove I was right.

Flora laughed at my occasional snarky remarks and said she loved watching with me.

"There's one important moral in this movie, however," I commented. "No guy is happy just being a girl's friend and willingly helps her pick out her prom dress. There is always an ulterior motive."

"That's not true! I have plenty of guy friends who are perfectly happy just being friends."

"That's an illusion you let yourself believe."

"You don't have enough female friends to prove that theory. I'm telling you, my guy friends like me for me, not as a potential girlfriend."

"Keep telling yourself that. They're just lurking and waiting to pounce. As soon as your boyfriend is out of the picture, they get you drunk and try to kiss you," I couldn't help adding the last part.

She scowled. "Are you going to act like this every time the subject of Ray comes up?" She crossed her arms. I felt fight number two coming right up.

"No, because we're never bringing him up again. I say we don't speak to him and shun him for life," I said, half joking. I wasn't going to ask her to stop being his friend, but I'd be lying if I said I didn't hold him accountable for coming between us.

"Isn't that a little extreme?"

"I think I'm entitled to hold a grudge because he's the reason we broke up."

"No." she shook her head firmly. "We are the reason we broke up. It's adorable that you decide to blame him."

"Of course I blame him. He knew you had a jealous boyfriend but still he went to your place and came on to you," I explained. "It shows that he has a weak sense of morality."

"Sean, you're morality personified. We're all sinners in front of you," she said mockingly.

I couldn't believe this. She was taking his side. I felt fury building up inside me and burning a tunnel through my brain. Jealousy and 1975 Bordeaux really didn't mix well.

I vowed to never avoid confrontation with Flora again, but I was afraid I would say something that I would regret later. I touched her gently on the shoulder as I stood up. "I need some air."

I walked out to the porch and stared at the ocean. It was so easy to love her despite our differences, but sometimes these differences were so hard to ignore.

***

Glad that you are still reading this!

I appreciate every read, vote, and comment, and thank you for supporting me all the way. (I have a feeling you will all be on Flora's side this time...)