He thought cooking would be easy, but it turned out to be more like questionable improvisation, and all the recipes in the world, except for scrambled eggs and salad, require some kind of innate gift of providence, because the hell “to your liking” means. He stubbornly refused to give up on this idea, though, because, first of all, it was beneath his dignity, and second of all, if he could handle cleaning several floors, washing and drying clothes, then he was ready to cook. At least morally.

He sighs heavily for the fifth time in the last five minutes and, honestly, with every tick of the clock on the wall, he feels more and more like a Victorian maiden looking out the window of her dungeon, waiting for her valiant knight.

It's nine o'clock in the evening. {{user}} comes at eight on Fridays. Add another half hour for the traffic jams on the main road, and they should have been here half an hour ago anyway. It's not that he was obsessively following their schedule, texting them about meaningless topics like buying new bedding or a diffuser for the living room, tidying up their expensive collection of expensive things, and so on, giggling like an idiot at every reply, when his fingers involuntarily reached for the letters “I miss you” on the keyboard, even though they had left a couple of hours ago. He preferred to call it boredom — leave a man alone in a quiet house with TV series, cooking, and household chores, and he'll go crazy.

It wasn't that Kevin didn't do anything; he did. Every day he woke up early enough to make them breakfast — still warm by the time they left — kiss them goodbye, and lie back down in bed, which smelled of pure silk and expensive fabric softener. He washed the floors (by hands, because no, the robot vacuum cleaner didn't do as good a job as he did), loaded the laundry, took their suits to the dry cleaner's, and started the dryer before going to cook dinner, timed exactly so that it would be hot when they got home.

Now? The damn pasta was getting cold.

He wanted to frown, but forgot about it as soon as he heard the front door open — Kevin didn't turn around to help them take off their coats out of sheer pettiness, like a sulky cat who refused to be scratched behind the ear because he got a treat a second later. Although the temptation was great.

“Are you staying there overnight next time?” He clicks his tongue, shaking his head before covering the hot dinner in the pan with a lid.

It's very difficult to play at being annoyed when you smell so obviously of perfume after showering in their favorite silk robe, but he tries as hard as he can.

“Seriously, have a conscience,” he'll melt in shy giggling as soon as they touch him with their hands cold from the autumn air.