Shooting Love in Real Time.

“Eggs, Alex, not eggs, shells and whatever other crap you want!” I screeched from next to the mixing bowl. I’d almost begged Alex to let me beat in the eggs, but sometimes men just like to take control, even in the kitchen. Modern day men, how strange. On the other hand, Alex can’t cook to save his life.
“But that’s what I’m doing! Eggs, not shells!”
“I am most definitely not eating anything you have made, not a single chance, boy!”
“You’re just jealous of my immense cooking skills that you can never hope to master.”
“Um, yeah, that’s what it is. I’m not just hoping to avoid food poisoning or anything.”
“You’re such a bitch,” he laughed. He passed me the wooden spoon to mix in the eggs properly and to search for bits of egg shell he had accidentally allowed to make their way into the cake mixture. “When we have kids running around, are you going to be a little housewife with an apron baking cakes with our children all day long?” He asked from the counter on the opposite side of the kitchen, where he had placed himself after handing the bowl to me, apparently observing my fixing of the cake mix.
“I’ll be a fully qualified doctor. You’re going to be the housewife, not me.”
“I’m a rock star; I don’t do housewife duties, just the housewives.”
“So, you plan on leaving our kids with a nanny while I work all day and you tour for weeks on end?” I asked, turning around with the bowl in my hand, eyebrow raised and wooden spoon in hand.
“Nope, I plan on taking time off to spend time with my kids and my gorgeous wife and going back, with restrictions, after a year. No huge tours, no lack of contact for weeks on end, just short little jaunts to make my family some money. Depending on how you specialise, we can leave the kids with one of their grandparents while we work and you can collect them after you finish. My parents would love having kids running around again.”
“You’ve thought a lot about this, haven’t you?”
“Too much.”
“Sometimes, I think you don’t pay attention, other times I think you’re the cutest effing person I’ve ever met,” I smiled, still mixing. “Anyway, we can practice with Jack. We’ll invite him around and he can make rice crispy cakes, with supervision of course.” Alex laughed, jumping off the counter to take the bowl from me and kiss me swiftly, before checking the next instruction in the recipe book.
“So, basically, we’re going to have two dogs, and a little boy and girl, Jack and Marissa are going to live across the road with their kids, probably still in these houses, and it’s just going to be utterly perfect at all times.”
“Did I step into a 1950s TV show or something, Gaskarth? Is that your plan, secretly send me back to the 50s in a TARDIS or something?” I took the cake cases out of the cupboard and began putting them into the cake tray.
“It seems to me that we’re already there. Have you not noticed you’re baking in an apron?” He laughed, placing the bowl of now fully mixed cake mix down on the counter beside me and placing a kiss on my cheek. I shrugged, spooning the mixture into the cake cases with a smile on my face. “The oven’s on, right?”
“Yup, I put it on when you were pouring over fifty different recipe books.” I rolled my eyes, finishing spooning the mixture out and walking over to put the tray in the oven. With the timer set, I turned to find Alex on the floor with the mixing bowl in hand and a grin on his face as he ate the leftover mix. I laughed, joining him on the floor with another spoon and a grin that felt so much similar to his on my face. “Do you know what this reminds me of?” he asked, spooning more mixture into his mouth. I shook my head, swallowing what I had in my mouth. “High school. When we wandered around like idiots trying not to tell each other we were in love, in the middle of soppy moments like this where we just sat and grinned at each other just because. You know, when we were the simplest we’d ever been,” he smiled and I couldn’t help but return it. “This right here is what I dream of, day and night, when I’m off on tour. Coming back and having soppy clichéd moments like this that make us forget everything we’ve been through. Our own little bubble away from everything.” I felt guilt bubbling away in my stomach, but my smile never faded, not even as I leaned across and placed a soft kiss on his lips. I knew I made him have to dream of it the way I’d been acting lately, savouring every moment of peace, every calm before every storm; every storm I brought down on him.
“It’s okay, I’ll stop acting crazy and maybe you won’t have to dream anymore,” I half joked. “Although, I warn you, I get very boring very quickly when all I do is laze around watching TV and doing work.”
“Give me this moment right now, forever, and I’d be happy. Just as long as it’s with you.” I smiled, biting my lip. I knew I didn’t deserve him, nor anything he did for me, but I was going to cling to him for as long as possible, as long as he still smiled when he saw me and cuddled me when we went to sleep after eating take-out and bad films; as long as he still looked forward to seeing me when he got back off tour instead of dreading walking through the door.