Catch Up With Fate

You can learn a lot about a person by the food they eat and how they go about purchasing said food. For instance Viktor hadn’t even checked what was missing and so there was no list. I had no idea either so it was a little like going shopping blind. It appeared as if he did it that way all the time though. I couldn’t help but think that maybe that was the reason why he was a frequent guest at the diner.

“What do you like?”

We were at the cereal aisle and Viktor was looking for my opinion that I expressed with a shrug. He smiled and grabbed some healthy options like muesli and whole wheat flakes. Then, giving me a wide, wicked grin, he threw in some frosted flakes and some chocolate-y kind of candy-for-breakfast. I could agree with that, finding it unnecessary to add any more cereal, so we turned to the next aisle which turned out to be a favorite of mine: pasta. I’d once worked at a grocery store, restocking the shelves, and although the pasta aisle was annoying because everything came in heavy packages, it’d been a lot of fun to see the different kinds of pasta there were.

“Feel free to pick whatever you like,” Viktor gave me free reign and I quickly filled the cart with spaghetti, farfalle, tortellini and lasagna sheets. The most fun were the colored ones so I added some of those as well. Just like I didn’t offer an opinion about the cereal he offered none about what kind of sauces he liked, so I just went to town on different kinds.

Viktor’s kitchen was bigger than the one at the old apartment. Cooking would be easier there, that was a plus. It was a weird feeling to consult Viktor about my choices instead of my sister. The other weird thing was that I didn’t need to watch the prices as much. I had fought him tooth and nail about contributing to at least the grocery bill and finally he had given in, so we were now splitting it in half.

“Oh my God, look!” I held up a package of Spongebob Squarepants themed noodles. “Or do you prefer Spiderman or Disney’s princesses?” Viktor just laughed.

“As long as it’s not Disney’s princesses, I don’t really care,” he told me and grabbed the package from my hands to drop it into the cart.

“Nope, Spiderman. I am not going to eat Patrick shaped noodles!” I switched the boxes, accompanied by his laughter.

“Good point,” he agreed and was nice enough to push the cart and answer my various questions for the remainder of the shopping trip. I should not have been surprised but I was, by the lack of substantial knowledge Viktor had about the contents of his fridge and pantries. It felt like I was buying everything from scratch and more than once I wondered how he was still a well fed, well toned (...) young man. He didn’t seem to know the first thing about anything.

“You know what, that’s it. We’re going to cook dinner tonight,” I exclaimed finally and completely missed the smug, successful grin on my new roommate’s face.

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“Okay, this is really simple. We have pasta, tomatoes and ground meat.”

“Sauce Bolognese,” Viktor nodded.

“Exactly. First the water for the pasta, don’t fill it completely because it’ll overflow and that’s nasty. Take it from the master of boiling over pots,” I explained and put the pot full of water on one of the stove’s spots. “Add some salt, about a teaspoon or two depending on the amount of noodles and also some oil or butter, that way the noodles won’t stick together that much later.” With a shake of salt and a bit of olive oil, I left the water to go onto its journey to 100°C and turned to the tomatoes.

“Cut out the green parts at the top and the rest into small squares,” I instructed, handing him a knife.

“All of them?” The pile of tomatoes was not made up of just two or three...

“Of course. You don’t want just a splash of sauce, do you?” I chuckled. With no further complaint he went to work. While he did that I put the ground meat into a pan and started on frying that. Every now and then I checked on the tomatoes (and Viktor, of course) and hunted down some spices to put into the sauce a little later.

“Okay, just dump what you have into the pan.”

“Just like that? Don’t we need some liquid?”

“The tomato pieces will go soft and turn kinda mushy. If we need more liquid we’ll add a little water or something. Cream’s out to use, I guess?”

“Yea,” he nodded and went back to cutting. “Do you cook often?”

“CC and I tried to cook at home as often as we could, but takeout or eating out is almost the same price, so... Things got kind of hectic with college, work and everything else, so I guess I used to cook more often back at home,” I shrugged. “It’s difficult to find some of the stuff I’m used to using when cooking, too.”

“Eating here is nothing like eating at home, yeah,” he agreed with a smile as he put the last of the squared tomatoes into the pan.

“There is an IKEA about an hour from here, if you miss it,” I joked. Viktor just rolled his eyes and got out a spoon to try the sauce. I checked on the pasta, it was almost done. “That IKEA is different from ours though,” I pointed out.

“You went there?” he laughed, I nodded.

“Of course! I needed to see if they had that awesome Daim cake here! It’s so good!”

“Do they?”

“No,” I pouted. “At least they have the cool hot dogs stations like they do at home. Whenever we go to IKEA, we have hot dogs. It’s the best.”

“I take it there’s one close to your home town?”

“Yeah, about half an hour away. We could spend hours and a fortune there every time.”

Thinking about the good ole IKEA at home in Germany kind of made me miss it (home) a lot suddenly. Everything was changing so quickly right now and I never thought I’d have to get used to a new place to live here. At the old apartment we’d tried to decorate so that we felt at home and reminded of home, Viktor’s apartment was totally different. Next to the fact that it was a bachelor pad and thus had few decorations, it was just different from what I was used to and what I preferred.

“Not much of a guy place to hang out at, I guess...”

“Not so much,” he chuckled and helped drain the pasta.

The simple meal we’d cooked seemed to be a hit with Viktor and I knew, even before he said anything, I would end up cooking more often than not. He didn’t seem all that strict on food restrictions but I knew it would take some getting used to, to cook for a guy and a hockey player at that. At least he knew a few of the regular, traditional German dishes, so I hoped he’d eat them without being weirded out. Some of the college friends I’d made had almost refused to eat what I’d cooked, just because it was unfamiliar to them. If I could find a good recipe for Kottbullar, I was sure to earn some extra points.

.

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The 2nd night was still weird but better than the first. Mostly that was because I knew most of the sounds now and knew my way around the apartment better. The bed wasn’t as unfamiliar the second time sleeping in it, too, and I was calmed by the knowledge that there would be plenty of options for breakfast tomorrow morning.

The 2nd morning was better as well. I’d slept much better although it still took me a while to fall asleep. We had breakfast together again but we didn’t talk much, just sleepily and almost silently stuffed some nutrition down our throats.

“Tasha?” Viktor stuck his head into the bathroom while I was brushing my teeth. I almost had a heart attack and choked on the foam. “I didn’t mean to scare you, I’m sorry!”

I coughed and spit out what I hadn’t inhaled into the sink, quickly rinsing with water. “I’m okay,” I rasped and took a deep breath. “What happened to knocking?”

“Sorry,” he said sheepishly. “Can I come in?”

It was a little late for that question but I nodded anyway. The door had a lock that I would be sure to use from now on and I made a mental note to never enter the bathroom when in doubt. The run-in I had had with Viktor’s... upper half did not need a completion with his... nether regions.

“I just wanted to ask if you needed a ride to class again? We’d have to leave a little earlier so I make it on time to practice, but I could drop you off.”

“That’d be great,” I accepted thankfully. I could see my car-less-ness becoming a problem very soon. If not to say immediately. Viktor wouldn’t always be able to drop me off and pick me up and even if he had offered, I wouldn’t make him do that. Also, there were for sure going to be some weekday away games. Public transport wasn’t that great here either, it had been much better at the old apartment - part of the reason we had picked it despite the lack of a second real bedroom. I definitely didn’t have money for so many cab rides either. Maybe moving out would crash and burn in a very short while simply because of logistics, I realized with a sigh. Great.

“We’ll figure something out, don’t worry,” Viktor seemed to read my thoughts right off my face when we sat in the car on the way to the university a little later. “You can use the car when I don’t need it or we’re on a road trip, maybe you can catch a few rides with your friends, and when possible I’ll drop you off.”

I let out a sigh. “Do I look that stressed out?” I asked weakly. He and I weren’t the closest of friends so far which would change now because living together just did that, but he was kind of acting unusually protective and helpful, even for a well-mannered Swede. The conclusion was that my emotional distress was more obvious than I’d thought and than I liked.

Viktor was careful with his answer, like a guy that had been chastised for giving a too honest answer to a girl before. “Kind of.”

I just nodded and the rest of the ride passed in silence. He left me out at the same spot as before and even asked when class let out to see if our schedules matched for him to pick me up, which they didn’t. I thanked him anyway and we went out separate ways.

.

The next day the team had a home game which I was not going to attend again, so Viktor didn’t drop me off. I actually only saw him in the morning and when he got back from the game. Besides the outcome of the game the only thing I wanted to know was if C.A. had broken the drought, but the look on my roommate’s face said plenty.

“So much for CC being the key,” I huffed and tried not to let out the string of curse words that were floating through my mind. He gave me a sympathetic look and we both disappeared into our bedrooms to call it a day. Actually, I couldn’t really think of the room as my bedroom, it just seemed kind of wrong. But that was what it was even if I preferred to think of it as the guestroom.

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Thursday I had to work which was a welcome distraction. Getting into an element I knew and was good at was good. It was so much harder to treat every customer with the cheerful smile I was used to giving them though. I’d gotten the job at the German bakery and café because I spoke both English and German, yeah, but mostly because my boss, Mrs. Schubert, liked how easily I interacted with the customers on my tryout days. I knew what good service meant and she saw that. Over the months we’d gotten a little closer, bonding over our home country and stuff like that. Mr. and Mrs. Schubert were from the South, I was from the North, and you could hear it when they spoke German, but it was pretty adorable and I loved the different German accents, slangs and dialects.

You always had to force friendliness and a smile here and there at work but it had never been this much for me before. I think Mrs. Schu could tell, too, she didn’t ask but she gave me some chocolate cookies to take home... And I ate all of them before I even reached Viktor’s apartment.