Looks Can Be Deceiving

“What do you want?” I asked. She walked over to my refrigerator, pointing to my freezer.
“May I look?”
“Go ahead. I moved my stash of weed upstairs in case this situation came up, so it should be all clean in there.” She giggled and opened it up, carefully digging around the freezer burned food that I’d been too lazy to take out. I leaned against the counter, watching her with my arms crossed over my chest. She smiled, as if she found what she wanted, and held up a pizza.
“You want me to make you a frozen pizza?”
“Please?”
“God knows how long that’s been in there. If you want pizza, I’ll make you a fresh one.”
“This looks pretty fresh.”
“No Pandora,” I chuckled. “I’m not going to let you poison yourself with my nasty freezer pizza.” She dropped it back into the freezer and closed the door.
“Fine,” she rolled her eyes. “Where’s all your fresh pizza stuff?” I roamed back over to the freezer, pulling out a thin pizza crust.
“Who knows how long that’s been in there,” she mocked me.
“I just got it last week. I think you’ll live,” I smiled, pulling off the plastic wrap before throwing it into the garbage. I squinted to read the small print that served as the instructions. “Can you set the oven to 350?” I continued to read the directions, setting them down on the counter. I glanced over at Pandora who was hunched over my oven, trying to figure out how to set the bake temperature. “Need a bit of help, beautiful?”
“Maybe just a little,” she blushed, either from the nickname or the fact that she couldn’t figure out how my oven worked. I stood behind her, pushing the buttons to set the temp. I could feel the warmth from her back against my chest. “What else do we need?” she choked out.
“Some cheese?”
“Where is it…” she asked. I was making her nervous.
“Maybe in the fridge?” I pointed out. She slid out from in front of me to open the fridge. I smirked as she ran her fingers down the shelves, grabbing a can of pizza sauce along with some mozzarella cheese. She laid the crust out on the counter, pulling up the tab of the sauce can. She glanced over to me, her cheeks turning pink.
“Is something wrong?” she raised an eyebrow.
“Nope,” I shook my head.
“Then why are you watching me so skeptically?” she questioned softly.
“Because you’re fun to watch sometimes,” I laughed at how stressed she was.
“Maybe I don’t like you watching me,” she put her hand on her hip.
“Would you like me to stop?” I asked. She swallowed hard, ignoring my question. “Right… I’m gonna go turn on some music.”
Pandora’s POV-
Austin left the kitchen, as I leaned against the counter, catching my breath.
“Was he trying to give me a panic attack?” I instructed myself to breathe in and out, closing my eyes. A soft song ran through the kitchen. It seemed to carry through the whole house. I looked up the ceiling to see white speakers built into it. So that’s where it was coming from. Austin reentered the room, smiling.
“How’s the pizza coming along?” he asked, coming up behind me, glancing over my shoulder as I pretended to busy myself.
“Good… almost ready to go into the oven.”
“Mm,” he hummed. “Do you want anything else on it?”
“I think this should be good.” My throat felt like it was closing up.
“You’re cute when you’re nervous,” he whispered. I turned around, realizing how close I was to him. He towered over me, grinning.
“I am not nervous,” I protested.
“You’re not?”
“No, you just make it extremely hard to breathe.” That slipped out of my mouth. I wasn’t supposed to say that. “No, I mean… I didn’t mean to say that,” I squeaked, making things worse by the second. “Why do you do this to me!” I asked.
“Do what?” he chuckled, backing up so he could lean against the other counter.
“Do that! You’re so intimidating!” He grabbed the pizza and slid it into the oven, shrugging.
“Why do I make you so nervous?” he wondered, amused. I sighed, frustrated.
“I don’t know.” He held out his hand, pulling me into him.
“Because you love me?” His sarcastic tone was now gone. I closed my eyes and whispered.
“Yeah… something like that.”

Notes