How Green Becomes Wood

"Everything is edible once," He reminded her as they looked over the lake. Letting go of her hand, he instead wrapped his arm loosely around her waist, looking out over the water, content to just stand there with her.
 
Lex chuckled and then fell silent as they looked out over the lake. She leaned into Cooger, enjoying the warmth of his arm and his side against her. The quiet glinting of the water sparkled like living art. Night birds called and chatted with each other, and occasionally something rustled in the undergrowth. She wasn't worried. If Cooger wasn't concerned, she wasn't concerned. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly, relaxing fully as she enjoyed the quiet nature around her. This place was beautiful, and being with this man was peaceful. It was a moment she hoped she'd be allowed to return to many, many times in the future.
 
Cooger breathed in deeply and wrapped his other arm around Lex, glad to hold her on that chilly day by his lake. It was too soon to tell exactly how things stood and where they'd be one day, but he wasn't worried about any of that. For all the ways he had been less favourably compared to his brother, one thing he had over him was that he knew how to just stand there and accept that he was happy without worrying about when the other shoe would drop and he'd have to go back into battle. There weren't battles on his personal horizon, just a beautiful woman in his arms, a still lake, and seven unexpected kittens. Nothing to ask for, nothing to want, and he was more than willing to just accept that his life was full of wonderful things and enjoy it exactly as it was.
 
Lex did not want this moment to end, but it was getting colder by the minute. She was okay in her sweater and with Cooger wrapped around her, but still, it was nippy! She started shivering more. Finally, when she could take it no longer, she sighed and said, "We should probably go inside."
 
Seeing her shiver, despite all of his warnings earlier, he slipped out of his jacket and rested it on her shoulders without saying a word and then took her hand to lead her back into the house, once more holding her by the hand. Before they were official he was too afraid of misreading things and misunderstanding what he was sensing to take the lead much. He didn't want to make her uncomfortable or ruin what they had just been starting. But now they were on the same page, they were officially together, and since he knew where they stood, he was more than willing to take that initiative. "I gotta get dinner started. Be rude of me to let you go hungry."
 
Lex pulled the coat more securely around her shoulders and looked at him in amusement. "I thought you said I was on my own and not to expect any coats from you," she teased lightly. She was happy to hold his hand and follow him back to the house, smiling at the chickens that hadn't all returned to their roosts yet and the sight of cats slinking off around them. "What's for dinner, and can I help?"
 
"You shouldn't expect any coats from me," Cooger teased, looking away a bit bashfully, "Next time I may just let you freeze. For dinner I figured I'd just make a chicken pot pie and mash potatoes. I don't think I have anything home for something more fancy."
 
"Chicken pot pie sounds next tier to me," Lex told him truthfully. "I can't believe you know how to make something like that! Have you been deliberately underselling your skills to make yourself that much more desirable?" She smirked at him, eyes twinkling as they stepped into the cabin, and she slipped off the coat, handing it back to him.
 
"If I wanted to make myself more desirable, surely I'd have over estimated my abilities?" Cooger replied, hanging up his coat and going to the kitchen to wash his hands, "Honestly, until recently, I could hardly cook a thing. I ate take out or frozen meals most nights, but Dark got me worrying about my sodium levels again. He got me a cookbook and everything. And he asked my om for the family recipes to include in it. So now I've been learning to cook."
 
Lex followed him and washed her own hands. "Loads of guys talk big, but a truly clever fellow holds back so that he can sprinkle in surprises," she told him. "That keeps the girl hooked and curious to see what else he might have been hiding. How can I help?"
 
Stepping into his pantry, Cooger pulled out a bag of potatoes, "Do you want to help peel? The crust for the pot pie is just premade, so that's no big deal, so I just gotta prepare the insides which isn't too hard, but it'll save time if you can handle the potatoes. I also got a box of cornbread mix if you want that cooked up. I got an upper and lower oven that I hardly use."
 
"Sure." Lex took some of the potatoes and went to give them a quick wash before settling down to peel them. "My mother once told me I was the absolute best veg peeler this side of the Mississippi. I was really proud of that and took pains to be the one who got to peel from then on. I was embaressingly old before I realized the trick she'd pulled."
 
"Hey, maybe you are actually the best peeler," Cooger laughed, getting carrots which had, until he took them out in preparation of dinner that night, been keeping in the root cellar and he washed them and gave them a quick peel before he began to chop them. He wasn't all that quick or skilled at it, so it took longer than it'd take either Dark or Xander, but it turned out okay. "You're probably better than I am, anyway."
 
Lex snickered as she peeled away. She was actually quite good at peeling thanks to a lot of practice, and the skins seemed to fly away from the potatoes. "I'm sure I am," she drawled. "So good you want me at your station whenever there is a peeling situation on hand, don't you?" She finished off the potatoes and handed them over to Cooger. She fetched the cornbread mix and studied the directions for a minute before she got started. "This seems doable."
 
"I just like not having to do all the prep work myself," Cooger replied, dicing an onion and chopping up some celery before adding them, the carrots, and a bag of frozen peas into a pot which he added water to and began to boil. Afterwards, he checked the recipe, swore to himself, took the pot off the heat and got to work slicing up the chicken and routinely hissing at Hank, Skitty, Calvin, and Louise who all would try to creep around the corner hoping to get some. Once it was cut up, he added the chicken to the pot and once more set it to boil. "These cats always think they're getting something."
 
"Does the hissing actually work?" Lex asked. As Cooger had worked on the vegetables, she'd mixed up the batter and gotten the oven preheating. She slid the cornbread into the oven. "Forgot to cook the chicken first?"
 
"It'll be fine, I'm sure. But now I just need to make the cream that goes in it, and the whole thing can go in the oven," Cooger said, moving onto the next step, "All told it ain't so hard. Or maybe I'm just a natural."
 
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