The boundaries

With a smile he was fighting to hold back and a grave voice that was on the verge of breaking into a laughter Steve said, "Oh no. You are right. I was getting way ahead of myself. I think I am still half asleep since I must be dreaming to think something like that. Don't let me get in your way and finish making your French toast. I imagine you must be quite hungry by now and I have managed to get in your way more than once with my words." Again Maria was unable to answer honestly nor kindly and said, "Well as long as you are aware of it. A nuisance becomes a bigger nuisance than it already is by being unaware of its being one in the first place." This time she physically bit her tongue as she apparently wasn't able to do so proverbially. However Steve had the opposite reaction and burst out laughing as he was no longer able to hold it in.

Maria looked at him with a look of utter surprise on her face. The last thing she expected to receive in response to her harsh words were tears of laughter. Through his laughter and the gasps of regaining his breath Steve said, "I'm sorry. It is just too funny. It is so clear that you don't mean what you say, yet you just can't help yourself, can you?" With flushed cheeks and while avoiding Steve's eyes, which showed just how amused he was by it all, Maria replied with words of sass though her tone was far from being sassy. In fact, she sounded as if she was sulking and sulking hard. All for being seen through so easily by him.

As she was flipping the piece of French toast over to the other side she said, "Well, sorry for being so obvious." Of course she was still avoiding his eyes while saying these words. Steve seeing this scene ended up laughing even harder as he was holding his sides that were hurting from laughing so much. By the time Maria had finished cooking up two pieces of French toast and was plating them in order to start eating, Steve was finally done letting out the last remnants of his round of laughter at Maria's unconvincing harsh words. Maria sniped at him, "Yeah, are you finally done laughing at me?!"

Seeing that Maria was actually upset this time Steve did something even more unexpected and he grabbed the tips of two of Maria's fingers. With a shocked expression Maria looked at him and with soft eyes and a gentle smile on his face Steve said, "I'm sorry for laughing. I wasn't trying to tease you. I just find your behaviour endearing and I just can't help but smile and laugh. But if it upsets you, I will do my best to stop." Seeing the genuine look in Steve's eyes, Maria's expression softened up as well. While her two fingers remained between Steve's fingers, his thumb gently stroking them back and forth, she mumbled, "Well, no need to go that far. Maybe I overreacted a bit. Just, just, don't take it too far."

After she finished mumbling these barely audible sentences that resembled words of forgiveness, she pulled her fingers away and sat down next to him to start eating her freshly prepared treat. Of course all of this was done while avoiding any form of eye-contact with Steve. Again Steve laughed and searched the boundaries by moving up from his finger grab to a quick side hug. Though this earned him a shocked gasp and a glaring expression, he ignored it all as he got up to fulfil his promise. Instead he said, "You are so wonderfully amusing. Never change please.", while he made his way over to the other side of the bar, ready to start with the dishes. Meanwhile Maria was left speechless, being able to utter nothing else but meaningless sounds before giving up and resigning to her fate.

As she ate and Steve washed up, they both chatted about anything and everything. Somehow her lack of sleep and the fact that no one else was there, made Maria loosen up instead of making her even more nervous as she had expected before. Or maybe the idea of this not being the same day but technically the next day, had made her feel more at ease about getting closer to him. She laughed, smiled, shared and listened. Only when the first yawn escaped her mouth did she realize how long they had been sitting there. She glanced at the clock that was hanging in the kitchen and said with a shocked voice, "It's already six o'clock?! We have been sitting here for almost two hours!"

Steve glanced over his shoulder behind him at where Maria was looking, before looking back at Maria and responding coolly, "I guess time does pass a lot faster when you are having fun." With lifted brows he added, "Or am I wrong and did I just make assumptions based on my imagination? Was I the only one having fun? Well either way, I wanted you to know that I really enjoyed our little moment together and I hope we can share more of these in the next few days while you are staying here."