A dream kitchen

As Noah and Steve began talking about how Steve was doing, each of them had their significant others by their sides. While Laila was holding Noah's hand, and Maria was sitting slightly awkwardly next to Steve, not knowing if she should do the same and how to go about it, Noah asked, "Speaking of recovery, how are you doing now? Was it really okay for you to be discharged so soon after surgery?"

Steve smiled and did his best to hold back a chuckle at Noah's behaviour and replied, "Yeah. Apparently I am more sturdy than I thought. As long as I take it easy for a couple of weeks, I am fine with not staying in the hospital. I have to go back for a few check-ups but that is about it. So, while I am still a bit sore and I don't have much mobility, I should recover just as fine at home as I would have at the hospital. I just hope I will be able to sleep since I can't lie down fully. I have to raise my upper body in order to help with breathing since I bruised pretty much everything. During the day I have to walk around to keep my blood flowing."

Noah replied by saying, "Good. Because the last thing I want to be doing with my time is worry over the likes of you." Steve immediately flashed a teasing grin as he said, "Oh..? Does that mean that you were worried about me before then?" To which Noah turned his face away and mumbled, "Whatever", before correcting himself with a "As if", while the others chuckled.

After knowing that Steve would be fine, Noah began to fill him in on how things were going with the matters regarding Harold and the other people involved. He let him know what the progress was and what everyone had discovered. For this first part Laila and Maria were engaged in the conversation as well, but when they began discussing how they would continue and other business matters came up, they lost Maria's interest. She used her head to hint at Laila to join her before she got up and said, "Well since you two have started talking shop, how about Laila and I go see what we can throw together for tonight's dinner. As any responsible nurse knows, I gotta get my patient fed on time."

Laila too didn't see any way for her to contribute to their conversation and was happy to join Maria in the kitchen as she had some questions of her own, although she assumed it would be about a different topic than what Maria wanted to talk to her about.

As soon as they got into the kitchen, another wave of shock and awe came over both Laila and Maria because of how big and beautiful Steve's kitchen was. It was certainly a dream kitchen for someone who is fond of cooking and Maria was that kind of someone. Laila commented, "Who would have thought that someone like Steve would have a kitchen as grand as this. Somehow he never struck me as a person who cooks but seeing this, I think I have to change that view I have of him." Maria nodded as she too didn't imagine him to have such an advanced kitchen as she thought he would be too lazy to cook for one person. Although she was right in a certain sense, he did have his moments and his skills in the kitchen stemmed from a time where he didn't have much of a choice, since just like Noah, he hadn't always been as wealthy as he is today.

Once Maria had taken it all in and let her hand glide over the cold marble counter, she opened a few drawers and touched every button she came across, before she could turn her focus to something else. Now that they were behind another set of closed doors, it was time for her and Laila to have a private conversation. As Maria began rummaging through the different cabinets and the fridge to see if there was anything edible in there for the dinner she needed to prepare, she began asking Laila about how her talk with Noah had gone. She asked her if she had brought the topic of Jake up and she wanted to know what Noah said after she brought up the whole friendship idea to him.

Laila let out a sigh and said, "Well he didn't take it all too well. We got into a bit of fight about it just before we headed over to here. He just can't trust Jake and the two of them have their own past, a past which didn't exactly help. Along with how my relationship with Jake has gone, both in this life and the one before, Noah was not open to the idea at all. He seemed to be mad that I even considered it. After he let out his initial frustration and anger, he returned and tried to explain his feelings more calmly but they had still remained the same. He was not budging at all. So, we agreed to drop it for the moment and revisit the idea at a later point."

Maria was not surprised to hear this as she had expected this reaction from Noah. Too much had happened between him and Jake and between Jake and Laila. With his level of protectiveness, there wasn't much of a chance of him allowing someone like Jake back into Laila's live. Certainly not in such an intimate position of a friend. But since Maria knew that Laila wanted to give this friendship with Jake a try, she decided in that moment that she too would attempt to talk to Noah about it, just to make him see it from a different perspective. From the perspective of someone who very much disliked Jake too and had been a witness of most of the hurt Jake had put Laila through, but most of all as someone was almost equally protective of Laila. Hopefully hearing her take on things would make Noah open to the idea sooner and allow the two of them to try and prove that they could indeed still be friends, even if they could no longer be a couple.