Noodles tossed in the not-quite-yet-boiling pot, tray of buttered buns tossed in the oven, racing back to the living room to "casually scatter" the receipts and pillows some more, music turned up just a tad bit louder before racing back to the kitchen...
... and remembering to actually turn the oven on...
... and the door was opened.
Charlie glanced back over her shoulder, masking all previous exertion and whatever butterflies she still had fluttering in her stomach beneath a big smile, and tilted her head to motion the two people inside. "Hey, right on time! Perfect. All this will take another ten-ish minutes or so, so you guys can go ahead and sit on the couch while I finish up. There should be a cookie jar on the coffee table and I don't think I ate 'em all, so feel free to help yourselves."
No need to mention that there were, in fact, plenty of cookies in aforementioned jar, due not to Charlie leaving some behind, as she had said, but rather thanks to the tub of cookie dough she had bought that morning. Homemade cookies are only for those with more than a scant morning filled with non-date-preparation shopping to do.
But... again... neither Royce nor his sister needed to know that.
Speaking of which...
Charlie craned her neck to stretch a muscle while conveniently letting a shaft of hair fall over her shoulder and offer perfect coverage for peeking at the pair on the couch.
The girl next to Royce was practically dwarfed by her older brother, and tall though he was, his sister was just plain small. The fair blonde hair, the light blue eyes, the button nose and faint scattering of freckles- the girl looked like she just hopped out of a fantasy novel leaving her other pixie friends behind. Rosemary. Sounds like a pixie name.
She also looked angry, eyes darting to Royce frequently and with no friendliness to be found. Not at all hard to guess why- Royce had made mention that, if not for Charlie's invitation to dinner, they'd be off doing whatever it was that the King siblings did together. The boy himself looked caught between being genuinely happy, worried and slightly guilty, all in one. His eyes, a darker shade of blue than his sister's, darted to her face in between inspecting the other parts of Charlie's apartment, and in his lap, his hands... his hands were... clenching...
... wait, were those new jeans?
The tomato chopping began to slow as Charlie twisted herself ever-so-slightly more to get a better view.
They were new jeans, and Lordy did they fit him well! And that shirt was one she hadn't seen at work before- a nice green and white plaid, unbuttoned and hanging to show the plain white tee underneath. His hair even looked a little tidier than usual...
... suddenly, Charlie began to panic.
Had she been wrong about her assumptions up until now?
Was this actually a chaperoned date?
She shifted her weight to her other leg to let her hair fall and her attention fall back to the tomato.