When Darren, the only other bloke at the record store with reliably good taste in music, had brought in three stellar bottles of vodka out of the goodness of his heart, it necessitated something of comparable flair to accompany it. A bit of rummaging through number 12 and number 13 produced the proper makings for beef stroganoff. That seemed highly appropriate. Despite Amarissa's initial suspicions, James could cook - and well enough for him to consider himself quite bohemian. He was barefoot in her kitchen, wearing worn jeans and a The Who t-shirt that was probably made for someone a bit slighter than James, when she came in.
Truth be told, he was almost surprised to see her what with how busy she'd been lately. It had been something of his intent, actually, to stick around till she got in. Work was work, though by and large James was content to keep his thoughts a bit removed from what she was getting up to day-to-day. She meant well, he knew. She was trying to improve things, but James had even less optimism on efficient reform in the Spanish Ministry than he did for his own. It was an opinion to which James felt rather entitled. All in all, it was a topic he was keen enough to avoid.
"You're a mess," he greeted with a flash of a grin, pulling the dish towel off his shoulder and flopping it onto the counter.
He'd gotten a bit used to seeing her come home a bit rumpled from a day at the office, so to say. So long as she wasn't aggressively bleeding all over the place, James managed to not let it rile up his concern much. Besides, it never really served particularly well to harp on such things. She was a big girl, generally knew how to take care of herself. He managed to keep that sort of thing in mind most of the time. That was the nice part about what they had going on between them - it was a nice sort of break from the rest of things. It served much better for James to focus on bucking her up instead of harping on her for something like simple occupational hazards.
Food was almost done, and James cut the heat. Ambling quite leisurely over to the table, he pulled the cap from the bottle that he'd charmed to be damn near freezing. Glancing back over to her, she looked a bit more on edge than he generally liked. Rough day, then, he reckoned, filling the two shot glasses he'd pulled out when he'd first arrived. Closing the distance between them, he lifted one for her to take.
"Look like you could use it," he mentioned, only half teasing.