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First thing John does is ask if meatballs and spaghetti are okay for dinner. Second thing he does is tell Gale he should enroll in the community college up the road.
Gale stares at him. "I'm just crashing here for a bit. And I'm too old to need a social worker."
John absorbs this without reaction. He's chopping an onion, keeping the root intact so that the cubes come off in neat piles, long fingers crooked up at the knuckles and guiding the knife along its path. Somehow this sight is the most jarring reminder of their adulthood than anything else so far. Mrs. Egan had never made a habit of cooking, too busy working a swing shift plus overtime all through middle school, and her general absence had left Gale and Joni to live off TV dinners plus whatever leftovers John brought home from his after-school job.
Gale backs up. Tries again. "Did you learn this from the Food Network?"
"It's harder to go back the older you get," John says, flat out ignoring him. "You worry more about money and getting a job and then before you know it, you feel like it's too late."
He glances at Gale then. "Just— you know. You’ve got a safety net here for as long as you end up staying. Might be a good time to get started."
There's an angry sizzle as the onions and garlic get scraped into the cast iron pan. John leaves off there; doesn’t say some bullshit like, your mom would've wanted it, which is the only reason why Gale doesn’t say, you're not my mom. He wouldn't have a problem packing up and leaving if he had to. No matter what, he's always made sure to have enough money stashed for a cross-country bus ticket. Having the guts to actually use it was a whole other thing.
"Where did you work again? When you were in high school," Gale asks, and this time John allows him to change the subject.
"Florentino’s." John is smiling down at the pan, scraping everything back and forth. "You remember that?"
"I remember the garlic bread," Gale recalls. "And how your mom would always yell at you about marking up the side of the house with your shoes."
John lets out a full on laugh. "Shit. Yeah, she did. 'Looks like cave art out there'," he mock-yells in a breathy, high voice.
Gale also remembers how he and Joni were usually sprawled on the couch, bored and watching WWE because nothing else more interesting was on by the time John got back. He got rid of his knock-off Docs before coming in, leaving dark spots on the siding from the soles, and strode through the door with his button-down already undone while yelling, "Who's hungry?" Sometimes he had the shirt scrunched in his fist and was down to a simple white tee. Sometimes he had tomato sauce splattered up to his neck. Sometimes he crowded the both of them, forcing them to take whiffs of old sweat and cooking oil while they screamed. Looking at him now, his smile is the same, pulling crow's feet by his eyes exactly like it had when he was younger.
Gale drops his gaze to where the onions have gone translucent.
"Smells good," he says.