My Father's Best Friend novel Chapter 16

"You must know this little fetish of yours is unhealthy," Lance told Andrea as she finished off her story. For the last two hours, Andrea gave Lance the full list of her past boyfriends, ever since she was fifteen until Edward, a total of eleven men of age ranging from 10-20 years older than her.

"I know," she admitted, swallowing the dignity she had left in front of Lance, "but I don't know, Lance, I'm just attracted to them like they are the opposite end of the magnet," she said, burying her face in her hands.

She felt Lance's hands held hers and guide her to the vacant space beside him, the simple gesture making her heart flutter with happiness.

"Do you forgive me?" she asked, risking a peek at Lance's face and she caught a soft yet rather sexy smile lit up his face.

"There was nothing to be sorry for, but you should have told me everything from the beginning. I could have helped you," he said, in a soothing tone as Lance's hands cradle her into a hug.

"But you were not there," she said, remembering everything, every relationship she had, had happened during the time when Lance was not around. Every relationship she had was a product of Lance's absence and though she may lie to herself that they were not, deep down she knows that they were desperate attempts.

"Andrea," was all Lance said, though Andrea sensed there was something more to it, but she did not put her usual tenacity to use because she know it is not the right time.

"I just hope you would not look at me differently," Andrea blurted out, surprised on what she said.

She felt Lance hold her at arm's length and looked at her directly in the eyes, "No matter if you killed the president or the pope, I would still look at you the same," he said, "But that does not mean I am encouraging you to do that," he added with an arched brow. Andrea wanted to ask him how he looks at her, but she chose to zip her mouth, she's comfortable with her position, and right at that very moment, she can't think of any other place she would want to be.

---

Andrea and Lance had not realized it was already a quarter to ten when they both heard a wild protest of Andrea's stomach.

"Shucks! It's almost ten," she said as she got to her feet and made a beeline to her kitchen, "since I'm the one who completely ruined the day, I'll make it up to you by cooking something quick and full of carbs," she added, as she gathered ingredients around her kitchen.

Lance walked towards her and sat down on one of her breakfast stools.

"Since I've already got mystery pork marinated, all I need now was cook it and of course, the rice which will take us about half an hour, are you all right with that?" she asked, stopping in mud track, holding a bowl of pork in one hand.

He shrugged, "Sure, I'm not the one who had a really embarrassing stomach growling moments ago," he teased, clearly in his best mood.

Andrea looked at him in annoyance, "As much as I would like to throw something at you, I can't cause it is going to cost me my dinner," she said, sticking her tongue out at him.

Lance just watched Andrea as she cooked the pork into something he did not know and though the color may be quite the turn off, the smell that filled the area almost made his mouth water.

"What is that?" he asked, standing up from his spot and walking to where Andrea was standing, checking up the food.

"This is called adobo. A friend of mine introduced me to it and though I may say that eating this will completely throw you off your diet, it will be worth it," she said, proudly.

Lance looked at the super oily brown colored thing cooking on the pan and gulped. Andrea has the thing for experimenting, but she was not a straight-A on that area. He decided to not idle and ruin Andrea's focus and made his way back to the living room, noticing a copy of The Da Vinci Code lying on top of the coffee table.

"I never thought you are a fan of Dan Brown," he said, as he sat comfortably on her couch and began scanning the book.

"Huh?"

"The Da Vinci Code," he said, waving the book a little to the air for Andrea to see.

"Ahhh, well I'm a fan of a lot of authors," she answered.

Lance knows that the book was scandalous, "Did you believe it?" he asked as he scheme through the text.

O, Draconian devil! Oh, lame saint!

"Depends. I don't really know,"

"How could you not know?" he asked, quite curious because he also read the book and was quite shook by its contents, and now he wanted to know what Andrea felt.

"I'm more into the character than the story, actually. I like the whole mind-boggling concept but I like how the characters do their thing,"

"Characters do their thing?"

"Yep, you know, how they followed Sauniere's clues and stuffs though they do not really know what they were looking for. Though they may have the slightest idea, their personalities are still quite riveting, how they risked their reputation to a thing that they did not even know really existed. Quite courageous acts," she explained, and Lance could only hear adoration coloring her tone.

"Who's your favorite?" he asked.

"No doubt, of course. Sophie Neveu," she said and paused, "Dinner's ready,"

They continued their little chat about the book over their dinner and heard light splattering coming from Andrea's windows.

"I'll go check," Andrea said as she moved towards her coffee table to take the remote for her blinds and the untouched coffee. She opened the blinds, showing the beautiful LA skyline... Raining.

"I did not hear anything about rains on the forecast earlier," Lance said, looking at Andrea who stood motionless in front of her windows.

"Don't kid me Lance. You don't watch the news," she said, making him realize he really don't watch the news.

"Fair point," he said as he followed Andrea's walk towards the sink and back to the dining table, with a little frown on her face.