In all fairness, she was exhausted, and he should have been helping cook dinner. Olivia had been cooking for awhile, and Alan's teasing hadn't really been of any help. Olivia kept dicing and mixing as Alan disinterestedly was waiting for the oven to preheat.
"So you're going to remember to soak the pan again, right?" Alan stood with a cocky grin that had always been the centerpiece of his school-yard taunting. As charming as Olivia had found him, he still had the bad habit of returning to the mindset of an elementary school boy pulling on the cute girl's hair for attention when he was bored.
"As soon as you remember to do a few sit-ups." She pointed at the gut just barely protruding over his belt, waving her knife at him.
Alan's face immediately went a shade of red as he fidgeted with his belt, trying to relieve the accentuation of a beer belly brought on by the tightness of the belt. Alan was always sensitive about that, but Olivia had never minded it. The thin layer of fat he had built up was somewhat attractive in a sort of settling-down-together way, as the two moved into their early thirty's and their collective ability to eat whatever, whenever, had been rapidly deteriorating for both of them. Alan's attempts simply ended with him simply removing the belt and placing it on the counter. He stood, looking a bit annoyed.
"Can dish it out, but can't take it, huh?" Olivia, though she hated when Alan smirked, couldn't help but don the same arrogant grin.
"I didn't make it personal! You do suck at doing the dishes. That's just a fact." Alan's tone had shifted to a limping hurt with the bruise on his ego, but Olivia was never one to go easy.
"Just luck the gut." Olivia winked and turned to continue chopping.
The sting was sudden, but not overly sharp. The surprise was the more pleasing part, her heart jumping a few beats. She threw the knife to cutting board and turned about, "what the fuck Alan!?"
The man stood there with the belt folded in his hand, his smile still playful, his poise ready for Olivia to start pawing back in their play-fight dance. His anticipatory look was strange, almost as if he was responding to a cue of hers, not simply aggressing as he always had.
"Seriously, what the fuck, Alan?" She continued the question as she rubbed the back of her skirt. "Next time you try for that, I'll smack you back." Olivia felt something swelling, something familiar. She had no idea what started it, Alan's teasing was old-hat. But it couldn't have been...
His face had already shifted, "Did you like that?" Alan's expression still held the familiar snarky pose, but there was an undercurrent of genuine curiosity.
"No, I did not." Olivia tried to sound collected, but the pause she took lasted a fragment longer than she would have pleased.