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“I’m from Cameroon, Matt. N’its been years but...” he shifted under the lack of attention, seemed to relax a bit more when left to wander on his own, while Matt busied himself with other tasks. He let his mouth wander with his feet, dodging around the point he truly wanted to get to. “I still think all the organ meats in this country look freakishly bleached and cured wrong. N’then they add dyes to weirdest s**t…like the fish…“

“So, it doesn’t sound nearly as strange as it does absolutely delicious.” He stopped in front of a tiny pot of prettily hued plants, pet at the leathery leaves of them, before the gentle snip-snip-snipping lulled him back over into Matt’s neck of the woods. Where he loomed until he was clearing his throat sheepishly, seeming almost apologetic that he had to pester the man one last time.

“You two are really alright then…” his eyes on the trimmed up roses, Matt’s skill with scissors, anything but the man’s face. “He’s okay? It’s not — it’s not my place anymore — I know — but…” he blew out a soft breath before eying the front door longingly, like that one exit suddenly held far better answers. Sure as hell would be easier to yank off the hinges than answers would be out of Matt’s sharp mouth.

“Could you maybe just tell him to call her n’say that? Me n Aramis would prefer the honesty, is all. You’re not someone he has to hide from us, I mean, if anything? I think you’ve been good for him.” He offered Matt a better smile this time as he finally turned away. “Not in a way I can express in words — but yanno — the ******** am I to judge from my massive glass mansion!“

“Mmhh — and if you're ever down by ninth and spearmont? You should try ‘puff puff’ sometime. There’s this wonderful little place there, bright roofing, red door. Madame Hycintha runs it, real authentic s**t, and? I bet she won’t ask you if you can handle the sauce it comes with…” He knew she’d ask Syrus, and would offer someone like him powdered sugar instead of the usual chili crisped oils.

But probably not Matt.

It did get a laugh out of him, the idea of him trying to send Matt to a smoke shop of all places! To send him there with Syrus even?! He shook his head as he smiled, seeming far more satisfied and at ease than he had when he’d come in, finally aiming himself for the door.

“S’food Matthew. Just food. We say it like ‘poof-poof’,” like two short huffs of air as he dredged up the accent, “— everyone raves about fu-fu, constantly, which isn’t a dessert. N’only because they’ve never had to eat cassava made twelve different ways. Like—it’s our potatoes? But not even as tasty…s**t..“ he gave notice to the work Matt had done all while talking. Whistled as if impressed by the way the man had whipped the mundane into something genuinely lovely to look at.

If only he’d come here to buy flowers—

Maybe next time?

“This? This is unhealthy and absolutely delicious. It’s like beignets — that’s the closest thing I can think to compare it to? But the sauce. If you want something spicy to go with all that sweet fried goodness?” He leaned on the suggestion like it was a necessity, and gave Matthew a lazy wave as he tilted towards the door. “The pairing sounds strange, but it’s how I grew up eating them.” Heat and sweet like pleasure and pain, and the way something so good that it had to be bad for you needed something with bite alongside it to keep one mindful of overindulgence. Like a tempering measure. He could’ve eaten a hundred puff-puff — he would’ve never made it through a single serving of his mothers sauce — and he thought the pairing suited the ideals of eating as it did a theme for life. Those ever contrasting differences of people drawn together unexpectedly, like a good meal from a new place. Full of surprise.

“Go — you’ll see — and thank you for offering to try, kay? It really means a lot to me, to Aramis too.” The bell heralding his exit as swiftly as it had let him in, gone with as little warning and fanfare as he’d entered, without so much as a proper goodbye.