"There!"

She puts down her pencil and turns around and kisses him on the cheek.

"Let's go."

He grins happily at the kiss. 

"Let's go!" he agrees. 

To the bathroom to wash up (ugh) but he does an extra good job because there's someone just outside watching him (probably with adoration, again) and then, to the dinner table! 

Someone (probably dad) has pulled an extra chair from somewhere else in the house, there is now an extra chair next to him, for Rosy presumably. There places are set, and there are several bowls on the table, with various foods. One has spaghetti, one has steaming meatballs in sauce, and one is a casserole dish with some sort of zucchini and mushroom and breadcrumbs situation for vegetable. It looks edible, at least. There's also a store bought canister of parmesan cheese for sprinkling. 

"It looks good, Mom," John says, sitting down in his chair and indicating that Rosy should sit in hers. His parents are already sitting. 

"Well, see how it tastes, first. Up bup bup!" his mom adds, as John reaches for the pasta bowl. "Let your girlfriend serve herself, first. She's the guest." She turns to Rosy. "Feel free to take as much as you'd like, hon, I've made more than enough for leftovers too."

"My goodness," she says. "All right."

She serves herself a generous but reasonable portion of each component, putting the meatballs on top of the pasta but leaving the Vegetable Situation off to the side of her plate. And a light sprinkle of parmesan, too, why not.

The rest of the family serve themselves; John does similarly to Rosy but dribbles some tomato sauce over the vegetables (despite the look from his mother) to improve the situation. And when everyone is served, they eat. 

"It is very good, Mom," he says, after swallowing a mouthful of meatball. It's tasty! Mom does good pasta. The vegetables are also probably fine, but he'll get to those in a moment. Or two. 

"I'm glad you think so," she says. "Rosy? Everything to your liking?" 

"Mhm!" She has not chosen to improve her Vegetable Situation and is trying it unadorned.

It's pretty ok!  There's nothing special to it, just sliced mushrooms and zucchini topped with breadcrumbs and left in the oven for a bit. A bit mushy and bland, but it's vegetables. 

"I'm glad," John's mother says, and wipes a bit of sauce from her lip, and says, "so, Rosy, what can you tell us about yourself? John hasn't really told us very much, so I'd love to hear it from you." She takes another bite of food and chews, watching her and awaiting an answer. 

"I like math and romance novels and trying new things. I strive every day to make the world a more adorable place."

"A more adorable place?" she asks. (John hides a little in embarrassment; it's not that he dislikes this fact about his girlfriend (quite the contrary in fact), but he's not sure his mother will take it the right way.) "How so?" 

"Being cute is fun and makes people happy! So I wear cute clothes and put cute buttons on my backpack and maintain a positive attitude as much as I can. And I optimized my handwriting to be as cute and pretty as possible without sacrificing legibility."

"Well, if it makes you happy," John's mother says. "But what do you intend to do with yourself in life? John's doing mathematics, he's loved it ever since he was little, and he's going to get some sort of academic position, I'm sure, even if he says he isn't, but what sort of thing are you planning on doing with yourself? More math, like John? Or are you going to get into politics, like the rest of your family?"

"I'm hoping to get out of politics, actually. And I think deciding the course of your entire life before you're old enough to vote is a fundamentally misguided approach. I want to get out and see the world and try a lot of things so I can figure out which ones call to me."

"Huh, my mother always said it's better to get an early start on your life plans, so you can get an earlier start on your life. Worked out for me, even if they weren't quite the plans she had in mind. But I suppose if you come from a family like the Blakes, you can afford to take a few years off to try things." She sounds happy and polite, but John can hear the disapproval in her voice from years of experience. "Do you know where you're planning to go, then?" 

"I haven't decided yet!"

"Well, I hope you have a good time there," she says. "And how about your classes, then? Doing well in those? Even if you're going to college later, grades are very important. Especially with how hard it is to get into schools these days!" 

"I've never really had a problem doing well in class. People have been known to accuse me of a superhuman ability to stick to a schedule."

"Oh, well, that's good. Goodness knows the folks at work might need some scheduling help. The number of times I get called in..." she trails off. "But enough about me. Glad to hear you're a good student. All A's and B's, then?" 

She takes a bite of food rather than answer immediately because if she answers immediately she might say something ill-considered.

"I don't think we need to scrutinize her every report card, teacher's note, past dental records, and whatever other past paperwork she has," John's dad says (thank you dad!). "They seal child juvie records for a reason, I'm sure we don't need to know how many murders she may or may not have committed." (Nevermind! No, this is still better.) "How about a lighter topic that should still make my wife happy, what do you get up to for fun? Ignoring more recent developments, I'm sure kissing my son is high up on the list at the moment." (Damnit dad.) 

"Well, besides kissing your son, I mainly like to read books. I'm thinking of writing something myself one day but it's so hard to decide what." With no sign that she might be referencing anything untoward, she adds, "John is very creatively inspiring, though, I love talking about media with him. We had a great conversation about the whys and hows of dystopias after we saw the Hunger Games together."

(John has started to descend once again, turning a bit red with embarrassment at everything Rosy just said: mentioning the kisses, giving him compliments about their conversation, ...obliquely making mention of the spaceship fantasy... Yup, he's very red.) 

"John does a lot of reading too," his mother says. "Though he tends to read mostly science fiction, to the exclusion of all else. You'd think there weren't any other kinds of books in the world! But still, you couldn't stop him from reading when he was younger. He stand at the bulletin board when he came in to work to visit me and read everything, sounding out the big words. It was adorable. I can't believe he's dating now. It feels like that was just yesterday."

"Mom," John says, "I'm 18!" 

"I know dear," she says, but to me you'll always be my baby. And sit up, it's not polite to slouch." 

John sighs, and pulls himself back up. "Sorry mom." 

"Anyways, you said you wanted to be a writer, maybe. No idea what you want to write, at all? No story ideas in mind?" 

"No, the opposite! Too many story ideas! And too high standards. It's so hard to sit down and write when I know I'm not going to do justice to what I see in my mind's eye, even though the only way I'm ever going to get better at writing is by doing it."

"I've always found it's more fun to try things even if I'm no good at them," John's dad says. "You don't have to show it to anyone if you don't like it. Well, you can show it to John, boyfriends are contractually obligated to say nice things about things their girlfriend makes, so you know you'll only ever get compliments. Also, honey, these meatballs are great," he says with a wink. 

John's mother glowers at him, but she's grinning at the same time. "You would be in so much trouble if I didn't know that you were actually telling me the truth," she says, holding back laughter. 

She shakes her head. "Perish the thought. I demand full honesty from my critics, or what's the point?"

John's dad shrugs. "Even if it's honesty you want, we have to tell you in the nicest way possible. It's in the contract. Though I think John specifically would likely do that anyways. Isn't that right, John?"

"Probably," John croaks. He should be eating food and not sitting there horrified. He takes a bite. His parents keep sitting there being... his parents at her, and it's awful, and why did he think this was a good idea? (To make mom happy, that's why.)

"So there you go then. You have a friendly test audience, if you want to use it," John's dad says. He takes another bite of food. 

She shakes her head and eats her food. And looks sympathetically at her turmoiling boyfriend.