The guilty feeling that Erik had over accepting the food sat like a rock in his empty stomach as he thought about what he was about to do. He had been about to be selfish and just eat without sharing anything. But the thought of sharing it with his sisters, might've upset Liona, since she had given it to him. She had said they were friends so he shouldn't feel guilty over not sharing, but then once he looked in his sisters' direction as they came over to find him, Liona surprised him. It was again like she was able to read his mind and had asked if he wanted to share this food with them.
"Wou-Would th-that be okay?" he cursed his nervous words as he hesitated in asking her.
"Of course! I don't mind a bit! There's plenty there, and if you like it, you'll have to tell me what you think!" She seemed excited as his sisters approached.
"Hey! What do you have there?" Heather, the overly loud of his sisters, asked when she popped up from behind him, looking over his shoulder at the food in his hands.
"Nikki! Erik's got food!" Sarah called over to her as she held Tyler, who looked about ready to pass out for an afternoon nap, but he probably hadn't had a bottle yet, so he was likely to be as cranky as Emily had looked earlier when he arrived.
"Really? Where'd you swipe that from?!" Nikki asked, before she gasped and closed her mouth with an audible snap, when she saw Liona.
"Hungy! Up!" Emily made grabbing motions as she saw the food.
Slowly, but surely, Erik was surrounded by his sisters. He had a duty to them. He couldn't let his own selfish desire for the food in his hands stop him from feeding his sisters that would be just as hungry. After all, most of them barely had half a bologna sandwich today for their lunch and the same stale slice of bread in milk that he had for breakfast.
"It's alright, I don't mind, you can share it with your sisters. I know my siblings are always ravenous after school too. I swear my dad jokes that they'll eat us out of house and home with the way they eat." Liona laughed and it sent his stomach a flutter, that had nothing to do with his hunger or the food before him.
Gulping, Erik raised the plastic fork that had been inside the lid of the lunch box and carefully stabbed the most recognizable part of it. A piece of chicken coated in the red-orange sauce was surprisingly tender and the dull fork easily pierced it. Lifting it up to his lips, he got a better whiff of the fragrant sauce and despite warning signals going off in his head, that this smelled spicy, he took a bite. Immediately he felt like his mouth was on fire, but the explosion of flavor was so intense that he kept chewing, despite his eyes watering and the feeling like his nose was running.
"Haaht!" Erik waved his mouth as it burned, feeling like his tongue was swollen just from that single bite of food.
"Let me try! Don't be such a baby!" Nikki declared and snatched the lunch box from his hands. She too took a bite of the chicken and nearly dropped the lunch box as she fought not to spit out the morsel of food. No matter how much they disliked something, they didn't let it go to waste in their family. They either ate it or went hungry. Tantrums over food never lasted long when the alternative was an empty stomach.
"Hot?" Liona seemed to ask curiously. "I don't think I made it too spicy. I only used mild seasoning and plenty of yogurt for the sauce and the chicken…"
After the two oldest had tried the food, the younger ones were more hesitant to eat the food.
"Well, then it's better if you eat it with the basmati rice. If I'd had the time, I would have made naan bread instead, but the rice will help if you find it too spicy." Liona reminded him of the compartments below the hot top layer of the lunch box.
Erik took back the lunch box and separated it out into the cold and intermediary warm layer where the rice was located. He didn't know what basmati rice was, but rice was rice, as far as he was concerned. He tasted the rice and was surprised by the fluffy texture of it. It was so different from the rice his mom made them. It was almost criminal to look so pleasing, but he added a little of the sauce the chicken was in, to the rice, and tried another bite. It certainly was still too spicy, but it did help mellow out the spice a bit.
As soon as Erik tried this, Nikki did too. Her eyes nearly lit up in relief. Then they both tried what Liona had called Greek salad next and saw that it had no lettuce in it. How was it a salad if there was no lettuce? This was a strange concept to them, but they each took a bite of the recognizable pasta pieces and were overwhelmed with the tangy flavor. It was zesty, and if it could, it would explode in little bursts of zingy fireworks.
After a bit of debate between them, Erik and Nikki delegated the pasta to the younger kids while they ate the chicken dish with the rice. In no time they had the entire lunch box polished off, without even a grain of rice left.
"So? How was it? Was it good?" Liona asked.
Erik, not wanting to offend his new friend and earn her wrath, was going to try and sugar-coat his words, but Nikki beat him to it. "It was too spicy!"
"It was good with the rice though!" He tried to soften Nikki's words, but cringed inwardly, hoping that Liona wouldn't be upset.
"Alright. If that's too spicy, then I will alter it the next time I make some to share." She seemed genuinely pleased at their reactions, which baffled Erik.
"So, the last time we played together, I don't think I got the chance to be introduced to all of your sisters, Erik. Would you tell me which one is which?" She then turned to each of his sisters, "And then each of you can tell me what kinds of food you like, so the next time I make a lunch to share, I can make sure there's something you all like in it."
She smiled with that pretty smile of hers at all of his sisters and again he felt his stomach flutter and twist in a way that he couldn't even begin to describe. He just knew that his new friend was doing things to his mind and body that were completely new to him.
Erik then introduced each of his sisters in order. "That's Nicole, she's 15, Kylee is next, she's 13. Then we have Sarah who is 11, Heather is 9, Kirsten 5, Emily is 2, and finally we have Tyler who is only 4 months old." He waited again for the disdain of having too many siblings, but it didn't come. Instead, all that he heard was Liona chatting with each of them and asking each one of them what kinds of food they liked.
As the light started to fade, Liona seemed to realize what time it was and then with a promise of more yummy food to come, she left.
Making their way back home, Erik and Nikki talked about Liona and how she was so different from all the rich people they had met before. "She even called you her friend! What's with that? Is she for real? Friends with the likes of us? She's not leading you on, is she? I mean you've only met once before!" Nikki proclaimed.
"Actually, I've met her a few more times. She shops at the store I work at, and she and her friends that were here at the park, frequent the coffee shop and the fast-food place I work as well. She seems genuine and I want to believe that she's not playing us."
"Is she stalking you?!" Nikki was outraged.
"No, think about it, Nikki. We only just moved here, she's probably lived here her whole life, so of course she would have places that she goes to all the time. When she was shopping at the store, she said she was running an errand for her dad. The coffee shop is close to her school and her and her friends' go-to place for coffee in the morning. My coworker, Daniel, knows them and their loyalty cards go way back, long before I started working there. As for the fast-food place, it's near her school as well, so they often eat and do their homework or study there while they have lunch or hang out after school." He tried his best to explain to Nikki that these were all just coincidences.
He didn't quite know it himself, but there was a bigger force at play here and neither he nor Liona knew what was in store for them as friends.