"I'd like it very much…"
Ollie's smile grew so wide it was almost bashful, and he ducked his head over the cutting board as if he needed something to do with his hands.
"Then we'd best get started," he said.
The sausages went first. Ollie laid them into the larger of the two pans, and the iron greeted them with a fierce -HSSSSS- that filled the sitting room with the smell of pepper and sage and browning pork.
"Sausages take the longest," he said, speaking to fill the silence that had begun to feel awkward. He nudged each one with the flat of his spatula until they sat in a neat row with plenty of space between them. "If you leave them be and only turn them now and then, they'll go crisp on the outside and stay juicy in the middle. Poke them too much, and all the good goes out into the pan," he said, as though ruining fine sausages was a great tragedy.
