What Chef Boyardee Taught Me About Love

Kelsey Messner

“You’re too comfortable, Wren.”

I looked up at Lottie from my papasan chair. Nestled with my fleece blanket and a bowl of steaming pasta, I couldn’t disagree. 

I burrowed into my seat. “What does comfort have to do with dating?”

Lottie shook her head. “You talk about meeting someone, but look at you. Eating Chef Boyardee on a Saturday night and wearing the same sweatpants you’ve had since high school. Those things should have an expiration date.”

I petted the supple cotton. “Leisurewear doesn’t expire. It’s like a fine wine that gets better with age.”

Will, sitting on the loveseat beside me, raised his can. “I’ll drink to that.”

“You aren’t helping,” Lottie said.

“C’mon, sis. Just because you iron your jeans doesn’t mean the rest of us have to suffer.”

Lottie had gotten pushier about dating since she got serious with Jeff. 

Why did everything have to change?

I pointed my spoon at her. “Don’t diss Chef Boyardee. He may offer bloated ravioli in a sauce that is suspiciously orange, but you know what you’re gonna get with Chef Boyardee.”

Lottie flopped onto the footstool. “I’m making you an online dating account.”

“Online dating in Hixton? What a waste. Between working at the YMCA, Giovanni’s, and the gas station, I see our entire graduating class.”

Lottie snatched my phone from my lap. “This is happening. We have been friends forever. I’m your emotional POA, and you are no longer in the state of mind to make decisions about your personal life.”

I turned to Will and we rolled our eyes.

“Technically, Will and I have been friends longer, so he should be my Power of Attorney.”

Lottie raised a brow. “If you make a man your emotional POA, you’ll flatline.”

Will and I met at the YMCA when I was six. I asked him to launch me toward the hoop so I could dunk like some ill-advised, adolescent Dude Perfect. After I got my cast off, the two of us got into all kinds of shenanigans, and Will’s sister became the mother of our trio. 

In ten minutes, Lottie had completed a profile using the only photo of me in which I did not wear athletic apparel, circa the LulaRoe years. May they rest in peace.

“Now we search a ten-mile radius.”

After a few creeps from high school and the guy at Starbucks who looked twice his listed age, Will’s face appeared. 

“She made you do this, too?”

Will adjusted his Braves cap with a nod. “I hate that picture.”

“You look cute!” Lottie cooed.

“My smile’s too big. I look like I’m selling something embarrassing, like flatulence underwear.”

I snorted. “Any takers?”

Will took my empty bowl and his can to the kitchen. “Maybe soon.”

“If Will doesn’t have any bites, I’m doomed. Look at that face. He has those puppy dog eyes girls swoon over. My face is visual melatonin.”

Lottie dropped the phone. “New plan. Blind date. Tomorrow night.”

I moaned. “I’d rather gouge my eyes out.”

“Wren.” Lottie braced her hands on my shoulders. “You are no longer in control of your own destiny. Let me steer this ship. Take a test flight tomorrow, and who knows where you’ll go?”

“Wait. Are we going on a plane or a ship?”

“You, my too-comfortable friend, are going on a date.”

The next night I procrastinated until t-minus 30 minutes, scrolling through lists of illnesses for an excuse to skip the date. 

Will was dating. If I didn’t put myself out there, I’d be the only single one left.

I yanked on real clothes, mustered a couple swipes of mascara from a dried-up tube, and doused my hair in dry shampoo.

Giovanni’s was dimly lit and poorly decorated with fake, dusty vines and terracotta pots. Lottie told me Mr. Perfect would wait in the back right booth.

My stomach curled.

What could go wrong? If I didn’t like the guy, I could just dump pasta on my head and start yodeling. Still, I thought I might throw up.

I was mentally practicing the puppet bit from The Sound of Music until I glimpsed the back booth and burst out laughing. 

There was Will, wearing a blazer over a black tee and looking like an uncomfortable broccoli stalk without his baseball cap. 

I plopped down across from him. “Was the guy not interested?”

Will stared at me with his too-big, flatulence-underwear-ad smile.

My stomach dropped. “Oh, sweet Caroline. You’re the guy.”

Will laughed. His cheeks flushed, and he drummed the edge of the table. “Guilty.”

I dropped my face in my hands. “Now I really want to gouge my eyes out.”

“Wow. Tell me how you really feel.”

“No, not because it’s you, because I’m an idiot. Lottie set us up. Wait. You agreed to this?”

“Not exactly.” Will scrubbed the back of his neck. “I asked her to set it up.”

My eyes bugged out of my head. 

“I thought you might message me as a joke on the dating account, but Lottie had another idea.” Will leaned forward and lowered his voice. “Neither of us is good at change, Wren. We’ve been friends for so long, I didn’t know how to ask . . . if we could be more.”

My heart thumped into my throat. 

More?

Will shrugged. “I’m your Chef Boyardee. Nothing exciting, nothing new, but you know what you’re gonna get with me.”

He smiled, and my stomach flipped deliciously. 

I grinned. “Bloated ravioli?”

Will laughed. “I was thinking more Saturday game nights in sweatpants and me beating you at Catan, but sure.”

It was so different with Lottie missing from our trio. I felt the weight of his puppy dog eyes on me. How had I not noticed the adorable way his curls boinged when he turned his head? Or his broad shoulders that could probably still launch me across a court to dunk a basketball?

Maybe things could change. 

I raised my water glass.

“I’ll drink to that.”

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