Chapter 786 Peel a Crab for You
Toby noticed the dejected expression on Sonia’s face and he subsequently placed a prawn onto her plate. “You haven’t had any seafood for quite some time now, so you should enjoy this meal. Have some more. In the future. I’ll accompany you and get seafood whenever you crave it.”
Sonia was very touched to hear his words and she nodded her head with a smile. “Sure! I’ll hold you accountable to that, then. I warn you, though—you’d better not renege on your words because of your busy schedule.”
“I won’t.” Toby shook his head. “Well, the worst that could happen would be that I deal with work while eating seafood with you. I could deal with the paperwork and hold a conference while we eat if you don’t find it annoying.”
“Pfft!” Sonia couldn’t control her laughter as soon as she heard his description.
“What do you mean by holding a conference and dealing with your paperwork while eating seafood with me? Stop pulling my leg.”
Indeed, Sonia found his words quite amusing and she envisioned the situation of him sitting in a conference room with tens to hundreds of people, holding a meeting while sitting on his spot with a platter of seafood in front of him. The whole time, Toby would peel prawns while he spoke to the crowd regarding the content of the meeting.
The scene in her mind was extremely amusing to her and she couldn’t contain her laughter at all. At once, her face flushed red from the excitement she felt.
At that moment, Toby stared at her. “Alright, alright. You’ve laughed long enough. Don’t laugh too long because you might become breathless.”
Sonia nodded her head repeatedly. “Yeah, I know that.” Subsequently, she took a deep breath and gradually calmed down.
Just then, Toby picked up a crab and placed it on his plate. Following that, he slipped some disposable gloves on while mentioning, “How are you feeling? Are you feeling much better now?”
Meanwhile, Sonia lifted her brows. “So did you purposely say that you were going to accompany me for some seafood while holding a conference to cheer me up?”
“Something like that.” Toby put on his gloves and opened another box. Inside the box, there were some professional tools used to peel a crab.
Upon hearing that, Sonia instantly felt a warm, fuzzy feeling. “Of course I feel better! I just laughed so happily earlier, so my mood’s definitely great. However, I didn’t expect that you would actually take the initiative to cheer me up.”
Toby lifted his head to glance at her and warmly murmured, “You’re the person I love, so of course I will do so.” Then, he lowered his head and started to peel the crab.
This was the first time ever that Sonia had seen Toby peel a crab. In fact, it wasn’t a dignified thing to do and especially for someone belonging to such high social circles, it could even be considered to be a very vulgar move as it seemed to be quite unhygienic.
Therefore, ones belonging to such social circles didn’t generally eat crabs. They generally ate crabs that had been dismantled and well-processed. Basically, none of them would actually personally peel a crab. That would be considered a disruption to their pristine image and they were much more worried about the mocking voices of the others.
Even Sonia didn’t tend to personally peel a crab when she was eating with someone else. She normally did that in private, when she was by herself or if she dined with Charles. Those were the only times when she would disregard her image and take action. Other than that, she didn’t generally do that when she was outside.
She had assumed that Toby was the same and he wouldn’t actually lift a finger himself. Unexpectedly though, he had done something on the contrary and dismantled a crab personally. Furthermore, his actions weren’t the least bit vulgar at all. On the other hand, he looked exceptionally refined and it was a pleasure to see him do the job.
Sonia was captivated and she couldn’t even take her eyes off him.
Anyway, Toby seemed to be the only one who was able to perform an act generally shunned and widely avoided by people in their social circles so artistically and enjoyably.
As such, Sonia couldn’t help looking at Toby with an admirable gaze.
At the same time, Toby sensed it and he lifted his head to look at her. He saw that she was staring unblinkingly at the crab in his hands, and the smile on his face instantly deepened but he didn’t say a word. Subsequently, he lowered his head once again and continued to handle the crab in his hands. This time, his movements were much faster than before.
After a few minutes, Toby finally finished removing all of the meat from the crab, and he placed the crabmeat and roe back into the back of the shell. The yellowish filling glistened and the whole shell was filled to the brim. Just by a light touch, the crabmeat and roe quivered and it looked very appetizing, to the point where one was tempted to take a huge scoop of it into one’s mouth. It would definitely be great to have a mouth filled with crab meat.
Sonia couldn’t help taking a huge gulp as she forced herself to shift her eyes elsewhere with a torn feeling. She was quite worried that she wouldn’t be able to stop herself from grabbing the crab from Toby if she continued to stare at it.
I’ll just peel another one myself. And so, Sonia placed down her utensils, and then she took a crab to start dismantling it when a large hand, which was holding the crab shell filled to the brim with crabmeat, stretched out in front of her. The large hand reached over in front of her plate to place the crab shell into her plate.
At that moment, Sonia was significantly stunned as she looked at the crabmeat on her plate, and she glanced at the man who’d just withdrawn his hand. Her mouth widened slightly and then she spoke up in disbelief. “Why did you hand me this?”
Toby pulled out a piece of tissue to wipe his hand and replied smilingly, “I did it for you anyway.”
At his response, Sonia’s eyes widened. “F-For me?”
“Yup,” Toby responded. “Hurry up and finish it. Don’t let it turn cold because it won’t taste as nice then.”
Finally, Sonia realized that it was actually prepared for her and Toby had intentionally dismantled the crab for her. Come to think of it, she was salivating after it earlier and had even intended to grab it from him. Unexpectedly though, he had prepared it for her right from the start. Immediately, there was a warm, fuzzy feeling that rose within Sonia, and an extremely tender expression appeared on her face. “Thank you.”
Subsequently, Toby took a sip from his cup of tea. “There’s no need to thank me. It’s just a crab. Hurry up and eat it. But, one’s enough and you shouldn’t eat any more than that. It’s not good for you if you have too much of it.”
“Okay.” Sonia nodded her head earnestly and her expression was one full of joy.
Meanwhile, Toby placed down his cup of tea and took his utensils to start eating. As for Sonia, she enjoyed herself eating the crab and the smile on her face lingered.
Evidently, Toby was very pleased to see her eating so happily. Despite the fact that he hadn’t personally cooked the crabs, he was still the one who had removed the meat from the crab for Sonia so being the one who’d done all the hard work, he was obviously quite content to see her eating so happily. The contentment that he felt was all due to the happy feeling of being acknowledged.
“By the way, how do you know how to peel a crab?” Sonia suddenly thought of that and she turned to ask Toby out of curiosity.
From her impression of him, he wasn’t one who knew how to peel a crab, and neither was he one who would do such a job. However, Toby had indeed done it for her and he had done a great job of it too. His actions of dismantling the crab didn’t seem out of practice at all. On the contrary, he seemed quite skilled at it and at a glance, he seemed to know what he was doing. However, this was quite out of character for him.
Meanwhile, Toby used his fork and knife to cut an abalone into pieces from the dish in front of him. He then said to Sonia with a slight smile, “I specifically went to learn this.”
“Why did you go and learn this all of a sudden?” Sonia was even more confused by then. “This isn’t a life skill and it’s not helpful in your career either.”
The skills that Toby learned should relate to his professional development and those would definitely be much more useful than some dubious crab dismantling skill. Even if he was learning how to cook at the moment, he didn’t need to learn to peel a crab. After all, the two skills were not directly related to each other.
At this moment, Toby finished eating his abalone and he placed down the fork and knife in his hands. Subsequently, he wiped his mouth and replied, “It’s indeed not helpful in my career, but it has its role in my love life.”
At that moment, he lifted his head and stared at her with a tender and loving expression. His unmasked and intense stare caused Sonia to blush red right to the tip of her ears, and she couldn’t help lowering her head slightly out of embarrassment. “What are you on about?”
“I’m telling the truth. Ever since I got to know all of the things that you enjoyed, I’ve basically learned most of the skills related to it for the sake of making use of them someday and to have a common topic with you. This time with dismantling the crab is a classic example. I knew from the start that you enjoyed eating seafood, so I purposely went to learn how to peel a crab so that the next time we ate seafood together, I could personally peel it for you. As such, you wouldn’t need to lift a finger, but you will still be able to enjoy the best morsels of crab meat.”
“So that’s why you learned the skill.” Sonia’s voice quivered slightly and naturally, it went without saying that she was quite moved by his words. She was very touched by all that.
She had made a guess earlier on that this man had definitely gone behind her back and done a lot of other things for her. Indeed, she was right as he had even gone and learned such a redundant skill of dismantling a crab just for a moment like this. Presently, she was seemingly at a loss of words.
