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I snorted. “We don’t hate each other…per se.”
Channing muttered something to Brittany, who then laughed, and my eyes went from my uncle to my aunt.
“What?”
Brittany widened her eyes. “Oh, nothing.” Her gaze went from me to Zee. “What did you bring to eat?”
“No,” I snapped. “What did you say?”
“I said that you didn’t seem like y’all hated each other all that much and that from what I could tell, there was a lot more fucking than hating going on.” Channing blushed. “Looks to me like y’all are in a relationship just like the rest of us.”
“That would be because we are in a relationship just like everyone else. We’re together. We still fight. We enjoy making up.” Zee’s eyes went to her. “Brought a burger and fries.” He looked at what we were eating. “Though I didn’t get gourmet or anything. I didn’t know they had a Whataburger here. When did that happen?”
I looked down at my Whataburger that Zee had just referred to as ‘gourmet’ and grinned.
Then I took another bite.
“Eat, eat,” Brittany ordered. “That place is good, too. Ethel’s has great burgers and shitty fries. They get shittier the longer that you leave them to sit.”
Zee grunted. “That’s why I got two hamburgers and a salad.”
Salad? Gross.
Not that I had any room to talk. I ate salads, too. I just had to force them down instead of eating them willingly like I was sure Zee was doing.
Then again, you had to have some balance, I supposed, when you were eating poorly.
“No protein shake and grilled chicken with a side of broccoli?” I teased. “I bet you got the ‘good for you’ burger, didn’t you?”
He pulled out his salad, followed shortly by a…not hamburger.
“That’s a lettuce wrap, not a hamburger,” I felt it prudent to point out.
He also pulled out one lonely hamburger that I knew, without a shadow of a doubt, wasn’t for him.
He’d gotten it specifically for me.
It also had everything on it that I would get.
“You know,” Zee said, ignoring the other people in the room. “Your runs would probably go a whole lot better if you ate better and fueled your body with good fats and carbs instead of that shit that you stuff into it.”
Cabe made an agreeing sound. “I found that out the hard way, too. This shit is going to go right through me.”
He said this just before he took a massive bite of his hamburger.
The hamburger was so big that I wondered if he was going to be able to finish it, honestly.
I looked away and eyed the hamburger that Zee had gotten me, pointing to it.
“Can I eat that?”
He looked at the food that I had left in front of me.
“You already have food,” he said but handed it over anyway.
I shrugged. “I’ll eat this, too. I’m starving.”
I wasn’t starving. I was just happy that he’d thought of me as he was getting his own food.
I also liked how he knew that I wasn’t a big fan of cold fries. They had to be piping hot, or I wouldn’t eat them.
What was the point? Most fries turned to shit the moment that they started to lose their original warmth—i.e., fries that were fresh out of the oil, and not fries that were fresh out from under the heat lamp.
I just wondered how, exactly, Zee knew that I hated it.
Or how he knew how I took my burgers.
Though, I guess saying that, I had to think about the fact that I also knew that Zee didn’t do useless carbs.
Such as buns on his burgers.
“How do you get any enjoyment out of that at all?” I asked as he picked up his pointless burger.
He took a bite. “Learned to like it. Eating like shit makes me feel like shit. Though, saying that, I’d rather drink my calories in beer than eat bread…”
Now that I could understand.
“I read an article today on an American Military News website about US Marines and Navy Sailors being at some NATO exercise and drinking every single ounce of beer that the Icelandic town had to offer,” I supplied helpfully. “Though, they say it was over a four day period.”
Zee snorted. “Took Marines and Sailors four days what would have taken the Army one.”
Cabe scoffed, having been one of those ‘Marines and Sailors.’ Cabe had been in the Navy for ten years before he’d retired and come to work in Benton. Needless to say, he was proud.
“Only because y’all aren’t better at anything else but drinking and fucking,” Cabe drawled. “Sometimes it’s nice to actually be able to do something more complicated than screw in a bolt or pull a trigger.”
Zee grinned. “Yeah?” he asked. “I was planning to be an engineer. Though, saying that, I now fly a helicopter and pull a trigger for the sheriff’s department part-time.”
