Grace kept dancing.“I have hidden depths,” he preened.
“You do indeed,” said Danny, seeming pleasantly surprised as Felix held the chair for him as Leon had for Julia.“Thanks, Fox,” he said fondly.“You didn’t need to—”
Felix kissed his cheek, Danny blushed, and the whole table stopped to watch.
After a collective breath, Julia said, “So did Tor want us to hold the table or—”
“Tor wants you to start now,” Torrance Grayson said, walking into the room with a large bowl in each hand.“And Tor’s bossy boyfriend told him to bring the first course.”
“Which is…?”Julia asked.
“Basic salad,” Tor said, bemused.Marco was a top-rated chef—he usually went a little more adventurous.As Liam took the bowl from him to place at one end, he added, “Somebody will be out with a dressing selection in a minute.”
Julia clapped her hands.“Perfect,” she said happily.“I was really in the mood for basic ranch, lots of croutons.He really came through.Brisket for the main course?”
“Sure,” Tor said.Torrance Grayson was a trim man with a pointed chin and large blue-gray eyes who looked both trustworthy and droolworthy on screen.The downside to his expressive features was that his confusion was easy to read.One of Julia’s favorite things was good food, and she, Felix, and Danny (and Leon!) had offered Marco worlds to stay at the Salinger mansion to create food for them and their guests.When they weren’t feeding their family, they were often feeding celebrities or businessmen—Marco was in high demand, and his cachet was growing by the gig.
Brisket and ranch salad wasn’t usually his thing.
“I was in a mood,” Julia told him mildly, and her delighted smile returned.“And now it’s a good one!”
Once Tor had set the food down and taken the last remaining place, the other servers came in bearing “fixings”—bacon, cheeses, croutons, eggs, various vegetables and dressings in trenchers—and for a moment everybody’s energy was taken serving themselves family style and digging in.
Josh glanced down the table to see Liam skeptically poking at a bowl of olives and another one with feta in it.“Green salad,” Josh said.“Olives, feta, some oil-and-vinegar-based dressing—it’s really very good.”
Liam grimaced and grabbed the croutons instead, and Josh laughed.Liam had been very blunt about his “plain” tastes when they’d spent all that time on the yacht, and Josh was suddenly looking forward to teaching him a whole lot of fun things about food.His parents hadn’t dragged him across Europe at seven for him to be dependent on chicken nuggets and potato chipsnow.
“But why’s it called a salad bar?”Grace said next to him, as though they’d been in the middle of a conversation.“Is there alcohol in the dressing?Chopped brass in the lettuce?Where does that come from?”
“From restaurants where they used to set everything out on a counter so you could choose your ingredients,” Josh said.“Buffets.How bad wereyoufishing for a topic?”
“See?”Grace asked.“Why don’t they have fish bars?Where you walk up to a counter and choose fried flounder or swordfish or smoked salmon—”
“They do,” Stirling said.“It’s called a fish market, idiot.”
“Have you been to a fish market?”Tienne asked dreamily.“All these muscular men—”
“And women,” Molly said.
“Calling out to catch and then throwing hundred-pound fish at each other.It’s amazing.”
“Ooh—I want to throw fish,” Grace said, shoving a bite of salad in his mouth that was mostly cheese and ranch dressing.
“Like that weird Muppet character who uses them as boomerangs?”Michael asked.“My kids love that guy!”
“Mm…,” Grace said thoughtfully.“I don’t know if that guy’s my Muppet alter-ego.I think I’m more Animal.”
Everybody stared at him.
“What?”he said, on another amazing bite of mayonnaise and cheese.
“Nothing,” Josh murmured.“I just… I think we all agree.Perfect.You nailed it.”
Grace preened some more, then turned to him.“And you’re Kermit.”
“I thought I was more Scooter,” Josh said, although he was secretly pleased.“Danny’s Kermit.”
“Felix is Kermit,” Molly said thoughtfully.“Danny is Scooter, and you’re Robin, the little frog.”
