“Speaking of kicking ass,” Roysy says. He wipes his mouth with his napkin. “Vicky, I need to hire you. Please come cook for me.”
“No way,” I say as I grab more cavatelli from my plate with my fork. “I’m pulling the rookie card and claiming her first.”
“No one is claiming my wife!” Danton exclaims. “But you all are always welcome here for dinner. I hope you know that by now.”
“What’s a few extra mouths to feed?” Ryan says. His eyes are wide as he fills his plate with more food. “I mean, besides the kids you all keep adding to the pile.”
As if on cue, their youngest, Danny, picks this moment to climb onto my lap. He grabs my fork and starts eating the food off my plate. I’m not mad about it. I like this kid and the way he just rolls with the surrounding chaos.
“I swear,” Danton says, leaning over and kissing Vicky on the cheek, “she gets better after each baby.”
“Don’t get any ideas,” she laughs. “We are definitely done. Danny was my last.” She reaches across the table to ruffle Danny’s head in my lap.
He grins up at me, and there’s pasta sauce all over his face.
Vicky flicks her gaze between me, and Ryan then settles it on him. “You should come by more often, though, Ryan. I know from experience that you can’t cook.”
“I can cook,” Ryan says, then takes a bite of his cavatelli.
I can hear him moan beside me. It practically vibrates through my chair. I grab another fork from the table and dig into my ownfood that Danny has made an impressive dent in. It’s fine, we can share, and I’ll fill our plate back up soon enough.
Ryan looks around at Danton’s family. Every single one of them is staring at him, and the older two kids are giggling. “I swear!” Ryan says again. “I can cook!”
“No, you can’t,” Danton laughs. “We tried to teach you years ago, and you failed spectacularly.”
“He burned the rice,” Danton’s oldest, Violet, says. She’s ten and looking at Ryan like he’s a god.
Same, girl. Same.
“I did not!” Ryan tries to defend.
“You did, actually,” Vicky says. “Which is impressive. That’s hard to do… twice.”
“Lies and slander!” Ryan exclaims.
I turn to look at him and raise an eyebrow. “Rich coming from the man who almost lit my childhood home on fire microwaving a Pop-Tart.”
Everyone at the table bursts out laughing.
“That was one time!”
“Also twice,” I say, then eat a bite of my chicken.
“Wow,” Ryan says. “And to think I thought we all came here to enjoy a home-cooked team dinner.” Despite his words, I can still hear the fondness in his voice. I can tell that, like me, he’s happy to be here.
Ryan
I needed this. Dinner at the Foleys’. Dinner surrounded by my teammates. Dinner with Brandon beside me, no matter the secret status of our relationship. It’s incredible having this mix under one roof. I’m practically high on it.I don’t even mind being the focus of everyone’s teasing.
“Look,” I say, still defending myself, “it’s not my fault. Nowhere on that box does it say you can’t microwave it.”
“Sure,” Brandon says with a lopsided grin. “But you’d think you’d learn from the first time not to do it again.”
I look around the table. “He says this, and yes, he is correct. But his family stored them in the refrigerator. Who does that?”
“Wait,” Danton says and looks right at Brandon. “I’m sorry. But what!?”
Brandon points his fork at me, which has three pieces of cavatelli dripping in pasta sauce hanging off of it. “First, don’t deflect this onto me. And second… just use the toaster like a normal person!”
