Page 14 of Carver’s Craving

God, or whoever might be out there, didn’t smite me for lying to my mother.

With that relief, I sighed. I continued to sit on the couch for ages. I could’ve checked my social media. Sure. But I’d find it empty. No one messaged me anymore. No one posted about our awesome band.

Dyre Crossing.

Not exactly a scintillating name. Just something we’d come up with when we’d been fourteen.

Was that really just nine years ago? I can’t believe it.

From high school garage band to a group that was opening for several bigger names. We’d been playing larger and larger venues. We’d landed a contract. We’d been going places.

I slammed my mind closed to anything else. What’s the point? Nothing will bring Frank back. Hell, maybe nothing’s going to bring Baxter back. Well, that might be a bit pessimistic. He’d always come back in the past, so I had no reason to believe the same wouldn’t happen again. Although he’d never gone radio silent for this long before.

Sitting around wasn’t accomplishing anything. Do something nice for Carver—to show him you appreciate having a roof over your head. Yep. I also needed to decide whether or not I was headed to Vancouver on Monday morning. Without either Baxter or a plan, that didn’t feel like a great idea. On the other hand, how long was Carver going to be willing to put me up? Or, rather, put up with me. I wasn’t exactly the easiest guy to be around.

I wandered over to the kitchen area. After plugging my phone back into the charger, I headed for the refrigerator.

The rotisserie chicken sat front and center. Not too hard to figure out what he was planning for dinner. Also, not much for me to do. Just heating it up would take little time. He also had dinner rolls. Okay…so vegetables and…mashed potatoes? That I could do. I retrieved several potatoes. Then washed, peeled, and put them in water to boil.

Great.

I decided I could take five minutes to go and sort my duffel bag. I also needed to do laundry—but I wanted to ask permission before doing that. So I hustled to my room, dumped the contents of my bag on the bed and gave it a thorough look. Not a whole hell of a lot here—I’m going to be running out of clothes pretty soon. Fucking Baxter. Shit…boiling water.

Saying a prayer as I hotfooted back to the kitchen, I was pleased to find the water boiling, but only gently. I knew better than to leave that alone. The scorched pot of KD had needed to be thrown out. Getting distracted was a big issue for me.

Should I set the table? Is that presumptuous? And vegetables? Oh, corn and peas. I tried to remember if that was too much sugar, starch, or whatever.

Baxter’s wife, Arlene, had obsessed about stuff like that. Given my friend and I had been all of twenty-one, I hadn’t understood the need for all the fancy things she carried on about. Thank God he’s divorced and away from her. A pregnancy scare had them marrying. Then it turned out she wasn’t pregnant. I tried not to think ill of people, but Arlene made that challenging. Probably because I didn’t believe she’d actually thought she was pregnant, but had trapped my best friend into marriage.

Water under the bridge.

I put the peas and carrots in another pot, added water, and put them on to boil.

Once that was organized, I wandered over to the windows looking out onto the lush backyard. Plenty of evergreens and yes, what I guessed were oak trees as well. I was never big on nature stuff. I was born and bred city. Would I go squirrely this far from civilization? How does Carver cope with the solitude? Well, he had the dogs. Not totally alone, then. I cursed Baxter again for having abandoned me, while thanking him because I wouldn’t have met up with Carver again, and headed back to the kitchen.

I stuck a fork in the potatoes and found them the perfect level of softness. Within ten minutes, I had them mashed. I was adding the butter, salt, and pepper when Carver clearing his throat caught me off guard. I whirled to find him standing rather close.

He had Walter in his arms and Poppin sat by his feet.

I grinned. “I hope this was okay.”

“It’s just fine. Appreciated, in fact. Anything I can do?”

“Nope. Have a seat and I’ll serve you. I was planning on chicken, mashed potatoes, dinner rolls, as well as carrots and peas. Did I forget anything?”

He shook his head. “I’m going to get these two fed. Then I’ll help.”

“Nope.” I grinned. “You get to sit and watch.”

The dining room table abutted the kitchen, and the change in flooring was the only delineation.

“I won’t complain about that. I keep their food in the laundry room. Oh, do you need to do a load?”

“Yeah, I kind of do.”

“After dinner, we’ll get you set up.”

“Carver?”