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“I stuck my foot in it, didn’t I,” Tripp declared, shoulders slumping.
“Oh yeah.”
“One of you gonna join me in this?” Tripp asked, a hopeful note in his tone as he looked around. Dez for obvious reasons waved it off, but Damien left the popcorn in the easy chair and reached for an olive, as did Riley.
“Are you still gonna kiss him after this?” Tripp asked, looking at Dez.
“Why not, it’s not my mouth he’s putting the olive in?” Dez replied.
“Just, curious, I guess, about the whole food thing.”
There was a moment of pause, while Zakk tried to kick Tripp’s foot, missed, and stubbed his toe on the coffee table.
“Ow, god damn it!” Zakk howled, rubbing his foot, pain making him forget the potential powder keg Tripp was about to light.
“What?” Tripp asked. “Didn’t wanna do it if it was gonna make him hurl.”
“You can’t just come out and ask that.”
“It’s fine,” Dez said and from the look on his face, he truly meant it.
Zakk just wished he’d said it before he’d tried to head off potential catastrophe and bruised himself in the process.
“Basically, I’m good with food touching on someone else’s plate, just not mine, so watching you guys do this isn’t going to bother me. I just can’t do it.”
“Good to know,” Tripp replied, and that was that.
Zakk thought back to those early days with Dez and was proud of how far his friend had come with being able to talk about his food proclivities without feeling ashamed or attacked by the question. He could have saved his toe some discomfort by trusting that the way Tripp asked the question wouldn’t be taken wrong, but for the consideration that it was, in him not wanting to gross Dez out.
“Alright, let the decorating begin,” Zakk said, dotting each olive with whipped cream, including the large green one he’d chosen for himself.
“On three?” Damien said.
“Is that one, two, three and then go, or one, two and go on three?” Tripp asked.
“How about I say go and you just eat the damn things?” James remarked, ending what was sure to be a debate.
“Works for me,” Tripp replied.
“Go!”
Zakk loved the sweet, creamy, salty combo, while Damien looked thoughtful while he chewed. Tripp was wrinkling his nose a little, chewing fast and grabbing a bottle of juice to wash it down, while Riley glanced around like he was looking for a place to spit it out.
“Here,” Zakk said, taking pity on him and passing over a napkin.
“Oh thank god,” Riley said the moment he’d spit it out. Not only did he wipe his mouth, but he scrubbed the napkin over his tongue and drained the iced tea left in his glass for good measure.
“That wasn’t half bad,” Damien said, before snagging another olive and adding cream himself, even licking it off his fingers after he’d popped it in his mouth.
“I know, right,” Zakk replied, grabbing a second one himself.
“Yeah, you’re on your own for that!” Tripp said before gulping down the rest of his juice.
“Amen to that!” Riley declared, draining Dez’s tea as well.
“Really, how did my glass get involved in this?”
“It was there.”
