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Eating another mouthful, I grin wolfishly at her. “Let me finish my pasta, and I’ll give you a mouthful.”
Shelley’s eyes flash with amusement, and she giggles. “Well, hurry up and eat then.”
I’m hardly going to turn that down. I start inhaling my pasta eagerly. Hell, I barely taste the shit.
Chapter 18
SHELLEY
“What are you doing?”
Merch glances over to where I’m standing in the doorway to the kitchen, drowning in one of his sweatshirts. He grins at me, jerking his head, telling me to get my ass next to him without speaking.
I stroll over, turning my eyes to the countertop, where he has an array of food spread out. There is meat, vegetables, everything. I took a shower, and the man somehow managed to buy an entire grocery store.
“Weare learning to cook,” he says, jabbing his thumb at the iPad propped up on the coffee machine, where a YouTube video is paused.
“What are we cooking?”
“Chicken stirfry with noodles and homemade sauce.”
Uh, yum. That actually sounds really nice. Only…. “We’re going to make our own sauce?”
Merch hears the doubt in my voice and grins. “We’re going to try.”
Giggling, I roll up my sleeves – he has the sleeves of his Henley pushed up to his elbows. I maybe take a moment to admire the corded muscles there as he lays out two cutting boards with knives, hitting the play button on the video.
“Right, so the first thing to do is prep all your ingredients,” the chirpy guy on the screen beams. “Cooking is ninety percent timing. People's number one mistake is overcooking things while still prepping the next ingredient.”
Huh. I guess that’s why they have everything pre-chopped in tiny little white bowls on every cooking show I’ve ever glimpsed. I always thought it was because they didn’t want to bore people by having us watch them chopping.
Merch is pretty handy with a knife, spinning it around and showing me tricks. I giggle again, staring wide-eyed.
“Are you secretly an amazing chef or something?”
Merch pauses, the smirk dropping off his face as he clears his throat. “Or something.”
Frowning, I drop my own knife, turning to face him, propping my hip against the cabinets, arms crossing over my chest, and eyebrows raised.
Merch grimaces as he carefully sets down his own knife, turning to face me, mirroring my stance.
“I’m an enforcer for the club,” he says with a shrug.
“Like a club police officer,” I reply promptly. That’s how Lisa explained it to me. Merch’s eyebrows shoot up, and he shrugs. “I guess. We use slightly different tactics than the actual cops.”
My lips twitch when I remember Pete and Hank’s run-in with Palmer.
“You mean there’s more violence and intimidation?”
Merch’s face clears up. “Exactly.”
“And you do that by showing off your serious knife skills?”
He pauses. “Not…exactly.”
It’s completely silent in the kitchen. The only sound is the guy explaining how to slice onions. Reaching over, I hit pause, my eyes still burning into Merch’s. Realization hits, my eyes widening, my mouth making an ‘o’.
“Oh.Right.”
