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“With what? I don’t have any groceries here.”
“You do now.” He pulls a knife from the drawer and starts slicing the pie while I open the fridge to find that I do, in fact, have food. A lot of it. Fruit and vegetables and eggs, stuff I don’t eat unless I order it.
“So, this is like a frozen thing? Where’s the box? I’ll take a picture, so I know what to get.”
“No box, I made this from scratch.” He scoops a slice onto a plate and hands it to me.
“For real?” I twist and turn the plate, inspecting it from all angles. It looks just like a heaping slice of apple pie, only with ground beef instead of apples, but with the same golden flaky crust you’d expect in a dessert. “You can cook?”
“Sometimes. When I’m bored, or...” He lifts a casual shoulder then dishes a piece for himself.
“Hmm.” I close my lips around a forkful of pie, and an explosion of savory flavor hits my tongue. The meat is so tender it practically melts right along with the flaky crust, and I swear my eyes roll back in my head a little as the cinnamon-sweet aftertaste floods my senses. “Holy shit, that’s incredible.” I rush to take another bite. “How’d you get it to rise like an actual pie? I always thought those were hard to make at altitude.”
Noah cocks his head to the side as I take another bite, realizing too late the blunder I just made.
“I didn’t expect a guy who keeps literally no food in his house to know anything about baking.”
“Late night TV,” I say around a mouthful, figuring that’s enough of an explanation to keep him from asking anything more.
“Which show?”
Dammit.
“Fuck if I know. Sometimes I just leave the thing on while I fall asleep. Maybe I picked things up by osmosis.”
His wary expression says he doesn’t buy that, but too bad. Just cause I show a guy my cock doesn’t mean I’m gonna tell him all my sordid history about watching our housekeeper cook since I didn’t have friends to hang out with. Fortunately, he doesn’t seem to be in a challenging mood.
“I like ‘Is It Cake?’” He carries his plate to the tiny kitchen table and takes a seat.
“What now?” I grab a beer from the fridge and follow him with my dinner.
“People make cakes that look like real objects, and you have to guess which are real and which are cake.”
“Pfft. Doesn’t sound that hard.”
“That sounds like a challenge.”
My fork stops midway to my mouth as I cut Noah a suspicious look. Is he flirting with me? That’s new. And kind of intriguing.
I take my bite and wash it down with a swig of beer, grinning playfully. “Okay big guy. What do you have in mind?”
“I’m not going to bake a cake if that’s what you mean. I’ll show you an episode and you have to guess which are the cakes.”
“And if I guess correctly? What do I get?” My smile turns almost sinister as I imagine the possibilities.
“Bragging rights?” He has the good sense to look a little wary.
“Uh, uh. I want another dinner.” I toss him a softball, mostly because if I go straight to the good stuff I won’t get a home-cooked meal, but I can be creative in showing my appreciation if he cooks for me again.
“I only know how to make a few things.”
“You don’t cook like this for yourself all the time?”
His head swivels back and forth. “I have someone make meals for me. Mostly lean proteins that keep me in top shape, not comfort food like this.”
I have a brief flashback to sitting at the kitchen island as a kid, a steaming bowl of Rose’s homemade ramen in front of me. Most people probably don’t think of Japanese cuisine as comfort food, but to me… Let’s just say it’s one of the happier aspects of my childhood.
“Tripp?” Noah’s voice jolts me out of the memory. “You good?”
