Page 50
Warm comfort sounds amazing, considering it’s still snowing outside and everyone is a little bit—or more than a little bit—on edge tonight.
Soon enough, the kitchen is filled with the warm, savory smell of the soup, and my stomach growls loudly, reminding me that I barely ate anything at the diner earlier. Ares made fun of Tate for not wanting another diner meal for dinner tonight, but the prospect of a real, warm meal sounds pretty damned good to me right now.
“Can you get the bread and pop it in the oven to heat up?” Tate asks, and I finish my drink and go pull out the loaf of crusty bread Tate picked up.
“You’re really good at this,” I tell him while I lean against the counter and wait for the oven to heat up. “Teaching and cooking. It smells amazing in here.”
“And this is just what I can do with a store-bought chicken and stock,” he says, winking at me. “Imagine how impressed you would be if we had the time and ingredients for me to make this from scratch.”
I can imagine it. Tate’s sure, confident hands working through breaking everything down, him explaining his process, and letting me taste the results. It sounds like it would be a good time.
As if he can read my mind, he dips a spoon in the broth and blows on it a bit before holding it out to me to taste. I lean and sip the hot broth from the spoon, wincing as it burns my tongue just a little.
Of course it’s amazing. Just the right amount of salt, creamy, tempered with a bit of lemon. The herbs come through just enough to not be overpowering, and the pinch of sugar I saw him add balances everything out perfectly.
“That’s so good,” I tell him.
“And that’s with subpar ingredients. One day I’m going to make you a soup that will blow your clothes off.”
“Isn’t it supposed to be ‘knock your socks off’?”
He gives me a look as he starts to pull bowls down. “I said what I said.”
When the soup is ready and the bread is warm, Tate calls everyone in to dish up. He ladles out the soup, and even Ares and Callan seem happy to have a hot, homecooked meal tonight.
Everyone takes their bowls and bread to the living room and we sit down to eat. Tate and I end up on the couch, with Ares and Callan on the loveseat adjacent to it.
Tate takes the remote and puts on the TV, flipping through the channels until he lands on something that is currently on a close-up of Ares’ face. He cackles delightedly and puts the remote down.
After a minute or two, I recognize this as an episode of the show Ares has been doing for the last few years, that just wrapped up filming for good.
Ares rolls his eyes, but doesn’t complain about us all watching him while we eat.
The whiskey has me loose and warm enough that I just ask the question on my mind. “Why do you guys always watch Ares’ stuff when it’s on? You’ve probably seen it all already, right?”
Ares makes a face, but Tate just laughs. “It’s tradition now. We watch whatever’s on and we bust his balls a little.”
“Or a lot,” Ares mutters.
“You can’t tell me some of it isn’t worth being mocked,” Tate fires back. “Especially your earlier stuff. You were in some god awful movies back in the day.”
“I know, I know,” Ares says.
“Remember that one where you played a snowman that came to life on Halloween?”
I blink. “On… Halloween?”
“Yup.” Tate grins delightedly. “There was a random snowstorm in October, and all the kids made snowmen in delight. But one of the snowmen was different. One of the snowmen was special. One of them turned into a dashing gentleman overnight and ended up winning the heart of a grieving widow who had just moved to town.”
“Wait, it’s a romance? I would have thought it would be a scary movie because… Halloween.”
“Yeah, you’d think so, wouldn’t you?”
“That was a long time ago,” Ares cuts in. “And they got better after that.”
“Yeah, the one where you play a dance instructor for dogs was really good cinema,” Callan adds.
“Look, I did that one as a favor.”
