Page 61 of Blade

“I can’t wait to show you.” He also couldn’t wait to share the good gossip he’d found while I’d been politely interrogating our server because as soon as we walked out, he laughed. “I figured out what the problem was.”

“How?” What had I missed? “What happened?”

“While you were waiting up at the front, the older couple a few tables down from us waved at me. I’m pretty sure they were shifters of some sort but their scent wasn’t familiar. Either way, he said the news that I was healthy again was already starting to spread and the cook was pissed his hunting trip was canceled.”

What?

“They’re still doing that?” I’d run into a few articles about hunting parties but nothing lately. “What were they thinking?”

Had they just learned to keep it off the internet?

What had they been going to do to him?

Blaine shrugged, finding too much humor in the situation. “That’s a very good question.”

“This isn’t funny.” I was going to have to save him from himself. “They were trying to kill you.”

“I’d have made a very ugly rug.” His flippant response made me groan, which only seemed to tickle him even more. “Do you think I’d have tasted any good?”

“Still not funny.” What if they’d succeeded? “This is ridiculous.”

I’d been hunting to save the locals from a monster, not because it was fun or I wanted monster stew.

“You’d been thinking I would be tasty.” Looking very pleased with himself, he nodded slowly. “You’re probably feeling bad about it now, but that’s okay, I’ll let you make it up to me.”

Wait.

Hadn’t I been the one who was getting the bribe?

Murder kitties were sneaky.

CHAPTER 20

BLAINE

“No,we had something similar but it definitely wasn’t the same.” The tortillas I’d eaten once were nothing like the tacos Henley had made. “The only tortillas I saw back then came in a can and I think you had to fry them before you could eat them?”

My mate frowned and looked down at the remains of the tacos that littered our plates. “That sounds messy.”

What he’d made was also messy, but since I couldn’t cook, I wasn’t going to point that out. “I just saw the end results and heard the complaining about it all, but I think I could do this if you explain things as you go next time?”

Glancing up, my mate seemed to mentally shift gears from what he’d planned on saying because it took him a few seconds to actually talk. “I didn’t even think about showing you what I was doing. Oh. Can you cook?”

“No.” Not in the way he probably meant. “I can heat soup on the stove and I’ve watched you use the microwave enough that I think I can safely use that.”

But considering he randomly made things explode in there on a regular basis, I wasn’t so sure it was safe to begin with.

It used some kind of radiation to heat food.

“Is that a Blaine thing or a cultural thing from…when you were younger?” Henley frowned, clearly not pleased with how that’d come out, but he didn’t get distracted. “I’ve got a stereotypical image of a guy from the fifties but I don’t know how much of that is true and how much is TV nonsense.”

“It’s probably a mix of both?” I wasn’t sure, honestly. “I knew some men who cooked very well and ran restaurants around here, but in my family, the women cooked or someone was hired to do it. I can grill, though.”

Henley didn’t seem to do much of that, which was probably safer for everyone. He’d start with good intentions but then he’d wander off to go research something before dinner was safely off the flames.

“Some things never change.” He grinned, shaking his head. “Once we figure out a plan, how about we go look for some kind of portable grill? I’m not sure what will work best but there are a lot of options.”

Perfect.