“You bought lunch. I’m happy to cook.”
“Sounds great.” I perched on a bar stool on one end of the galley kitchen as he fried up a couple of veggie burgers on an indoor grill.
As we sat and ate them—along with baby carrots in butter, cauliflower with cheese sauce, and French bread—I grinned. “I think these would be even better on the grill.”
His returning grin was just as quick. “They are. I have one that I use a few times a year. I’m not thrilled about using gas, but there’s nothing quite like charbroiled.”
“You’ll have to prove that to me.” I pointed to the burger. “That’s better than I expected.”
“Of all the veggie burgers out there, these are my favorites.” He offered one of his shyer smiles.
“I’ll bet you’ve tried them all.”
“Yep. When new ones come out, I try them as well. And always come home.”
“Were you always a vegetarian?”
He scrunched his nose. “That’s complicated.”
“One’s relationship with food often is.” I dipped some cauliflower into the delicious cheese sauce. “You don’t have to share.”
“It’s my parents.”
I stilled.Is he going to ask for reciprocity? Is he going to want me to talk about my relationship with my parents? With my father? Talk about complicated—
“I was born in the mid-1980s.”
“Okay.” I grinned. “That makes youwayolder than me.” I made certain to emphasize theway. In truth, there were about a dozen years between us, and I couldn’t have cared less.
He arched an eyebrow.
I popped the cauliflower into my mouth.
He sighed. “My parents were on the leading end of the environmentalism movement. For them, it started withno nukesand ended withfossil fuels are evil.”
I swallowed. “No nukes?”
“Yeah. They protested again nuclear proliferation. They were convinced the world was going to end in a mushroom cloud. They even attended theRefuse the Cruiseprotest in Vancouver back in ’83. Before I was born, but they’ve regaled me withstories since I was a toddler. I mean, Vancouver declared itself a nuclear-weapon-free zone. Like with Americans in Alaska to our north and Washingtonians to our south didn’t somehow factor into things. No one was going to bomb Vancouver. As far as they’re concerned, their protests brought an end to nuclear proliferation.”
I squinted. “Did they?”
“Don’t say nuclear in their presence. With all the shit going on in the world today, they’re convinced it’s only a matter of time. They’re prepared to get out their outfits from the eighties and go out and protest again.”
“Okay.” I scratched my jaw. “So the no nukes was also environmentalism?”
He blinked at me. “Nuclear is horrific for the environment.”
“Right. I knew that.”Say something intelligent. “I thought British Columbia is primarily hydro-powered.”
“We are.”
“Do we have nuclear power plants?”
“We do not.”
The way he said that made me think I should’ve known this. “Just pipelines.”
His expression darkened as he furrowed his brow. “Yes. The oil’s not ours. But the oil people have to get it to market in Asia, so they build pipelines across our pristine wilderness.”
