Chaz reached for the platter with the country fried steaks on them and served himself one before he passed the platter to me. I forked a piece of heaven and put it on my plate then passed the platter to Meredith, who served herself before handing the platter to Josh. To my way of thinking, Josh should have served himself first since he did all the work, but I knew from experience that it didn’t work like that. The same pattern continued with the mashed potatoes, gravy, lima beans, and dinner rolls. There wasn’t an inch of plate showing by the time the food had been passed around.
“Dig in,” Josh said, once we had all been served.
He didn’t have to tell me twice. I chose to take my time and savor the meal rather than hoover it down like I wanted to. “Thisisbetter than Emma’s,” I said after my first bite of perfectly breaded and fried steak. The sweet smile Josh gave me had my heart speeding up; I found myself wanting to put that smile on his face more often.
“Tell me about yourself, Gabe?” Chaz asked me in between bites. I felt like I was interviewing for a job.
“What would you like to know?” I asked.
“Let’s start with your hobbies,” Chaz said after thinking about it for a few seconds.
“I play softball on the police department’s team in the spring and summer, I lift weights a lot, I’m trying to teach my dog some new tricks, um…”
“What position do you play?” Meredith asked.
“I’m pretty versatile,” I told Meredith, whose brief smile told me her mind had headed straight to the gutter. “I mostly pitch though.”
Chaz snorted and muttered, “I bet.” Josh smacked him upside the back of the head, which caused him to laugh hard. Meredith gave in to the urge to laugh too.
“You two fools sound like cackling hyenas. He was talking about his softball team so get your minds out of the gutter,” Josh said firmly, but his twitching lips told me that he wanted to laugh along with them.
“Ohhh, you were asking aboutsoftballpositions?” I asked Meredith. “I play center field.” My response only made Chaz and Meredith laugh harder. Josh narrowed his eyes in mock irritation at me while I just kept eating. It truly was the best country fried steak I’d ever had.
“I almost squirted Prosecco out my nose,” Meredith said once she stopped giggling. “Oh, that was some funny shit.”
“I’m almost afraid to ask anything else,” Chaz said to Meredith. “He might tell us whether or not he’s cut, uncut, or his number of inches right here at the dinner table.”
“Cut and more than you could handle, dumbass,” Josh told Chaz. “Shut up and eat your food.”
I nearly choked on the bite of lima beans I had just scooped into my mouth. A person shouldn’t gasp while trying to swallow food at the same time. It had a disastrous effect. My eyes watered and tears ran down my face as I tried to right myself.
Josh went to the kitchen and returned with a glass of water. “Here drink this.” The cold water soothed my irritated throat. “I’m sorry I made you choke,” he said, stroking the back of my head. “We have terribly inappropriate conversations during dinner and you’re probably not used to it. I should’ve warned you instead of branding you by fire.”
“It’s worse than a locker room,” I told him. My voice sounded raspy so I drank some more water until there was nothing left.
“Do you want another glass?” Josh asked me. I saw worry in his eyes and I smiled to assure him that I was fine.
“I’m good.” I turned my attention back to the other people at the table. “What he said,” I said in response to Chaz’s remark about my dick. Meredith bit her lip to keep from laughing and Chaz didn’t even bother trying to hold back.
Josh nudged my shoulder with his elbow and said, “Don’t encourage them,” before he returned to his chair.
“What made you want to be a cop?” Meredith asked.
Josh’s eyes nearly bugged out of his head with worry that the question would upset me. “It’s okay,” I told him before I turned to Meredith. “My older brother was killed during a convenience store robbery when he was seventeen and I was fifteen. His killer was never arrested and it was a horrible feeling. I never wanted another family to feel that way so I became a cop.”
“I am so sorry,” Meredith said, covering her heart with her hand.
“That’s rough,” Chaz said somberly.
“It was rough and to be honest that kind of hurt never goes away, but you learn to handle it better after time. Holidays and birthdays are the absolute hardest, but Dylan would kick my ass if I didn’t try to make the best of every moment. I was so lucky to have him as a big brother for fifteen years so I try to focus on that more than his loss.”
Josh looked at me with wet eyes and a soft smile. “He’d be really proud of you.” His words meant more to me than I could say. Dylan was so much more to me than a brother, he was my champion and hero. I hoped I had the opportunity to tell Josh all about him someday.
The rest of the meal was consumed in silence and I worried that my response about my brother ruined dinner. Meredith pushed back from the table and made a big production of stretching and yawning. She gave me a warm smile then placed her hand on Josh’s.
“Dinner was scrumptious, Jazz. Thank you so much.” She stretched and yawned again before she said, “I’m worn out though so I’m going to head on home.” She looked pointedly at Chaz across the table. “You’re tired too and need to go home to rest.”
“But we haven’t had dessert yet.”
