I give Petra a look that begs her to change the subject, and she gives a quick nod. I’ve always been closer to Petra than Inga, and she’s good atreading my nonverbal cues. I learned that term from Gray.
“Are you teaching right now?” Petra asks Gray.
“Just one class,” Gray answers. “It’s an intensive session that meets every day. The trade-off was that they gave my large lecture intro course to someone else this coming semester, so I’ll have more time to work with Ash. I’m only teaching seminars, which will be really nice.”
“That’s great,” Petra says before diving into her cake.
My father is half finished with his piece and has yet to speak.
“You’re working on an MBA, right?” Gray asks my sister.
“Yes. In fact, I wanted to ask Ash a favor while I was here.”
I raise a brow at Petra. “Oh?”
“I need to find an internship for my program,” she says, “and since you work for one of the richest, most powerful men in the country, I thought you might be able to help your little sister out.”
My other brow jumps up, joining the first. “You want me to ask Mr. Kaladin about an internship for you?”
She nods. “Yes, thank you! I knew I could count on you.”
The thought of Petra working for Kaladin makes me uneasy for some reason, and I open my mouth to argue, but Petra only gives me a wink and turns back to Gray.
“He’s the best, isn’t he,” she says to Gray.
Gray gives me a commiserating look that says she knows I’ve just been roped into something I don’t want to do.
I sigh. “Right. I’ll see what I can do.”
It’s another five minutes and a second piece of cake later before my father finally speaks, and then it’s only to ask what I have for beer. After cake, he goes out to the car to bring in their overnight bags.
When he comes back in, Gray politely says her goodnights, even though Petra and my parents insist she should stay over.
I’ve stayed at Gray’s house a few times, but she’s never stayed here, mainly because we can’t go into the bedroom without me worrying I’ll turn into a sex-crazed monster and permanently tie her to my bed. Myfamily doesn’t know any of that, of course, so Gray heads home, leaving me with a case of blue balls that my hand will have to take care of later.
Mental note. Sex first, then TV next time.
Although in this case, it was probably better I hadn’t started anything with Gray yet. If I’d had her strapped down when my family arrived, I might’ve been tempted to send them to a hotel, birthday cake and all.
“Here,” my mother says, handing me a bag when Gray leaves. “I didn’t want to give it to you when she was here because I wasn’t sure if it was a surprise or not.”
I look in the bag and pull out a recipe card and a package that contains dried parsnip, carrots, leeks, and soup seasoning. It’s part of what I need to make a traditional Icelandic soup called Kjötsúpa. I don’t do much cooking myself, but Gray was curious about Icelandic culture, so I planned to make the soup for her at some point. I asked my mother for the seasoning packet and recipe, and she said she’d give me both the next time she saw me.
I could’ve ordered the seasoning packet online myself, but my mother usually buys them by the dozen, and she insisted she had one she could spare, so I figured I’d wait.
“Remember,” my mother says, “oats, not rice.”
It’s a point of contention among some Icelanders about whether rice or oats should be used to thicken the soup, and it usually comes down to family tradition. According to my mother, we’re an oats family. My dad also has dibs on the bone marrow.
“Thanks,” I say, but I stop short of promising her I’ll use oats. Rice would be more familiar to Gray. I’m not sure how she’d handle oats in a soup, since that isn’t typical in the US.
“It must be serious if you’re making her Kjötsúpa,” my mother says.
“I just wanted to do something to thank her for working with me.”
It’s a lie, but I can’t get my mother’s hopes up until Gray and I get past our first session in my bedroom.
My mother shrugs. “If you say so. Just know that your fatherproposed to me after I made this for him the first time.”
