He kneels and opens the lid. “Definitely tomato.”
Getting back up, he moves to the counter.
“We need bowls as well as plates.”
“On it,” Harper sings, humming something under his breath as he gets them out.
“Spoons too,” I add. “For the soup.”
Harper starts setting our places, arranging everything neatly.
Jay brings the plates of food over one by one, putting them in the middle.
There’s so much that I almost forget my favorite thing has yet to be served.
The tuna sandwich I put on my plate is forgotten the moment Jay takes my bowl and puts it back down filled with soup. I pick up my spoon and find out it’s just as good as I remember.
“I could eat this every day,” I admit.
“We do kind of eat this much for every meal,” Harper confesses. “I mean, maybe there’s a little bit extra here. But watch out for our Alphas and this guy. They eat like there’s no tomorrow.”
Jay snorts as he puts Harper’s bowl down in front of him.
“You’re just as bad as Falcon and me,” Jay tells him. “Shayne’s the only one who doesn’t go overboard when the chance presentsitself. Harper can eat twice as much as I can. Don’t let him fool you.”
Harper shrugs when I look at him, half-expecting him to argue.
“You’ve got me. I like food. I’m not apologising for it.”
He picks up his spoon and starts to eat.
Jay sits down across from me with his filled bowl.
I see he’s put one of the baskets of bread on the table, so I reach for a slice.
Harper makes an “mm” sound, and I smile.
“It’s good, isn’t it?”
“It might be the best soup I’ve ever had,” he admits, before he goes right back to eating.
I break a piece of my bread off the slice and dip it, careful not to let it stop dripping before I pop it into my mouth. We eat in comfortable silence until there are a few pieces of chicken and a few half-sandwiches left uneaten in the middle of the table.
I’m stuffed, almost to the point of needing a nap.
“The soup pot will probably keep it hot for a long while,” Jay says as he gets up and starts clearing the plates off the table. “There’s a lot left. We could probably have it again at dinner.”
“Only the three of us though,” Harper says, as he picks up one of the fried chicken drumsticks.
Jay raises an eyebrow at him. “What?”
“Falcon and Shayne will be eating loads while they’re out there working. We don’t need to share with them. They won’t even appreciate it.”
Jay laughs. “In other words, you’ve decided the soup belongs to us.”
“Finders keepers?” Harper asks.
“We can probably order more when it’s time for dinner,” I remind them. “We just need to ask the kitchen to send up the cafeteria’s leftovers later.”
