“Clay,” he said simply.
“From where?”
“Ground,” he grunted out without looking up as he poked at the bread in the pan to test if it was done.
“It just air hardens?”
“No.”
Okay. Was I bothering him? Was he having second thoughts on having me here?
I wanted to ask him but hesitated. He was scowling but that felt pretty typical for him. He could just be concentrating on his task.
Focusing on the eggs as unease began to slither through me, I’d just finished whipping them all up when he pulled the mega pancake off the stove. Flipping it over onto a plate, he growled.
My gaze went from his teeth baring death glare to the slightly burned mega pancake he was angrily growling at.
I shouldn’t find his growl sexy, or immediately wonder what noises he made in the bedroom, or stand here unperturbed as he growl-speak cursed out a pancake.
If anything, I found it kind of funny.
I must have done something to give myself away. His nostrils flared and he whipped towards me sharply.
Before he could speak, I shrugged and picked up one of the weird looking utensils he had on what I took for a drying rack. “It’s not bad,” I murmured. “See?” Leaning over him, I used the utensil to remove the burned parts. “I have a horrible track record for burning things. It’s why my mom banned me from large event kitchen duties. I could set a timer and forget about it,” I admitted with a laugh.
Kehl wasn’t scowling anymore. His brow beetled as I spoke. “Purr-roo mama say you no make the food, you burn it.” He didn’t phrase it as a question but I took it as one.
“Yeah. Can’t blame her. I once burned three pans of cookies in a row. Even I was shocked by my ineptitude. I’m really bad if the bake times are super long or tragically short. I’m not a fan of hanging around the kitchen babysitting food and it’s hard for me to remember to check in with long cook times.” My shoulders lifted in a shrug. “I get bored, find something to occupy myself in the mean time, and accidentally forget.” With a sheepish grimaced, I admitted, “I feel really bad about it. I don’t mean to do it.”
“Kehl no mean burn food make for Purr-roo,” he rumbled out quietly. Scowling at the pancake again, he muttered, “Kehl eat this one.”
“I want it,” I said quickly.
Kehl looked to me sharply, then leaned in and sniffed me.
“No lie.” I smiled then. “You made it for me. It’s perfectly fine. I want to eat that one.” Lifting my hand, I pointed at my pick.
Kehl let out a few grumbling-grunts but finally nodded.
Another mega pancake thing that resembled cornbread more than anything was poured into the pan and placed over the stove.
“I wish I had my phone,” I muttered. “Then we could use it for a timer. And listen to some tunes while we cook.”
“Phone at mates’ hut?” he rumbled out quietly, curiously.
My hand automatically slipped into my hoodie to close over the ring box I’d found in Cy’s duffel bag. “We aren’t exactly mates yet, per se,” I hedged. Though it brought me pleasure to think of them as mine. I’d always thought of Cy and Elm as mine, and to a lesser extent Birch, who was like a fun brother to me.
“What mean, no mates per the say?” Turning to me, his eyes narrowed, frown deepening.
“We aren’t- There isn’t- Uhm… I don’t know how to explain this,” I spluttered.
“Smell like Purr-roo mates,” he rumbled out in that same matter of fact way Cy tended to talk.
“Yes, I smell like, uhm, them, the guys I was, uhm, with.” There went my face, flaming away. “But, well- Uh, see… We didn’t- There wasn’t-”
“They bite.” He gave a loud sniff. “Mark Purr-roo theirs.” A louder, longer sniff followed. “Smell funny, but they like Kehl.”
“According to their mother, they’re Lo denaii, Lepyr, human, and some kind of Zoob thing,” I told him.
