“That’s nice,” I said, voice sleepy. I wasn’t sure the last time I’d felt so content.
CHAPTER 21
Pyre
Yawning, I walked into Rae’s kitchen the next morning. I frowned over at the dining room. It was spotless. “I would’ve cleaned that up.” I’d meant to, but the nap we’d taken had turned into a full night of sleep.
I glanced over to where I heard her moving around near the stove and froze as she turned to me with a huge plate of food. There were eggs, fried potatoes, fruit, a salad, tomatoes, to name a few. My brows drew together in confusion. Who ate salads in the morning? Or at all?
There was yogurt and pancakes, as well as a few other things I didn’t recognize. Some kind of seeds. This was the weirdest plate of food I’d seen. But the quantity was what I was more used to eating.
“That’s okay,” Rae said as she bent down and plopped the plate of food on the floor.
I watched in confusion and horror as her opossum brushed past me and made her way to the food. She used her pink little hands to grab one of the eggs and bring it to her mouth. Mine was hanging open as I watched the animal dig into a breakfast that would make a king happy.
“Penny helped me clean it up.”
She’d spoken of Penny. And of course I knew she had an opossum and had even seen her at the old folks’ home. But it was very different seeing the animal in her home, eating a breakfast I was a little envious of, and enjoying herself immensely. She was pretty cute, I had to admit. “Helped?”
Rae smiled. “She finished up dinner for us last night.”
My stomach let out a rumble so loud Rae’s eyebrows shot up. We’d skipped dinner. And I wasn’t a man who usually skipped a meal.
“Here.” She turned back to the stove and began scooping food on a plate.
I watched in dismay as she handed me a plate with two fried eggs, a small scoop of potatoes, and some fruit. “Thank you, Little Reaper.”
The last fucking thing I was going to do was complain about a damn thing. She’d woken up early and made breakfast. Maybe it was for her pet, but she was including me in it, so I was happy with that. Still, I wondered what I’d have to do to earn a breakfast like Penny got. Not that I hadn’t tempered my appetite a bit the couple times we’d eaten together so far. So how was she supposed to know how much I actually ate? Though the way my stomach was growling, I was tempted to fight the opossum for her plate.
I wondered whether those long claws and sharp teeth of hers were for show or if she’d tear me up to keep her food? I’d even take the damn salad at this point.
We carried our plates over to the table and sat down together. Rae took the ketchup that was on the table, messed with it, then applied a small dab to her potatoes while I started eating. She looked up. “Did you sleep-” She broke off, her eyes widening. A comical look of shock spread over her face.
I took the last bite of fruit and set my fork down. “What’s wrong?”
“You…” She blinked at my empty plate, then looked at her own. “How did you eat all that so fast?”
Both eggs had gone into my mouth at once. Then a couple fast forkfuls of potatoes, and last the fruit. It’d taken her a minute to open the new bottle of ketchup, but it hadn’t been very long. “Practice,” I told her with a grin. “A lot of times in the military you need to be able to eat quickly.”
“Yes, but…” She looked up at my face. “Are you still hungry?”
I hesitated and her eyes narrowed. I didn’t want to offend her.
“You haven’t eaten all that much on our dates, even when you cooked,” she pointed out.
My lips quirked upward. “I ate again afterward.”
She looked surprised. “Why?”
I sighed. “Years ago, Cypher gave me a piece of advice. I’ve followed it ever since. He told me to wait a while before I let women see how much food I tend to eat.”
“I-is it that much?”
Shrugging, I nodded. “My mom always said I was going to eat us out of house and home.”
“How much exactlydoyou eat?” she asked, a fascinated look crossing her face. “Use this breakfast as an example.”
“Eight eggs, that entire skillet of fried potatoes, a loaf of bread for toast, and about six pancakes, if they’re the size of the plate.”
