“Not my type. How manyslices of bacon do you want for this? And how do you want ‘em cut?”
“Diced, please. And I’dnormally do one each? Maybe three. Three sounds good.”
I chuckled at Ashley’s indecision,but followed his directions while he filled a pot with water and set it on thecooktop.
It’d been a long time since I’ddone this, but the rhythm came back straight away. Ashley was easy to workwith, calm and surprisingly competent in the kitchen. There was no reason tothink he wouldn’t be, but I’d tried teaching Fox to cook once.
Never again. Never, everagain. I loved him, but he was a danger to himself and everyone else when hewas in charge of fire or knives.
How the hell Quinn copedwith him was beyond me. The only conclusion I’d ever managed to come towas that Fox must beincrediblein bed.
“You promised me a story,”Ashley spoke up, scraping the bacon into the pan with the back of the knife.
“I did, huh? What kindastory do you want?”
“Something with a happyending. I can’t take sad right now.”
Happy ending.
We must have had those,right? We’dhad good times along with the bad, and the terrifying, and the devastating.
When I looked back now all Icould remember was the hardship, brightened by moments when my friends had beenthere for me, but…
“Oh, Mittens!”
“Mittens?” Ashley asked.
“Our adopted cat,” Iexplained. “I didn’t name her, that was Lucas. She had little white front pawsthat kind of looked like mittens. Found her by the side of the road in… uh. Aclassified place that I was never in.”
Ashley raised an eyebrow.
“What? I was special ops.”
“Really?”
“Really,” I said. “Is thathard to believe?”
Ashley stirred the baconwith a wooden spoon, peering over into the pot of water. “Kinda. You’re… Idunno. You seem sweet, is all.”
Snorting, I grabbed the canopener and the crushed tomatoes he’d gotten out, getting to work on openingthem. “I am sweet. I’m telling you a story about adopting a kitten.”
“On a black ops site,” Ashleypointed out.
“It wasn’t black ops,” Isaid. “I just can’t… tell you where it was. Somewhere hot with a lot of sand,okay?”
“Hawaii,” Ashley said,smiling.
“Hawaii works,” I agreed.Hawaii would have been nice. Why didn’t I join the navy?
“Anyway, we found Mittens ina box by the road. She was this tiny, skinny thing no bigger than my hand, butwe brought her back and took care of her in shifts, so there was always someoneto feed her and watch her. You know kittens throw up, like, alot?”
“This is exactly what I wantto hear while I’m making dinner,” Ashley said, but there was a smile playingaround his face.
Good. He needed a chance tosmile.
“Well, anyway. We weren’tsure she was gonna survive, but she did. She was the sweetest thing, too.Became the base mascot. You couldn’t walk past her without her screaming at youto be petted, but she loved Lucas the most. He was the one who found her.”
“I like this story so far.What happened to her?”
