“Honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised at this point,” I say with a laugh.
“Yeah. Me either.”
When we get into the kitchen, Kole immediately starts darting around, grabbing all kinds of cookware.
“What’s for dinner?” I ask, hopping up to sit on the counter. I’ve never been one to cook much, other than having to do it in the woods to survive, so I’m not really sure why I offered my assistance.
“Thane hates ham, so I’m going with filet mignon and Béarnaise sauce. How do you like your potatoes?”
“Mashed is my favorite, hands down!”
Kole tosses me a smile over his shoulder. “Perfect, mine too.” He maneuvers around the kitchen with ease, seeming to do multiple things at once. “Here, you can wash these and snap off the ends.”
“Wait, you actually want my help?” I ask, taking the bag of asparagus from him.
He chuckles, pausing to look up at me. “What did you think you were going to do?”
“Um… supervise?”
“Oh, Grey,” he says with a sigh. “The only person in charge in my kitchen isme.” He plants a quick kiss on my cheek, and a current of heat ripples down my body. “Now get to work.”
“Yes, sir,” I snicker, hopping off the counter.
Kole tells me what to do, tasking me with the easy jobs while he does most of the work. As we cook, the two of us fall into effortless rhythm, joking and bantering with one another, and I can’t help but take notice of how unbelievably normal it all feels.
“How did you learn how to cook?” I ask, jumping back onto the counter while he finishes up.
“I mostly just taught myself. Unlike the werewolves, vampires couldn’t go to restaurants, so I watched videos, and eventually got good at it.”
“So all the vampires lived underground?”
“Not at first, but as the world changed, we were forced into hiding. Beneath the sewers, deeper underground, we created a world separate from the humans. It’s about as glamorous as it sounds,” he says with a hollow laugh. “Sometimes we would go up top wearing sunglasses, but even then, our sickly skin made that difficult. It always felt like we had eyes on us. When colored contacts became a thing, we thought those would work, but our eyes would burn them away as soon as we tried to put them in.”
“Wow, I didn’t know any of this.”
“There’s a lot you don’t know,” Kole says, leaning back against the island opposite me. “If there had been a way to live in peace with the humans, we would’ve… but there wasn’t.”
“Are you guys almost done in here? Sto morendo di fame!” Sienna bursts through the door, cutting our conversation short. “Ew, why do you guys look so serious?”
“I was telling her about the way we used to live,” Kole says, picking up several plates and balancing them on his arm.
“That’s terrible conversation for a day like today! We’re supposed to be jolly!”
“Well then, grab those dishes, and let’s go eat.” Kole heads for the door, and I rush over to hold it open for him. “Thanks, babe.”
Babe?
He said it so casually, and yet there’s an inferno consuming me, like him calling me babe actually means something to me.
My hair whips across my face, catching on my eyelashes as Kole comes flying back into the kitchen with his vampire speed.
“Alright, this should be everything,” he says, grabbing the last of the food.
I hold the door open again, and follow him to the dining room, where the food has all been set out near the end where Thane usually sits.
“This one is your seat,” Sienna tells me, pulling out the chair to the right of where Thane will be. “I already poured you a glass.”
“Thank you!” I take a seat and sip on the red wine while Kole takes off to go find Thane.
