Chapter 135: She Had Plans for His Mouth

Dove spoke to the cook before anybody unloaded. His cooking shed opened onto a covered eating area, with a long serving counter facing the drivers’ benches. Behind him, two assistants were already turning out hot meals. Dove waited beside the counter instead of blocking their path with another load of food.

She set her food list on the dry end of the counter and explained when it had left the cold room. He had bought from the caretaker before and checked the goods himself. Dove waited through his inspection instead of trying to smile him out of it.

"A share for cooking it now," she said. "We sell the rest while it’s hot, and you keep the part we agree on. No charge for the pleasure of my company. I’m delightful, but nobody’s budgeting for that today."

The cook laughed and named his share. She argued it down once, then accepted. His staff had equipment, fuel, and a line of hungry customers. She had good food and a reason to use it promptly. Both of them could leave happy without somebody pretending it was a rescue.

Thorne unloaded the pickup while Edrik took the food carriers to the side door on their handcart. Dove kept their household portion marked separately. She wasn’t spending the afternoon selling lunch while her men waited for scraps and told her they weren’t hungry.

The cook turned the chicken and vegetables into hot wraps and full plates with rice from his stores. Dove worked the serving end while Thorne carried loaded trays and Edrik kept the cart clear of the line. Men slowed when they saw her behind the counter. One forgot whether he’d wanted rice until his friend elbowed him.

"You can look at the menu while you recover," she told him. "The chicken’s the one you can buy."

Thorne’s grin appeared over his shoulder. He set a tray beside her, then stood close enough that the man remembered how to order. Dove finished the sale and brushed her fingers over her husband’s wrist as he passed. When the customer looked to Thorne for a discount, she held out her hand for payment. "Nice try. He doesn’t set my prices."

The work was familiar in a way that caught her off guard. People asked for extra sauce, changed their minds, and remembered allergies after she had started reaching for a plate. Surviving the apocalypse hadn’t improved anybody’s ability to choose lunch before reaching the counter.

A man asked if she could leave out the onions already cooked into the sauce. Dove stared at him for a second, then offered plain rice with a different portion. Edrik turned away, shoulders moving with silent laughter. She pointed a serving spoon at him.

"Don’t encourage me. I’m trying to stay employable."

"I’m enjoying the part where you haven’t said it yet."

"Then feed me before that changes."

He brought her plate as soon as the line eased. Three substantial servings waited on the bench, with extra wraps for both men and a covered bowl of rice. Dove washed her hands, reclaimed the best bit of shade, and made them sit before she took the first bite.

Sprout paid the forty-five normal coins once the agreed food had been cooked and used. The daily cutlery sales and exercise were already settled. She had six hundred sixty-one normal coins now, plus dry goods, a paid bed, and travel booked for all three. The work had done more for her day than staring at a locked shop button ever could.

"You may wish to review your new opportunities," Sprout said.

"I wish to chew. We can both have dreams."

Thorne slid a wrapped chocolate cake beside her plate. He had saved the one she’d pointed out at the warehouse, the kind with a soft cream center. Dove looked at it, then at him, and felt herself smiling before she had a joke ready.

"You remembered which one."

"You said it twice while pretending you were checking the date."

She kissed him with the wrapper still in her hand. When she moved back, he followed just enough to make her laugh. Edrik watched from the other side of the bench, entirely too interested in whether she was sharing.

Dove broke off a piece and held it between two fingers. He leaned toward it. She moved it back an inch.

"You could ask nicely. I hear that’s very attractive."

"Will you feed me that, or are you enjoying making me wait?"

"Both, actually. I’m talented."

She gave it to him before he could lean farther. His mouth brushed her fingertips, and she went warm all the way to her ears. Thorne looked delighted with this result. Dove ate her own portion before either man could turn dessert into something requiring a closed door.

When the moment passed, she asked Edrik what he wanted from their next search. Something for himself, she added, before he could say ammunition or dry bandages. He looked out at the yard, thinking longer than she expected.

"A decent razor," he said. "The one I have pulls."

Dove touched the stubble along his jaw. "I like this. I don’t need you scraping your face off."

"I like you touching it. I don’t enjoy the scraping either."

She wrote it beside the batteries and coffee on her list. Thorne wanted a spare pair of boots that actually fit. Dove wanted something ridiculous to watch after dinner, with no survival lesson tucked inside it. Neither man laughed at that one.

Later, she checked the remaining Favor notices privately. Their affection and amusement had cleared the twelve-coin goal, with nine extra from the day’s other qualifying reactions and the single mate extra. Six hundred seventy-one waited toward her manual. Still too little, but closer, and she hadn’t spent the afternoon pretending to like anybody she disliked.

A driver who had bought two plates stopped beside their cart before she packed up. He had seen a department store on tomorrow’s route, he said. The ground floor was getting wet, but bedding and clothing remained upstairs. He would trade for work pants in his size if she found any.

Dove asked him to mark the loading entrance, not just draw a hopeful circle around the whole town. He did, then added the water line he’d seen that morning.

The upstairs stockroom lay directly above the flooded entrance. Dove studied the little stairs he’d sketched at the side. They had a way to reach it, if the next warm night hadn’t taken that too.