Chapter 79: Inseparable

Daphne

“Wait, you are serious?” Bella looked at me with wide-eyed incredulity. “You want to learn to cook?”

“Well yeah,” I looked around the kitchen, the one room of the pack house I had always avoided. I loved to eat, but I’d never been one to cook. My idea of cooking was pouring a bowl of cereal or slapping together a sandwich. Luckily for me, I’d always had someone to cook for me, whether it was my own sweet mama, or the Beta’s wife Hailey, who had been like a second mother to me after my mama had passed, and then Bella, who was a true magician in the kitchen. “Maybe we could start with something simple, you know? Like rice? Or, um, potatoes?”

She propped her hands on her hips and gave me a look, “This wouldn’t have anything to do with a certain roommate of yours, would it?”

I felt my cheeks warm, which was odd, because I’m not a girl who blushes easily. But just thinking of Nate was enough to raise my body tempature. “As far as I can tell, he lives on fast food,” I said, randomly turning and opening the cupboard doors so that I could escape from her probing gaze. Bella was a couple years younger than I was, but sometimes she made me feel like her junior. “I’ve never even seen him get a meal from the cafeteria. He seems to live off burgers and fries.”

My eyes swept over the items in the cupboard, but most of the items were foreign to me. I lifted down a sealed bag. “What about xanthum gum, do we need that for something?”

Bella moved beside me, silently took the sachet from my hand, and replaced it in the cupboard before she firmly shut the cupboard door. “You had the right idea, maybe we should start with a simple rice dish.” She took my hand and pulled me over to the pantry. The big stainless steel shelves were laden with enough supples to feed a small army. She reached for a ten-pound sack of rice. “Have you ever boiled rice before?”

I made a face, “I tried once, but it all burned to the bottom.”

“Okay, let’s start from there. Come on,” She passed the rice to me and led the way back to the kitchen counter. “Rice is easy, just remember, two-to-one, liquid to rice. You can use just water, or you can use something like chicken or beef broth to add more flavor. For today, we’ll just use water.” While she spoke, she moved around confidently, pulling a measuring cup out of a drawer, and a cooking pot off a hook hanging over the island.

She pushed the glass measuring cup toward me, along with the pot. “Step one, measure your water. We are going to cook two cups of rice, so you need how much water?”

I rolled my eyes and picked up the cup. “I’m not stupid, you know,” I reminded her as I started to measure out four cups of water. When I had finished, she motioned that I should put the pot on the the stove. I set the pot on the burner and switched it on, until a ring of blue fire ringed the bottom.

“Once it’s boiling, we will add just a little bit of salt,” she said, reaching onto a rack of spices and seasonings and removing a canister of salt. And you can go ahead and measure out your rice while you wait.”

I did as she instructed, and somehow managed to scatter grains of rice all over the work table. Bella patiently grabbed a cleaning cloth and passed it to me. She leaned her elbows on the table as I wiped up the mess. “So if he only eats junkfood, is he chubby?” Her lips quirked, “Does he have a dad-bod?”

“Oh hell no,” I said, wiping the grains into my hand so that I could throw them in the compost bucket. “He doesn’t have an ounce of fat on him. He’s all muscle,” I sighed dreamily. “Not big bulky muscle, but lean hard muscle. Like an athlete.” I thought of the bullet-hole scar on his back. “Or a warrior.”

“Mmhm,” Bella slid a stool out from under the counter and perched on it. “But what’s he like?”

“Intense,” I said, automatically, “And, um, protective.” I turned to the stove to check the water, which was starting to steam, but wasn’t quite boiling. “Do you think it’s possible for a man to be too protective?”

“What do you mean by too protective?” Concern flickered over her face, “Is he controling?”

I picked up the bowl of rice and walked over to the stove, and slowly dumped the grains into the now boiling water, along with a half teaspoon of salt. “Not controlling but… well, just overprotective. And he does like to give orders, but I usually ignore them.”

“I think if he loves you, then he can’t help but be over-protective.” Bella said thoughtfully. “Give that a stir and then cover it and reduce the heat,” she instructed. “We want it to simmer now, not boil. And if it’s too hot, it will scorch the rice on the bottom.”

Remembering my last failed attempt at rice, I carefully lowered the flame. “Nobody has said anything about love yet,” I said, feeling a sinking sadness.

“You didn’t have to say it, Daf, it’s all over your face every time you mention it.” She passed me a little kitchen timer shaped like an apple. “Set your timer for 18 minutes.”

I twisted the top of the timer. “Well, I know what I feel. And I know he feels something, but…” I picked up the cloth and rubbed a nonexistent crumb off the counter. “He might be just a tad bit commitment phobic. And…well, he just found out what I am.”

“Did he freak out?”

“No,” I frowned, “But we didn’t really get a chance to settle anything before Wyatt and Byron stormed in like…”

“Like overprotective men.”

“Yeah, like that.”

“You know what goes good on plain white rice?” Bella hopped off the stool and went to the walk in cooler. “Fresh herbs.”

“Should I stir it?” I reached for the cover.

“No!” She came back out of the refrigerator with a bunch of herbs. “Never stir it while it’s cooking. Just keep the cover on, and keep all the steam inside.”

“Oh,” I pulled back my hand. She rinsed the herbs under the tap and named them for me.

“Chives, cilantro, basil, and parsley,” she said, although the cilantro and the parsley looked about the same to me. She pulled out a small cutting board and a sharp knife. “Here, chop,” she instructed.

I went to work, slowly, so that the herbs were chopped evenly and my fingers remained attached to my hand. The timer had just gone off when the door opened and my brothers came in.

“What are you cooking?” Byron asked, leaning down to kiss Bella soundly on the lips.

Bella smiled and gazed up at him. “I’m not cooking today, Daphne is.”

Wyatt groaned dramatically and pulled up another stool. “Are you trying to kill us?”

“If I wanted to kill you, you’d already be dead,” I said sweetly, as I shut off the gas.

“Okay, move it off the hot burner now, but we are going to let it sit and rest another five minutes,” Bella directed. “That will help it get all soft and fluffy.”

I pushed the pot to the back of the stove.

“That’s it? Just rice? No meat?” Byron teased.

“Shut up, I wasn’t cooking for you anyway.”

Bella reached into another cabinet and removed four bowls.

“What are you doing? Didn’t I just say I didn’t want to feed their smelly, ungrateful–”

“We need taste testers,” Bella said brightly. And then she turned on Byron and leveled a spoon at him, “And you will be honest and you will be kind, or you will be sleeping in your own rooms for the next week.”

Byron pouted and Wyatt held up his hands in surrender. Deeming that enough time had passed, I finally lifted the lid to my creation, and Bella showed me how to fluff the grains with a fork. I then stuck a spoonful in my mouth to test.

“Well?” Bella asked expectantly.

“Tastes like rice,” I said with a shrug. “Kind of bland.”

Bella tasted it, and then nodded in approval. “Perfect. Plain boiled rice should be bland. But once we add the fresh herbs and the butter, it will be delicious.” She helped me serve up the bowls, and then passed them around the counter for the final taste test.

“Not bad,” Wyatt admitted grugingly, after blowing the steam off a spoonful and shoving it in his mouth.

“Needs more salt,” Byron said after swallowing his first bite. Bella gave him a warning glare. “What? You said to be honest, I’m just being honest!”

I took the salt canister and set it down beside him. “There. Knock yourself out.”

He sheepishly added a pinch to his bowl.

It wasn’t bad. I wouldn’t be ashamed to serve Nate a dish of this rice. But Byron was right. It needed meat.

“We actually came to tell you some good news,” Wyatt said, between bites.

I perked up immediately. “You’ve caught the bear?”

“Not quite,” Wyatt said, much to my disappointment, but he went on. “However, we have agreed to help the bears search the area. They will send in four of their best, and we will provide additional manpower.”

“Oh,” I stirred the rice remaining in my bowl. “What will they do when they catch her?”

“Take her into custody,” Byron said. “They want to question her, find out what happened to make her act this way.”

“And then what?”

“Then their Council of Elders will decide what to do with her. It’s out of our hands Daffy. They will take care of it from here. But the good news is, the campus will be cleared, and you will be able to return to the Univerisity to finish your degree. Probably within just a few days.”

“But,” Wyatt held up his spoon like a sword, “We need to discuss this roomate situation. It’s not appropriate–”

“I’m already sleeping with him,” I said flatly, as I stood up to carry my empty bowl to the sink. “There is nothing to discuss.”