Page 18 of Lime Gelatin and Other Monsters
“Oh. Um.”Where’s your girl? Crap. No. That sounds bad.“Isn’t Ellie home?”
“Yes.”
Kyle was about to say something cranky when a white puffball dashed across the room to hide under a chair.
With a nod to the chair, Vikash said, “This is Ellie.”
“Doesn’t like strangers, huh?” Kyle chuckled, telling himself he had no reason to feel relieved. That nothing had changed. Vikash was still straight and he just didn’t have anyone living with him right now. “Sorry, Ellie.”
“She’ll come out later.” Vikash wandered through the front room, presumably to the kitchen where all the good scents were gathered. “Want a beer?”
“Hell, yeah. Just one, though. Have to drive back.”
Vikash nodded and handed him a Dogfish Head from the fridge. “Small people do have to be more careful.”
“Oh, fuck off.” Kyle backhanded his partner’s arm. They’d gotten that comfortable, at least. “Enough with the damn short jokes.”
With a strangled snicker sound, Vikash meandered to the stove where he adjusted temps, stirred and added ingredients in far too professional a manner. Someday, Kyle was going to find something that made him look clumsy. Today was apparently not that day.
Kyle leaned up against the fridge, sipping his beer. “So, no girlfriend?” he asked as casually as his pounding heart allowed.I’m not doing this. Damn it, I amnotdoing this. Dinner. With a friend. Stop it.
“Not right now.”
“Just say,Kyle, shut upif I get too personal, okay? Was there a recent one? Girlfriend?”
Peas went into the creamy orange stuff on the right back burner as Vikash either ignored him or delayed answering. “Last girlfriend was over a year ago.”
“Oh. Sorry. Bad breakup?”
“Hand me that bowl. The green one. Thank you.” Vikash managed to shrug and get orange-creamy stuff into the serving dish without spilling a drop. “It was civil.”
“Of course it was. It was you. Was she—?”
“Kyle…”
“Got it.” Kyle took the dish out to the table, already set for two. “Shutting up.”
Even though the rooms were sparsely furnished and the kitchen was a sea of white, Vikash’s apartment felt warm, the few things he did have tending toward cayenne and cinnamon tones, dark wood and brass. Vikash came out with two more bowls and a second trip producednaanandraita.
“Man, that all smells so good. I haven’t had Indian food in forever.”
“Some things you shouldn’t deny yourself.” Vikash pointed to each dish in turn as he took his seat. “Korma. Makhani. Curry. The Makhani’s the spiciest. Extra veggies in everything.”
“’Cause I don’t eat enough of them.” Kyle sat still when he spotted the puffball making cautious progress across the room. “I won’t bite, Ellie. Promise.”
The white fluff resolved into a cat with bright green eyes as she dashed from cover to cover, ever closer in her stealthy perusal of him. She was every bit as gorgeous as the fluffy white cat on the fancy kitty food commercial, her long white fur meticulously clean and tangle free. Kyle watched in amusement as Vikash set a small plate in front of the third chair at the table and tore a bit of bread into tiny pieces. She hopped onto the chair, still eyeing Kyle dubiously, and began to eat from the plate in dainty, polite bites.
“Doesn’t she shed on everything?”
Vikash handed over the bowl of rice, indicating that Kyle needed to get with the program and start filling his plate. “I brush her. Twice a day. She’s not allowed in my closet.”
“She’s beautiful. Persian?”
“Angora. Persians have smushed faces.”
“Will she take something from me?”
Vikash’s smile seemed more amused than usual. “Give her a pea. From your korma.”
