Hunting the Fairy Tale

Chapter 52 - Things Lost and Things Found

Willow

The kitchen is a warm haven of heavenly aromas. I am so happy that Tanner is allowing me to help him get dinner ready. He'd already done most of the work by the time I joined him, but I'm still learning so many amazing tricks from him while cutting vegetables and handing him knives, spoons and other utensils. 

He is a very different person when he is cooking. It's been over 40 minutes now, and I haven't wanted to hit him even once.

Hunter took a shower to warm himself up and joined us in the kitchen a few minutes ago. He gave up on trying to steal the grated cheese after Tanner threatened him with the soup ladle... more than once and is now obediently setting the table, singing a song about witchers and coins and ale and other strange things.

Hearing him sing is causing me to smile, as it always does, but I'm still not quite able to look at him without feeling my throat close up and tears burning in my eyes. I need a few more of those many minutes Tanner promised me earlier.

I was extremely touched when Hunter offered to give me self-defence training. Knowing that at least some of his concern stems from the horror that befell him as a child breaks my heart, but mostly, knowing that he truly cares about me is making me feel warm all over.

Earlier when I'd dried the worst of the water from his hair and he stood up to go take his shower, he'd given me the strangest look. His eyes were bright, reflecting the fading sunlight in a way that made them seem luminous. Looking into those clear brown irises robbed me of my breath and I could just gaze up at him, unable to speak.

I suddenly remembered my words from last night: I'm glad I met you too and that you're you and realised just how deeply I meant those words and how close I'd come to never being able to say them to him. I had to turn away and rush to the kitchen before I had another tear attack.

Honestly, I wish I could just stop!

"Oh, Valley of plenty, oh, Valley of plenty! Oh-ho-ho!" Tanner chimes in, and I'm rather astonished by how well their voices blend together. 

Perhaps they should start a KPop boy band of their own; I know they have the moves, and they definitely have the voices too. Well, they're not Korean, but I'm still about to suggest it when I'm forestalled by Dex, popping into the kitchen with his gym bag slung over one shoulder.

"I'll be off then; have a good one." He is also showered and dressed after his swim.

"Wait," Tanner says, grabbing one of the clean bowls he'd stacked on the counter near the stove. "Have some soup to warm you up first." Honestly, if Tanner wasn't such a self-confessed womanizer and not always getting into scrapes because of his outrageous behaviour, he would make a wonderful mother.

"Ah! Cheers! Thanks a million!" Dex gratefully accepts the bowl of fragrant soup with a happy grin; drops his bag and takes a seat on one of the bar stools at the island counter. He looks up with a disturbed frown when Hunter intercepts his bowl and carries it to the freshly laid table.

"Come on, eat at the table like a proper person," he says, laughing at Dex's indignant face. "I set a place for you. You're not on dinner duty tonight, are you?"

"No," Dex says, following the enticing aroma of his soup and falling down on the chair facing the setting that now contains the bowl.

"So, what's the rush? Hang out a bit. Have dinner with us. You can have a second dinner when you get home. Score!"