A Man's Desiring by Bale Ardith

Author:Bale, Ardith [Bale, Ardith]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Cobblestone Press
Published: 2012-12-15T06:00:00+00:00

Chapter Four

Lunch proved to be awkward, but Josh plowed through a waffle, bacon, sausage, and a bowl of fresh fruit with no problem, while Chris ate a sandwich and started working on dinner, which was going to be a mild nightmare now that he’d have to explain the lack of Marta and her parents. Josh had intended on skipping that whole mess, but he figured at this point he was going to have man up and face an inquisition. His own parents weren’t due to fly in until Christmas Eve, which was three days away.

He cleaned his own dishes, working around Chris and the prep work for the roast. “Did Dr. Dean approve your work on the lower half of the house?”

“Yep,” Chris said as he motioned toward a bowl of potatoes. “Peel.”

“Oh, come on,” Josh gripped good naturedly. “Why can’t we order something?”

“Because my mother would freak out and spend the rest of the evening telling me how she could’ve saved us money by coming over to cook if we were too busy. But it would be snide and kind of mean since she knows we took off work,” Chris said. “You don’t want any part of that, Joshua.”

“You always call me Joshua when you’re trying to be all intimidating,” Josh said as he got comfortable on a stool and went to work. “For the record, it doesn’t work.” He grinned when Chris shot him the bird and went back to rubbing down the roast with spices.

They’d learned to cook together—with the cooking shows on TV and the fire department on standby. It had been literally years since they’d set fire to anything, so throwing dinner parties had quickly entered the business practice.

“Did you get the final menu for the holiday party to Madeline? I don’t want to have a mistake like we did last year, with all the non-kosher food items unmarked.” Josh raised an eyebrow when Chris shot him a look.

“Yes, and don’t blame that on Madeline. How was she to know? She’s seen you chow down on pork since she’s known you. Other kids go to school and drink like a fish. You went to college and made bacon its own food group.”

Josh grinned. “I drank my share.”

“True enough,” Chris agreed. “I went over the menu with Madeline, and I talked over a few of the choices with your mother to make sure.” He paused and then said in a rush, “I also had to make some changes because Marta called her and added to the menu without permission. She was kind of pissed at me about that, too. That I catered to your parents’ religious concerns meant no Christmas ham.”

Josh inclined his head. “Wait, was that why you had to have the invitations reprinted?”

Chris flushed. “Marta took my text over to the printer and changed holiday to Christmas. Though she didn’t say anything anti-Semitic at the time or during our fight, I could tell she wasn’t thrilled that I was arranging things as to not offend your parents.

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