Page 27 of Crave

If you’ve never been, the Texas State Fair was the ultimate mecca for food and adrenaline junkies. In other words, werewolves. Held every fall right as the weather was starting to turn, the fair boasted live music, a youth livestock auction, enough rides and games on the midway to tame River and Brody’s hardcore competitive streaks, and a 212-foot Ferris wheel.

But the best part was the cooking competitions. In Texas, frying things your average person wouldn’t think to fry ranked somewhere between an art form and a religion, and every year for the fair, well, let’s just say people left it all out on the field. Fried Coke? Hell, yeah. Fried Jell-O? Frito Pie? Why not fry up some ice cream? Better yet, drizzle that bad boy with chocolate sauce and put it on a stick.

The year I was nine, we met Guillermo up in Dallas for the day (he’d never tell you, but he secretly loved roller coasters.) As the groups split off, August and I went with our dad to check out the food trucks. My senses were about to explode from all the flavors. Cajun, southern, Mexican. Funnel cake and fried chicken. Foot-long hotdogs topped with Indian curry and toasted coconut. My mouth watered. I wanted to taste everything, wanted to visit every food truck just to smell the flavors, and then rush home to our kitchen where I could mix and sauté in the one space that always felt wholly mine.

Dad let me and August pick two things each, then we carried everything back to a picnic table under a big shady live oak to share. His hand was steady at the back of my neck, that sunny day bright, warm and clean. Perfect and full of promise. And so I told him, while we were throwing away the waxed paper, that I thought I wanted to have a food stand of my own one day. Nodding, he stared out towards the midway.

“Then I reckon it’ll be the best damn one in town.”

* * *

Me: Did you get the sausage?

BabyGotBake: Would that be the two-dozen uncut smoked wieners, arranged in a vase?

Me: My spidey senses are suddenly tingling.

BabyGotBake: The ones West told you looked like a prop from a skin flick straight off pay-per-view and you should have gone with flowers? (The red satin bow really completed the male stripper look, BTW.)

Me: So you had that spider plant last year for two weeks. The one that was supposedly impossible to kill? Figured flowers would bring back traumatic memories of how you made me hold a 3 a.m. spider plant funeral.

BabyGotBake: So instead you went with me unwrapping what was essentially a bouquet of dicks in front of the lunchtime crowd?

Me: If you’re going to pour confectioner’s sugar into our ventilation system for this, can you at least wait until nightfall?

BabyGotBake: Donut-emoji

BabyGotBake: Come over later? Finalizing new recipes. Need to pick a winner.

The skies out to the west turned black as pitch an hour before the dinner rush, the ice and sleet we’d had earlier in the week exchanged for the ominous rumble of thunder. I was just signing off on a stack of timesheets when the bell over the door jingled.

“I’ve been informed there’s something unnatural about eating gas station hot dogs three meals in a row.” West slid onto a barstool.

“They’re practically roadkill.” Topher’s dark unruly hair was starting to grow out from where it had been shaved. The faded canvas jacket, Aerosmith tee and dark skinny jeans he had on hung off his angular frame. But what caught my eye was the way he kept shifting to keep his hands out of sight, edgy as hell about anyone getting a good look at his wrists.

“Tough crowd.”

“You asked.”

“Says the one who has to be on an IV drip of Dr. Pepper in order to function before noon,” my brother said without looking up from his phone.

I slid West’s sweet tea over to him and grabbed a cold Dr. Pepper for Topher. “Three things you don’t do in this state. Mow our bluebonnets. Put ketchup on barbeque like an Oklahoma transplant. And throw shade at the state drink.”

West shot me the finger. His ketchup addiction? Legendary. “Please tell me you made the okra.”

“Damn straight. Topher, how ‘bout you? Homemade bread? Chips and guac to start?”

His gaze slid towards the kitchen, shoulders hunching lower. “I’m good.”

I hesitated, noting for the first time how the dark circles under his eyes looked even more pronounced in this lighting. Punching in an order for a mixed appetizer platter, I came back around the bar.

Now or never.

“Guess by now you’ve heard about the attack two days ago.”

Topher picked at the label on his coke. “So?”

Ignoring the eye daggers West was shooting me, I pressed on. “So you ever overhear anything about some sort of vamp disease, or any weapon they might be developing to use against us?”