Page 59 of Hunted

“Seriously,” muttered Topher.

“Hush, you.” West wrapped an arm around his mate’s shoulders. “You know you love this family.”

“Thanksgiving is a month away,” Guillermo continued. “Perhaps Dallas’s dish can make its culinary debut there for the entire family.”

“I’m down with that,” Dallas said.

“Just no beets,” Brody called. “Hard limit.” London leaned across the bar to high five him.

“Hey, man. Them’s fighting words.”

Brody pointed his Dr. Pepper at him. “There is literally no way to make a beet taste like anything but dirt and you know it.”

“Should we run now?” Ellie whispered. “This is starting to look dangerous.”

I smirked. “And we haven’t even gotten to the part where everyone over the age of five gets out a knife and attacks a pumpkin.”

“Draw a vegetable, Ethan,” my mother ordered from the bar, clearly enjoying this. “Dallas needs a challenge.”

“Thanks, Mom.”

There was a chorus of hoots and hollers.

“Okay. I found a random vegetable generator online,” Ethan announced. “Because apparently there are other people out there that are even weirder than us. And it says…”

“Drumroll,” August called. The room obliged and pattered on the counters.

Ethan cleared his throat. “Sweet potatoes.”

Topher instantly brightened. “Oh, well. If that’s all, Dally actually has those great sweet potato fries on the menu at The Spoke that I like. We order them all the time—”

“Draw something else, Ethan,” my mother interrupted. “Sweet potatoes are far too easy.”

“Sofia,” Topher protested, laughing.

“Sorry, dear.” My mother waved him off with a smile. “But you have to admit that even West could cook a sweet potato.”

“Savage.” West pretended to stake himself in the heart, though no one jumped to his defense. His reputation for being able to burn water was legendary.

Guillermo took a bite of garlic bread. “I concur. Give the boy a real challenge.”

“Okay,” Ethan said somewhat dubiously. “I’m just saying, we all recall the rainbow potato salad incident. If I recall, most of the goats refused to eat that particular culinary nightmare and we had to call the vet out to the ranch for the ones that did—”

“I was ten. I’ve since been featured in Texas Monthly and you’re stalling.” Dallas clapped his hands together. “I’ve so got this.”

Ethan scrolled on his phone, then made a face. “Uh… kale.”

The room went very still.

Dallas frowned. “You’re lying. Let me see that.”

Ethan held up his phone. Dallas grabbed it out of his hand as Lacey smothered a laugh.

Dallas ran a hand through his hair. “There are… lots of highly delicious ways to prepare kale—”

“Such as?” Lacey said, a touch too sweetly as conversation resumed around the room. “I notice we so rarely have it at home.”

Ellie and I filled plates with spaghetti, salad and garlic bread, then went over to the cappuccino machine where Ethan was making coffee. Hayden, from the looks of it, was writing down the lyrics to a song that had popped into her head on the back of a paper napkin with one hand, while trying to eat pasta salad with the other.