Page 44 of Outnumbered

“What?” Caleb asked when he saw my wide eyes. “I couldn’t decide either, so this was the perfect solution.”

My surprise turned into laughter.

“That’s one way to find out if a restaurant is good or not,” I said after I stopped laughing.

“Do you ever have to worry about poison?” Triston asked suddenly.

Caleb let out a bark of laughter. “Way to ask a dark question in a happy time, Tris.”

Triston shrugged. “I just thought about it.”

“No, I can smell the poisons. My dads spent a lot of time teaching me the various scents. So, when the food comes, I smell everything first, okay?”

“Aren’t there poisons that don’t have scents?” I asked. I swore I’d heard of some.

“No, that’s only in the movies. Trust me, I can smell the sourness of a poison.”

He seemed confident, but now I was worried. Was this why we ate at home so much? And why Jolie and her mates cooked without worrying about hiring a chef? Now that he mentioned it, I did remember him smelling my drink at the club before I took my first drink. Had that been why?

Caleb set his hand on my leg, which I hadn’t realized I had started bouncing. “I promise. It’ll be okay. Just let me smell the food first, yeah?”

“Okay,” I breathed and leaned over to rest my head on his shoulder.

He tensed a second and then relaxed and stroked his thumb up and down the outside of my thigh where his hand sat.

The waiter returned with the beer pitchers and my drink. Caleb sniffed my drink, set it in front of me, sniffed the beer pitchers, and then nodded. The guys poured their drinks and we held the glasses up to tap them against each other to cheers.

“Today was great,” I told them.

“The fun’s not over yet!” Caleb exclaimed.

“Yeah, we’ve got games to play,” Triston reminded me.

“Prizes to win,” Caleb said.

“Prizes?” I asked. “What do you mean?”

Caleb laughed softly. “Didn’t you watch movies and TV?”

“A bit, but honestly not very much. There was a lot of negativity and nasty things.”

“What types of movies were you watching?” Riddick asked with a frown.

“Most of the games earn you a prize if you do it right,” Caleb explained.

“Oh,” I said. “Like what?”

“Stuffed animals mostly,” he replied.

I had only had one stuffed animal, a bear that my parents had bought when I was very young, before my magic manifested. The school they shipped me to wouldn’t allow me to bring it, so they’d thrown it away.

“Whoever wins the biggest or best prize gets Ember tonight,” Caleb challenged.

“Oh, you’re on,” Branson said with a smirk. “I’m fantastic at carnival games.”

“I like the confidence, bro. We’ll see if you can back it up,” Caleb replied.

Our food came out and we all waited tensely as Caleb smelled the food. He nodded and I bounced in my seat as I tried to decide what to eat first.

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