Page 48 of Delay of Game

Nate washed his hands before picking up the phone.Clean the house, groceries, cook, he replied.You should try it some time.

effort tho

Nate thought about how before he’d bullied Zach into buying furniture, Zach’s house had been completely bare of anywhere to sit or eat except for a Ping-Pong table that did double duty for dining, a mattress in his room, and a couch for video games. He snorted, then scraped the onions up onto the flat of the knife blade and dumped them into a waiting prep bowl. He considered his next response for a couple of seconds before finally taking the plunge.

You could come over for dinner if you wanted to. I’m cooking.

hell yeah, nate dinner

It’ll be done in a couple hours but let yourself in whenever.Since Zach had just shown up on his doorstep in July, they’d stopped pretending that he didn’t have a standing invite and the door code.You can bring the dogs if you want to.

And then he went back to food prep and didn’t really think about it further, or at least told himself he wouldn’t.

Zach showed up right about when Nate was ready to start cooking in earnest, the dogs in tow. They immediately made themselves at home on one of the couches, snuffling and drooling, and Nate thought, briefly,god, Rachel would diebefore remembering that it didn’t matter how expensive the couches were anymore if he didn’t, personally, give a shit that they were covered in dog hair.

Zach ambled over to the kitchen to see what he was doing. He wore a hoodie that was at least two sizes too big for him, soft and thinned with age, the sleeves long enough that he could tuck his thumbs into it. It was kind of cute, Nate thought, and sighed to himself as soon as he did.

“What’re you making?” Zach asked.

“Coq au vin, a porkless version,” Nate said and when Zach seemed absolutely delighted by this news, added, “It’s French forrooster, not whatever you were thinking.”

“Cock—” Zach started, saw Nate’s stare of long-suffering misery, and grinned. “Aw, buddy, I’m just fucking with you. I’m sure it’s gonna be really good.”

“I fried some extra chicken in the duck fat for the dogs, if that’s cool.”

“Ohhh, I really shouldn’t... Hank’s gotta lose a few pounds...but,ugh, fine, they’ll love it. Hey, Dolly, Hank,” he called, and immediately the two of them slid off the couch and pounded over, twining around his legs while he scratched them on the head. “Uncle Nate’s got a treat for you, babies.”

Nate held some of the chicken pieces out in his hand, and the dogs eagerly accepted it. Dolly took her time eating, rolling the morsels around in her mouth, while Hank scarfed his down immediately and then looked up mournfully at Nate, begging for more.

“Stop faking,” Zach told him severely, even while he scratched Hank behind his gigantic, floppy ears. “We know you’re not starving. I just fed you a few hours ago.”

“Oh, uh, about that,” Nate said, before he could forget. “I got dog bowls and food and stuff. So you don’t have to leave them at home anymore if you don’t want to.”

Zach’s head jerked up. He looked at Nate like he didn’t know exactly what to say, and his eyes were suspiciously shiny. Finally, he ran his hand through his hair, pushing it out of his face, and said, “Thanks. You super didn’t have to, you know?”

“I know, I just thought... You told me you missed them.” Nate thought about addingand I don’t want you to not be here, but that seemed wrong. It was exactly what he wanted, but it didn’t seem like something he should say out loud.

“Well. Thanks.” Zach was still looking at him like he also wanted to say something else, and Nate waited, but all he added was, “That was—yeah.”

“Yeah, of course. Hey, make yourself comfortable, bud. We still got about two hours left to go.”

Zach helped him put together the salad while the stew simmered, laughing when Nate looked horrified by the way he was butchering the tomatoes. Their shoulders knocked together. It was just nice. They didn’t even talk about much, just stupid shit about the team and games and an upcoming trip to Montreal, some obedience training Zach had been doing with the dogs, how Zach’s sisters’ hockey games had been going, but it was the kind of easy conversation that had drawn him to Zach in the first place. He was just easy to talk to and Nate forgot his own awkwardness.

By the time he was ladling out the stew onto chickpea bowtie noodles, the house smelled warm and inviting, and the dogs were asleep on the couch again, and it was pretty close to an ideal kind of an evening.

Zach was making a steady headway on the wine Nate had pulled down from one of the pantry shelves; he wasn’t drunk, exactly, but his body language was relaxed and loose. His mouth was stained a little too red and his elbows were propped up on the kitchen island as he leaned into it, and Nate thoughtoh no.

When Zach tried the chicken, he made a noise low in his throat that was kind of obscene and Nate thought:ohno.

“Jesus, baby,” Zach murmured, and a shiver ran down Nate’s spine. “This is next-level.”

He didn’t know what to say, really—could feel his ears burning. He had always liked cooking for people, especially for Zach. There was always something satisfying about someone enjoying a meal you’d made for them with your own hands. This was a level beyond that. Something about the way Zach’s entire body shuddered when he took a bite, the heat in his voice. The tension strung between them, even across the kitchen island.

Zach’s red mouth, parted a little, the way his eyes were focused so sharply on Nate, like he knew exactly what he wanted from him. It felt distinctly bedroom and Nate didn’t know how to react, off-kilter and suddenly kind of hard.

“It’s, uh, just chicken stew,” Nate said, tongue thick and awkward. “It’s not really that complicated.”

“Mmm, sure,” Zach said, and took another bite. “Shit. This is so fucking good.”

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