Page 78 of Totally Fanatic

I tilt my head back to look up into his gorgeous huge brown eyes. “I’m pretty sure we don’t have time for that, though.”

“I’ll have to settle for a kiss then,” he says, and I push up on my toes and kiss him softly.

“But if the mash makes it on the board, you get to name it.”

“Cool, ok. Ummm. How about… Just a Mash That Loves Pickles?”

“Ha, that’s great,” I say, grabbing the notebook where I keep all the recipes, and I jot it down for later with the other list of quirky names for things that might end up on the food truck. LikeAs Corny As It Gets,char grilled corn ribs served with a smoky sriracha dipping sauce. The first time I made them for Lion, I placed the curled corn sections on his plate in the shape of a heart with the dipping sauce in the middle and when he saw it, he said, “It’s so corny, I love it.” I almost told him I loved him then, too. Yep, I know, giant chicken over here.

I make two additional cheese sauces for the mac and cheese options, leaving the third with blue cheese until after, and pop them into the oven with spiced breadcrumbs on top to get all crispy and golden, while Lion heads back upstairs.

Duckie and Ian arrive half an hour early, and no massive surprise, I catch Duckie trying to sneak in a bag of rubber ducks.

“Dude, I’m still finding random ones up on the roof. Do you really have to do this every time?”

“I thought we could make a game of it tonight. There is one golden duck in this bag, whoever finds it wins the major prize.”

“Which is?”

“This,” he says, pulling out a large rubber duck wearing a baseball uniform, but not just any uniform, it’s the Funky Monkey uniform.

“Where did you get that?” I ask, and Ian shakes his head.

“He had it made. Actually, he had hundreds of them made, now he just has to convince the GM to let him sell them at games.”

“If he doesn’t see the potential profit in these, then I’ll give them away instead,” Duckie adds in, edging toward the living room.

“Don’t tell them that or they’ll go for that option, maximum publicity zero cost,” I say, and Duckie taps his nose with one finger.

“Good point, okay. Can we use upstairs and down here for the hunt?” he asks.

“Just the roof, please. The boys are in the bedroom, and we don’t want them getting out.”

“Wow, the cats are here, so it is getting serious then?” Ian says, sitting on the stool opposite me while I grab the jar of pickles from the fridge.

“It’s been serious for a while, but I’m hoping the boys are comfortable here because I’m really hoping Lion and them will move in. I’ve already figured it out. We can put a cat run up from the window up to the roof and section off some space for them to enjoy the view while we’re up there, too.”

“That’s awesome, congrats, man,” Duckie says, heading for the window out to the fire stairs. “I’ll meet you all up there.”

Ian waves a hand his way, shaking his head.

“Sorry. I tried to tell him it was a bad idea.”

I shrug. “It actually gives me one less thing to worry about. I hadn’t figured out what game to play yet, but now we have a duck hunt.”

“Do you need any help with anything?”

“Nope, you can head up, too, if you like. He might be the one to need help hiding all those things before others start arriving.”

***

“I want to thank every one of you for coming tonight to support us,” I say, standing at the head of the table with Lion by my side. “Your scores on each item will help us to decide what will be on the menu when we open in a few weeks.”

“Those corn ribs are a must,” Ryan says, and others nod and agree.

“Thanks, now before we jump into the duck hunt you know who has planned for us, I have a surprise for Lion,” I say, nodding to his brother, Buck. While I hadn’t met Buck in person until tonight, we’ve been chatting for a while now. Lion told me how great he was with tech and stuff, so I reached out to see if he knew anyone who could help me with the logo for the food truck. I wanted it to be a surprise for Lion, too, because he’s already put so much into this, I wanted to do something for him to show him this is now our dream, not just mine.

“If you will all look over here, I’d like to share the name that will be branding our truck,” I say, pointing to the white screen we roll down for rooftop movies.

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