Shatter the Earth (Cassandra Palmer 10)

“Have some tapas,” Vi said, pushing a platter my way. She was wearing a sports bra and a pair of cutoff jeans, which showed thighs hard enough to crack a walnut. But since that was a normal get up for Vi, it wouldn’t have worried me too much, except that she was barefoot.

Vi had a thing about shoes, specifically steel-toed boots, which she wore with everything whether they matched or not. Something about being chased across cut glass by a war mage, once upon a time. Which made it even stranger that a mostly naked war mage was sitting beside her, at the end of the island, looking mortified.

It wasn’t Pritkin.

For once, Reggie didn’t get up to salute. Just blushed all the way down his skinny chest, to where the freckles stopped in favor of ghost white skin. He had freckles on his face, too, scads of them, to the point that a few more would give him the tan that his complexion never could. But they were hard to see at the moment past fiery red cheeks.

They matched the hair, I thought, and ate some tapenade on a cracker.

I didn’t feel bad about snacking, because there was food for a small army, which probably meant that Fred was treating. Fred did not understand potion size. Fred did not want to understand portion size. Mainly because the only thing Fred liked better than fresh take out was leftover take out, preferably a spread of five or ten different types, like a retrospective of his weekly intake.

But this stuff would have to molder a while to be ready for the end of week extravaganza, because it was fresh.

“I told you we should have done this in my room,” Fred said, as I tried to decide between a second course of anchovy stuffed olives, scallops in a tomato sauce, and an intriguing breaded item the size of a golf ball.

“Done what?” I asked, munching on a fried oyster while I figured it out.

“And I told you that you’re gonna get crumbs on your sheets,” Saffy told Fred. She was wearing a thong and a t-shirt, the latter long enough to count as a minidress if it hadn’t gotten caught up by the stool.

“La Bomba,” Fred said, following my gaze. And answering the question I hadn’t asked. “It means the bomb, and it is, it so is.”

“But what is it?” I asked, intrigued.

He put one of the golf balls on a little plate for me, and grabbed a knife. “Ready?”

“Ready.”

He cut. “A spicy beef meatball, slathered with creamy mashed potatoes, then the whole thing is covered in breadcrumbs and—wait for it . . .”

I held my breath.

“Deep fried.”

“Deep fried?”

“Deep. Fried.”

He picked up the half he’d just sliced off with a fork and fed it to me. My eyes opened wide. “Oh. Oh, God.”

“Right?” Fred grinned. He loved food, and appreciated other people who loved food.

And then he ate the other half of my meatball.

“Hey!”

“Chef’s privilege.”

“You cooked it?” I asked skeptically.

“Bought it, cooked it, what’s the difference? Look, you can have another.”

I had another. And followed it with smoky chorizo cooked in red wine, baby octopus rubbed with paprika and seared in olive oil, and crab cakes with roasted red pepper sauce. It was all delicious.

“Read ‘em and weep,” Vi said, spreading a poker hand on the table, in between dishes.

A chorus of groans followed the sight of a straight flush.

“Okay,” Fred said. “You got me.” And his hand went to the waistband of his boxers.