Just a Taste of Love
#20 of Hockey Hunk Season 3
Love can come in many forms, including on your plate.
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*
It was a bit of a struggle to get the door open while operating both the key and the handle with only paw, but I did manage the feat after a couple of awkward left-pawed maneuvers. I hissed a bit, though feeling sufficiently triumphant once I got through the door so that even my tail was eager enough to do a happy number 8 behind me while I entered into the oddly scentless space of Peter's apartment.
"I'm baaaaack!" I called out, still managing to keep up the cheerful spirit I had managed to catch from the bookshop, and I was determined not to let go just yet.
I heard mild clatter of metal from beyond my field of vision, and decided that Peter must've been still doing the cooking.
"DO YOU NEED ANY HELP?" Peter's voice soon echoed along the walls and into my flicking ears.
"I think I'm good!" I replied.
"SURE!"
Well, I'd done this a couple of times already, so I had gotten the hang of it, sort of, I thought. First step was to get myself sitting down on the chair by the guest coat rack, on which I was allowed to have my clothing, and then, once seated, to get my shoes off and then removed my jacket. I was glad that I wasn't wearing anything with laces today, for the practical reasons, and soon managed to get out of the left shoe, and used my crutch to poke the right shoe away as well. Thus freed, I could put my crutches over to the side and then, while still seated, remove my light spring jacket.
That's when things started to get a bit more...Peter-like. I grabbed a damp disinfectant wipe from the plastic box on a small table by the chair, and then proceeded to swipe it over the aluminum tubes of my crutches, and especially over the little plastic paws on the ends. Peter had given me a stern talking about how easy it would be to bring in germs accidentally on my crutches, and after an inspiring YouTube clip showing furs disinfecting themselves at a foot and mouth disease isolation zone, I could only comply with this new rule. He probably was right, anyway, it was Peter, after all, and he knew what to do to make himself feel safe with then walls of his own home. I supposed I should give him that pleasure, and do as he said, and really, it wasn't much of an effort. It was actually more difficult to open the small lever-operate trashcan by the chair and drop the soggy and by now very dirty wipe into it. The clanging noise made my ears jump.
"You alright?" Peter's voice preceded the appearance of the cougar into the doorway leading into the kitchen, and I soon caught his eyes along the small hallway.
I snuffled and kept on working, which meant pumping out foul-smelling disinfectant jelly into my paws and rubbing them vigorously together.
"Yeah," I smiled a bit while trying not to breath through my nose...or too deep to begin with, because past experience told me that it was too easy to start to get light-headed with that amount of pure alcohol in the air.
Peter didn't seem to mind the stench, and remained on the doorway. I could see that he was wearing a blue apron, like the one you saw on cookery show son TV, and he was smiling, too.
"That's great," Peter replied. "The food will be ready in about fifteen minutes. Did you take the cab here?"
"Yeah," I replied as I shook my widely splayed paws in the air now, to get the rest of the boozy disinfectant to dry up. "Thought I'd treat myself to that instead of the bus."
"Small pleasures," Peter replied.
I chuffed, in good humor as I was, and proceeded to grab my crutches for the purpose of getting out of the chair.
"Don't forget the tail," Peter said suddenly.
I stopped in my tracks and gave him a quick look before I grudgingly grabbed the pump bottle into my still more confident left paw. I then guided my precious tail to flap over my lap so that it hang over the knee of my bad leg, in a manner that left the fluffy tuft on the end well exposed for the bizarre act I was now to commit to repel disease and germs.
Peter watched, quite curiously, I supposed, when I squeezed the pump handle and allowed the spray to splash onto my proud tail tip like some excessively bad-smelling form of furspray. I made sure to flip my oddly ticklish tail a couple of times and give it a couple of extra splashes of the stuff before I decided that it certainly had to be enough, and put the bottle away.
"Happy now?" I snuffled and slapped my good leg with my tail.
"Of course," Peter flashed his teeth in a grin. "Come on. I'll pour you a glass of juice before the meal, you look tired and in need of one."
Well, he wasn't wrong. It had been relatively hard on me, the walk from the front of the house into the lobby and then up to Peter's floor. It can't have been more than fifty or sixty yards at most. And yeah...why not? It'd been hours since breakfast, and I was well in need of something nice in my tummy.
"As long as it doesn't have stevia in it," I chuckled, mostly to myself, as I remembered Crystal's face while she detailed the story of the intestine-clogging muffins of Alex's making.
I had another go with my crutches and managed to get up in the record time of 15 seconds or so, give or take a couple of grunts.
Peter's head poked out of the doorway again.
"Stevia?" the cougar's ears flicked curiously.
"Never mind," I snuffled as I made my hobbling way along the hallway and then, trailing Peter, into the kitchen itself.
"It's pretty good I understand," Peter mused on his way to the fridge, "don't use it, though."
"Good," I smirked.
I had a reverse spectacle of the earlier getting up once I reached my side of the table and settled down on the chair Peter had adorned with a thick, firm pillow to make it easier for me to sit on it, and then placed my crutches to rest against the chair by me. The table had already been set with glasses and utensils.
"I try to keep away both from excessive sugar and artificial sweeteners," Peter mused as he rummaged through his neat fridge for the promised juice. "Neither one is going to do any good for my kidney, and I try to do the very best for my baby."
Peter patted his side quickly, as if to indicate where the prized organ presumably resided.
"You should tell that to Alex," I snorted.
Peter chuckled.
"They got Alex to cover for you?" the cougar smirked.
"Yeah," I rumbled as I put my elbows on the tabletop and hunched over the table, just because I could. "He told me I was fat and ugly."
Peter put a carton of apple juice down onto the kitchen counter and then walked past his sizzling pots and pans to fetch a glass for me.
"How nice of him," Peter rumbled. "I'm sure he would be fat and ugly too if he survived a car crash."
I snorted and let my whiskers wriggle freely.
The juice sloshed into the glass.
"Oh Jesus," I huffed. "Marge showed me a picture of the crash...oh fuck..."
Peter placed the glass in front of me on the table and gave me a curious look.
"A picture?" he asked.
"Yeah," I replied, snuffling from the fruity scent now under my nose. "Apparently the crash made the local news."
"I didn't really have much mind for the news back then," Peter replied, now on his way back to the fridge to return the juice in there.
"It was on New Kirk Times" I said. "Apparently only on the online edition, though."
"Should I have alerted the press for a bedside interview?" the cougar smirked.
I huffed and took a gulp from my glass. I let out a pleased rumble after the sweet drink flushed down my throat and made my tongue feel a bit less parched. I smacked my lips approvingly.
"Maybe not," I snuffled.
Peter walked over to the stove and lifted the glass lid off one of his pots. A sweet, spicy smell floated over to my nose and made me feel about 147% more hungry than before.
"I can kinda see it," Peter smirked as he busily stirred his pot, "Local lion's brave journey through pain: an inspirational tale. I breathe more easily now, says Rory Gliese, the crash victim."
_ _
I guffawed and spurted some juice out of my nostrils for the sheer ludicrousness of both the words and the voice Peter used to relate his imaginary story to me.
"I better pitch that to General Interest," I snuffled once I recovered enough to speak again.
"You'll make the cover, I'm sure!" Peter smirked.
I wiped my muzzle on the back of my paw and sat back again on my chair.
"I better start practicing my poses," I rumbled.
Peter abandoned his cooking for now and turned about so that he could simply lean against the kitchen counter and look at me while he maintained his relaxed pose, complete with the lazy sway of his tail.
"So everything was business as usual back at work?" Peter asked as he gazed over to me.
"Yeah," I nodded. "I suppose so, except for Alex, of course."
Peter smirked.
"By the sound of it, he was business as usual as well" Peter grinned.
"Yeah," I rubbed my chin. "Always moving, always talking, and always making you feel inferior. Nothing's changed. I got the feeling that everyone was crawling the walls because of him."
Peter scratched his arm.
"What's his latest fad?" the cougar questioned.
"I'm not sure," I rumbled. "I think he's still pretty much into karaokespinning, and a macrobiotic diet, and superfood, and cranberries, and...uhm...believing that if you want something, if you believe in that you'll get it, you get it!"
"How marvelous," Peter mused.
"And I'm fat, he said," I mused. "And should probably start training for the Kirk City Charity Marathon, just like he is."
Peter grinned.
"I'm sure I could try my paws at making a "GO RORY!" sign," Peter said. "But I can't promise a ticker tape parade."
"Thanks," I grumbled.
"It's still a good idea," Peter mused, "just imagine Alex running all those miles...all those steps and all those opportunities for twisting his ankle...or dropping down an accidentally left open sewer hatch...or bumping into a car...or getting run over by a marching band..."
"What a lovely sentiment," I replied happily.
"How're the rest? Marge and...uhm...Mason?" Peter continued.
"She's starting to show soon, I think," I replied, "I suppose. I don't have so much experience about pregnant women. And I met the dad to be again."
Peter chuckled.
"The artist, right?" he said. "Groggy or something?"
"Goggy," I replied. "Or the Artist Previously Known as Rodney, I understand, before he decided on Goggy."
"What was he doing at the store?"
"Brought lunch to Marge," I said, "It's his new habit, apparently- Every day during his own lunch break, he packs something into a Styrofoam box at his restaurant and then rushes it to Marge at leopard speed so that it's still warm when it gets to Marge. Beef teriyaki and delicious wasabi rice this time. Marge is probably still purring."
Peter chuckled.
"Well I can't offer that, but the chicken I have cooking in this pot is very nice," he waved a paw towards the general direction of the stove, "it's the Steve Jobs Anti-Cancer Diet."
If I had had any juice in my muzzle, I'd probably coughed it all over the neat table in front of my. Instead, I just stared at Peter with my muzzle gaping wide open.
"The what?" I lifted a brow.
"Thought I'd give it a shot," Peter replied, deadpan, "I mean, if it cures cancer, it might be good for preventing post-transplant nephropathy."
I frowned some more.
"But Jobs looks like he just stepped out of a concentration camp," I grunted. "I'd say the diet is not work for him."
"Exactly why I didn't go with it after I read you need to drink a gallon of carrot juice every day and have a coffee enema to cleanse your body," Peter continued.
I made a face.
"Are you sure that isn't actually the Alex diet?" I inquired.
"Well he sounds like he could go for things that go up the butt," Peter replied.
I waved my paw in an exaggerated angle over the table.
"Ohhh meow!" I yelped.
Peter mimicked my gesture and licked his lips.
"Oh sister," the cougar purred.
"Oh crap, " I chuckled heartily.
Peter gave another quick check of his stove before he proceeded to untie the apron cord around his waist.
"I think I'll go to practice some proper medicine now," he rumbled.
"Oh?" I gave him a look.
Peter dropped the apron over the back of a dining chair.
"Yep!" he chuffed. "I haven't dipped my urine yet today."
I gave an instinctual look at my innocent glass of apple juice in front of me, and winced.
"How nice," I mused.
Peter disappeared out of the kitchen, chuffing, and left me alone for a couple of minutes, which was barely enough for a couple of sips of the juice, and for doing my best in trying not to think about...
"All clear!" the cougar declared as soon as he returned and went immediately back to check his cooking. "No glucose and no protein and no blood!"
"Woo!" I snuffled. "You might call it an excellent vintage, then?"
Peter gave me a smirk over his shoulder as he disappeared into a cloud of delicious steam. I could hear him purr.
I was so damn hungry!
"It's really not much compared to what I had to do before the transplant, you know that," Peter said, "A blood test every now and then and a quick check of my piss every day is nothing compared to the PD days."
"Hear, hear," I scratched my neck behind my left ear, "and no tubes."
Peter's tail flicked and swayed flippantly as he made some minor adjustments to the flame of the stove.
"And no taping an empty IV bag to your belly before going shopping looking like the pregnant man," the cougar added.
"No amount of vertical stripes helped with that, I'm afraid," I quipped.
Peter snuffled and allowed his tail to accelerate into an even more frenzied state of flicking behind him.
"I think it's done!" he said.
I grabbed my fork and my knife and thrummed the tabletop a couple of times, just because I could, and received a snuffle and a wink from Peter.
"Can I have the juiciest bit, please?" I asked and tilted my head in my best imitation of Justin aged 5 that I could muster.
"Well since you asked so nicely..." Peter grinned, "Just sit back, I'll serve you too."
Peter grabbed a plate from the counter and moved it over into a perfect position to be loaded with everything he had in store on the stove.
"Would four pieces of chicken be good at first?" he asked. "Three scoops of rice? One of sauce? I don't have any salad now, the sauce was a bit more work than I thought it was but I could quickly wash some if you want."
"It's fine," I licked my lips for good measure, "just need foooood."
Peter's fluffy paws worked swiftly and soon I had a steaming plate of GOOD in front of me, and instantly life seemed just a little bit better for me. I was still a gentleman, though, and waited until he had settled with his own meal, and a glass of sparkling water, before I dug in.
"Hmmpmpmpprprp!" I couldn't help the purrs from coming.
"Hope I didn't overdo the chicken," Peter said.
"Hmmhphph!" I answered.
Peter began to cut a civilized slice out of his chicken breast while watching me eat.
"Good," he said.
I swallowed, and felt empty, but in a good way, in my spice-tickled maw, because I knew that to experience this delight again was only a matter of another forkful being pushed onto my awaiting tongue.
"Hmmmm...I wish I had the energy to cook like this every day," I snuffled.
"You do have it, you're just too lazy," Peter snorted. "Besides, you've been at home! I bet they just carried endless platefuls of food in front of you and watched you gobble it down."
"They did," I nodded happily.
I licked a bit of a sauce out of my chin and pulled my tongue back with a big old slurp. Peter chuckled at the sound and let his ears flick for it, cheerfully.
"Your dad's a great cook, by the way," Peter mused. "I'm not surprised."
"Yay for superdad," I replied, with another forkful well on its way towards my maw.
Peter chuckled.
"You're not wrong," he said after a pause.
I flicked my ears questioningly while my muzzle was too busy to speak, and it was enough for Peter to begin an answer to my inquiry.
"He does all the right dad things," Peter said, "talks with you, cooks for you, kicks your ass when you need that...all the normal dad things."
I took a sip of water after my delicious bite and then rubbed my chin thoughtfully.
"Your dads have done alright, haven't they?" I stated.
*
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