Total pages in book: 141
Estimated words: 130947 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 655(@200wpm)___ 524(@250wpm)___ 436(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 130947 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 655(@200wpm)___ 524(@250wpm)___ 436(@300wpm)
Come to think of it, even Bebo’s special food looked better than the strange human dish Baird had attempted to prepare. Well maybe it just needs to be cooked. The clerk did say to serve it hot, he reasoned with himself. Handling it carefully, he slid the broad disk filled with toppings onto the wave’s bottom surface. Then, grasping a recessed handle above his head he pulled a long, square sheet of shiny tempered metal that was no thicker than a piece of paper out of the wall—the wave’s top. He positioned it exactly over the round crust and its colorful toppings and then took a step back.
“Cook medium,” he said in the same authoritative voice he used with the lights. Immediately ten thousand pinkish-red microfine rays were emitted from the undersurface of the thin shiny sheet of metal. Baird watched in surprise as the white rubbery shreds suddenly melted and began to bubble and drip off the sides of the crust in an oily ooze.
Disgusting! Did humans really like this stuff? And yet he knew from watching her dreams that it was Olivia’s favorite food—or one of them, anyway.
She was also fond of an after-meal sweet that was frozen and had to be rolled into a ball using a special scooping utensil. Another favorite was tiny raw pieces of sea dwelling animals wrapped in a white sticky substance made up of many tiny grains, but that had looked too complicated to Baird. The clerk had assured him than anyone could make the dish he’d bought ingredients for—he’d sworn that it was practically mistake proof. But looking at the oozing, dripping crust and unappetizing toppings, Baird wasn’t so sure that the whole thing wasn’t a big mistake.
He’d wanted to be romantic and impress his new bride by making her favorite dishes during the first week of their claiming period but maybe it would have been a better idea to take her out to an eatery instead. He knew of several aboard the ship that catered to different Earth cuisines. Others specialized in foods from the other three trade planets and the Kindred home world respectively. Maybe he should have taken her to one of those…
“Well, I take it dinner is served.”
Baird had been deep in thought and her voice behind him startled him. He turned to see his new bride looking considerably more self-composed though regrettably less exposed. Olivia was wearing the dark crimson shirt he’d taken off earlier and this time she’d taken care to fasten it. It was a little low in the neck and the sleeves fell well past her wrists while the bottom hem reached almost to her knees. She was standing with her arms crossed over her full breasts, watching what he was doing with interest.
“Yes, I just finished it.” Trying to quiet his misgivings, Baird motioned to his creation. “I made it just for you. Your favorite—pizza.”
Chapter Eleven
“Pizza?” Liv looked doubtfully at the thing he was pointing at. It looked like he’d taken a premade crust and dumped everything under the sun on it before baking it. She could see dribbles of sauce and he’d used plenty of cheese which was all right. But on top of that he’d layered chunks of canned salmon, green beans, corn, lima beans, and…Dear God, is that fruit cocktail?
Liv swallowed a sudden lump in her throat as she looked at the nauseating mess. Then she looked back up at Baird’s hopeful face and knew she couldn’t say a word. As irritating and arrogant as the big Kindred warrior was, he’d obviously tried hard and she just couldn’t bring herself to hurt his feelings.
“Are you hungry?” He gave her a hopeful smile.
“Uh…starved.” She tried to smile back but it wasn’t easy.
“Good. We’ll eat.” He escorted her to a small table in the far corner of the food-prep area—what Liv supposed was the Kindred version of a breakfast nook. The table had a round bench running all the way around it and Baird seated her courteously before going back to cut up the thing he’d claimed was a pizza. She sat at the plain grey metal table and reflected that it was obvious this furniture was made for people much larger than humans. The table top came up to her chest and that, combined with the fact that her legs were dangling a good three inches above the floor, made her feel like a little kid at the grown-up’s table.
When Baird came back Liv saw with dismay that he hadn’t cut the oozing monstrosity into wedges like a normal pizza—not that anything about it was normal of course. Instead he’d sliced it in two, right down the middle and put each huge piece on a long red metal platter.
“Here you go.” He put one of the platters in front of Liv, forcing her to get up-close and personal with his dinner creation. It looked even worse on her plate than it had from a distance. Liv was glad she had a strong stomach. She’d seen some fairly disgusting things during nursing school, especially during her surgery rotation and in the burn unit, but none of them were quite as nasty as Baird’s “pizza.”