Love Is Always Write Volume 4

considered entering the culinary arts at one time. It just hadn't seemed practical enough.
    "Where did you get the secret code? And what does the cactus have to do with it?" Bob gestured at Mariah with the knife.
    "Where I got it isn't important," Jory replied, sounding evasive. "And this is where Mariah comes in." He grabbed the ceramic pot with both hands and gave the base a twist. The bottom section came free to reveal a shallow bowl. A scrap of paper was taped to it. Jory peeled it away and held it up with two fingers. "Gaming gold."
    Bob shook his head. It seemed silly for grown men to get worked up over such a thing. "Why give it to me?" he asked.
    "The guys and I sometimes like to play outside the box. We go to paintball clubs; Jason and Mike took up parkour; we do GPS scavenger hunts. Stuff like that. It's fun and keeps us from turning into couch potatoes."
    "Male bonding," Bob said with a grin and set a frying pan on the stove. In spite of his amused tone, he felt a little envious. He did not have any close male friends. He supposed he was a loner, although not really by choice. Most of his friends were girls, like Alyssa.
    "Yeah. Anyway, you seemed like you could use some fun, so I thought you might want to play."
    Bob blinked at him and then scowled as he cut off a slab of butter with the knife tip and dropped it into the pan. It sizzled. "You didn't think to ask first?"
    Jory grinned. "Pretty sure you would have said no."
    Bob snorted, but Jory was probably right. "If I had known it involved being chased around town by crazed gamer boys, I definitely would have said no."
    "Yeah, those guys. Snyder is sort of the leader of our rival gang. It started online where they were constantly harassing us and being assholes. Then it moved offline. They challenged us to a paintball match, got their asses kicked, and have been acting like even worse dicks ever since."
    "How did they find out about that?" Bob indicated the paper with the code displayed.
    Jory's eyes glittered. Bob drew in a breath. He would never have considered Jory dangerous, but he realized he would not want to be on the wrong side of that stare. "Fucking Snyder thinks he's a spy. He loves to plant surveillance equipment on us. I installed a security system in my place, and I have to sweep for bugs occasionally. The other guys aren't as diligent, so Snyder usually knows what we're up to. I should have checked more thoroughly when I knew the stakes were this high."
    Bob scraped the onions and peppers from the cutting board into the pan. The resulting sizzle and burst of steam flavored the air with a delicious smell. "Bugging equipment? Isn't that stuff expensive? And illegal?"
    "Snyder comes from a rich family. Anything he wants, he gets. He's got a pretty big sense of entitlement. And the cops don't care about a few kids using surveillance equipment for playing games, not that any of us would squeal by going to the police. No one gets hurt by it, at least not so far."
    Bob lifted the pan and gave it a shake to toss the veggies. He grabbed his grinder and cranked some pepper in, and then added a pinch of salt. "Mushrooms?"
    Jory wrinkled his nose and shook his head.
    Bob grabbed a baggie of pre-cooked chopped bacon from the fridge and dumped it into the pan. He preferred to cook an entire package of bacon at once, and then freeze the strips and chop some into pieces for salad topping, omelets, or soups. He let it heat through and whisked several eggs in a bowl before pouring them over the mixture in the pan.
    When it was nearly cooked through, he lifted the pan and gave it a quick jerk, flipping the entire omelet over and catching it in the pan, uncooked side down.
    Jory gasped. "You did not just do that. I've never seen anyone do that except on television."
    "It's easy," Bob said a trifle smugly. He had practiced the maneuver what seemed a million times, until it was second nature. "It helps to have great pans."
    "I don't think I own any pans," Jory said and then laughed at Bob's horrified look. "Just kidding. I might have one. Somewhere."
    "What do you eat?"
    "Takeout. Nuked food. Pizza." Jory shrugged.
    "That's not food," Bob protested. He sliced the omelet in half with a silicon spatula and then slid one half onto a plate. He clipped some fresh parsley from the plant on the windowsill and sprinkled it over the top, and then added a sprig for garnish. It felt stereotypically gay, but he decided he didn't care.
    "Fancy," Jory said as Bob handed him