Werehuman

Pie Pie Pie

Pie was a grand affair. Mel had everyone rolling their piece of crust carefully under her expert eye. Brian had insisted on creating a lattice top for his pie, and watching him lace the pieces of dough together was amusing for the rest of us.

"Is this normally how you while away the hours?" Keith inquired.

He seemed intent on befriending me, perhaps to make up for his previous orders. I wasn't sure how I felt about him. Nervous was still an appropriate feeling, especially given how much larger he was than me.

"I don't normally help with pie," I admitted. "I'm normally with Ralph; I haven't the patience for cooking."

"Conor, you have the patience of a minor deity," Brian scoffed.

"You didn't see him sprint into the open arms of danger when we found the house a mess," Casey said. "Waiting for a cake to rise? Definitely not."

"I suppose," Brian shrugged. "That's a different kind of patience. Conor put up with all of our questions and Keith's neurosis and Katie being two inches from his elbow at all times."

"I'm not neurotic," Keith complained.

"You were a little," Casey agreed. "It was like when you were courting me all over again."

The pack laughed, and the bit of ear that poked out from Keith's hair was bright red.

"That's a story I wouldn't mind hearing," Ralph remarked from the kitchen. Mel had him stirring the taco meat, safely away from all the pies. I carefully removed the wax paper from one side of my dough and laid the piecrust into my pan. Katie was rolling out the top of our pie, though had paused to watch Keith. He grimaced.

"Keith's previous mate had died," Casey began.

"I hate it when you use mate," Keith grumbled.

"Girlfriend sounds weird under the circumstances," she replied. "I'm going to use mate. Do you want to tell this?"

He shook his head and continued to roll his piecrust. If it got any thinner, he would see right through it.

"As I was saying, Keith's girl had gotten killed. He was making plans to pull his pack away from the city when my sister and I stumbled onto them."

"They tried to jump us," Aidan clarified. "Two women against a whole pack. It was ridiculous."

"They thrashed us soundly too," Daria remarked, sounding impressed.

"I'm never going to get through this if you keep interrupting," Casey told them both. "Hush. So. After our encounter, I realized they were leaving the area and rather than continue to quarrel about it, I decided we should come with." Her smile faded. "Avery didn't want leave the city."

Mel placed a hand on Casey who sighed, pausing the story for a moment. She wiped her eyes.

"Keith, I don't know a whole lot about pie," Daria remarked. "But that crust is as flat as you can make it."

He stopped rolling, as if he had forgotten what he was doing and peered at the dough. Casey took the opportunity to peel away the wax paper and continue talking.

"Anyway, it became very clear that Keith was in need of someone to calm him down and Daria wasn't going to touch him with a ten foot pole."

"Nope," Daria agreed cheerfully.

"But I've never been one of those feminists that thought men lost the right to ask a lady out. So I told Keith, I was interested, but he had to take me on a proper date and properly propose such a thing."