This Old Town ✖️Muke

Chapter 11

"stop laughing!" Luke whines at me as we walk back to our camp. The sun is just setting behind the trees and we have maybe an hour of daylight left.

"I don't think i know any one who is that bad at fishing" I laugh. he slaps my arm. 

"come on give me some slack! i've been touring the world singing for 8 years where do you think i would have time to go fishing?" he laughs, exasperated. I shrug.

"true. I don't know why I expected you to maybe at least remember how to do this when you forgot how to feed chickens."

"Hey i tried didn't I?" he whines. I laugh and swing my arm around his neck pulling him into a side hug. we've gotten a lot closer in the hour after we had our heart to heart.

"you did." I smile. "now come on, we have to hurry and cook these before it gets too dark to see." I say, then break off into a sprint away from him and back to the camp.

"hey wait!" he yells after me, i just laugh and continue running. he follows behind me but isn't able to catch up. when he gets back he's out of breath. 

"welcome back, have a nice run?" i joke. he playfully glares at me. 

"so how do you cook these anyway?" he asks. This he wouldn't know, i didn't learn this till i came to live with John.

"so we got four fish, we put two on each stick, like this." i say, demonstrating how to skewer the fish. He watches and then tries to do the same with his two. I laugh and admire the look of concentration on his face. if one thing hasn't changed about him it's the way he bites his lip when he is concentrating, only in it's place now is a black ring that he is biting.

"don't give me that look, i'm trying!" he whines when he looks up and sees the amused grin on my face. i hold my hands up in defense. 

"do you want me to help?" i ask. he frowns.

"no" he shakes his head. apparently he is adamant about getting it.

"OK. so when your done doing that. we put the fish on this." i place mine on the grill rack that is placed over the  fire. 

"it sort of half cooks and half smokes them."

"what does trout taste like?" he asks seemingly out of the blue. I was concentrating on not burning my fish. His skewer is then placed next to mine and I smile seeing how he finally got it.

"it doesn't really taste like much, its not very fishy, but it does depend on what type of wood you use. the fish will take on a bit of a smokey flavor as well as a tiny hint of whatever wood you use. I'm not actually 100% sure what this is, I usually just use whatever is left over from building fences and the barns. plus we have a pretty big woodpile for our own fires back at the ranch. 

"so kinda like fish but not?" he laughs. I laugh with him and nod.

"exactly. i mean granted it's not going to be like the 5 star restaurants you go to but."

"ehh, i don't usually eat the fish when i go to five star places" he jokes.

"ha-ha, very funny. this one is done, here." i say taking the skewer off the fire and handing it to Luke. he just stares at it and then smells it. I chuckle at that. 

"what the hell are you doing?" 

"oh, i wanted to see what it smelled like." he says, making a face. 

"or you could just eat it and see what it taste like?" i laugh. he shrugs and looks expectantly at me.

"what?" i ask.