Intemperance X - the Life We Choose
Copyright© 2026 by Al Steiner
Chapter 3: The Truth Shall Set You Free
Fiction Sex Story: Chapter 3: The Truth Shall Set You Free - INTEMPERANCE X is the tenth and final novel in the main Intemperance series. As the band headlines its biggest moment yet, decades of music, loyalty, and hard-earned love converge on one unforgettable night—where everything they’ve built is tested in front of the world.
Caution: This Fiction Sex Story contains strong sexual content, including Ma/Fa Fa/Fa Consensual BiSexual Fiction
Kingsley Manor
January 7, 2005
Caydee Kingsley sat cross-legged on her bed, the hardcover of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory balanced on her knees like it was a spellbook. Her damp hair had been brushed and parted, still shiny from the shower. She wore her Dark Side of the Moon sleep shirt and a pair of mismatched green pajama shorts, completely content with the combination.
Laura lay beside her, on top of the covers, head propped in her hand. She had showered while Caydee was showering and had changed into her sleepwear as well—one of her long T-shirts, no bra.
This was her and Caydee’s nightly ritual whether they were home or traveling. Guitar-sing had wrapped. The showers had been taken. And now, it was time to read ten pages. Not nine. Not eleven. Ten.
Caydee was a confident reader—sharp, expressive, and already better than anyone else in her class by a mile. Laura, as a former teacher, realistically assessed that she was reading at a fourth-grade level at the very least. All those years of bedtime stories—several hundred books ranging from Everybody Poops to read-alouds of Animal Farm—had paid off.
During her tenure in kindergarten, they had gradually crossed over from Caydee being the listener to Caydee being the reader. Now, as a cocky first-grader, she read out loud every night, putting on voices, hitting the cadence, never rushing. Jake called her a natural narrator. Celia said she should do audiobooks when she grew up.
Tonight’s pages brought them to the squirrels.
Caydee read with energy, slipping into her version of a snobby British accent as Veruca Salt shrieked about the squirrels doing something she didn’t understand. The voice was good—surprisingly good. She had a natural gift for mimicry, sharpened by all the time she spent singing with Jake and See-Ya. The control in her delivery wasn’t just talent; it was training.
“And then,” Caydee declared, turning the page with flair, “they all jumped on her and knocked her over! Like, twenty of them!”
Laura smiled. “You like that part a little too much.”
Caydee grinned but didn’t look up. “She was rude to the squirrels. They were just trying to do their job.”
“They take quality control very seriously in that factory.”
“They’re very efficient,” Caydee replied with conviction. “And Veruca was acting like she owned the place. That’s not nice.”
The pages kept turning, Caydee’s voice slipping between characters with ease. Laura let her read, eyes half-closed, soaking in the rhythm. Caydee hit every word right—even “mechanism,” which had stumped her three nights ago but now came smooth.
When they reached the final page of the night’s allotment, Veruca had been properly dealt with and the squirrels were back on their stools. Caydee snapped the book shut like a final chord.
“They knew she was a bad nut,” she said, matter-of-fact. “They found out when they knocked on her head.”
Laura brushed a strand of hair from her cheek. “That’s true. They don’t guess. They check. They’re very smart squirrels.”
Caydee tilted her head, considering. “Do you think she’s going to be okay?”
“She’ll be fine. Fiction’s forgiving.”
Caydee nodded. Then leaned to place the book on the moon-shaped lamp table beside her bed. “Ten pages tomorrow,” she said, settling into her pillow.
“You know it, big girl,” Laura told her. “Now it’s time for all the redheads in this house who can actually sing to go to sleep—even if there’s no school tomorrow.”
“When do I get to start staying up until ten?”
“Around college. If you’re really good,” Laura said with a straight face.
“Are you fucking with me?” Caydee asked shrewdly.
“Maybe ... or maybe not,” Laura said, smiling.
“What a rip,” Caydee muttered with a pout.
“As Daddy always says, ‘life is often a rip.’”
“Even when you’re rich and famous like Daddy and See-Ya and you?”
“Especially then,” Laura said.
Caydee sighed. “Am I gonna have to deal with all this when I grow up?”
“Only if you choose to, Caydee girl.”
“What does that mean?”
“You’ll figure it out when you get older.”
Caydee wrinkled her brow. “Is this some of that Zen-Buddha shit?”
“Pretty much,” Laura confirmed.
She leaned down to kiss her goodnight. But she didn’t make it.
“Why are the papers saying that Daddy is gay?” Caydee asked.
Laura was surprised. She hadn’t realized Caydee had picked up on reason for the latest media circus. She really should’ve known better, of course. Very little escaped Caydee’s notice, even if her comprehension was still a few years from catching up.
“Do you even know what ‘gay’ means?” Laura asked gently.
“Of course,” Caydee said. “It means when a man loves another man like you and Daddy and See-Ya love each other. Like Sean and Westin.”
Laura blinked again. “Uh ... yeah. That’s pretty much exactly what it means.”
“But Daddy’s not gay, is he?” Caydee asked.
“No, sweetheart,” Laura said gently. “He’s not.”
Caydee considered this. “So ... why are they saying he is?”
Laura exhaled through her nose. “Because some pap took pictures of Daddy while we were in New Zealand, and now they’re using those pictures to try and make people think he’s gay. Even though he’s not.”
Caydee wrinkled her nose. “Why would anyone care if Daddy was gay?”
Laura froze for just a second—just long enough for the weight of that question to land.
There it was again. That beautiful, luminous part of Caydee she loved and treasured so much. Seven years old, sharp as a blade, and still completely untouched by the uglier wiring of the universe. The idea that someone might be hated—or shamed or punished or smeared—just for loving differently ... it didn’t even register in her. It was like telling her some people didn’t trust you if you wrote with your left hand.
She had no frame of reference for that kind of hate.
And Laura, in that moment, felt something sharp twist behind her breastbone—pride, and awe, and sorrow all braided together.
Laura brushed her fingers lightly through Caydee’s damp hair, letting the silence sit just a little longer than usual. How to answer this?
Then she said, “You remember that documentary we watched a couple weeks ago? The one with the cuckoo bird?”
Caydee’s eyes shifted upward. “The one that laid its egg in the other bird’s nest?”
“Yes. And when the chick hatched, it didn’t look like the others. It didn’t act the same. So they pushed it out.”
Caydee’s brow furrowed. “That was really mean.”
“It was,” Laura said. “The little bird didn’t do anything wrong. It was just ... different. And sometimes, even in nature, when something’s different, the others don’t try to understand it. They just get rid of it.”
She felt Caydee processing. It was something she’d always admired in her daughter—how she really thought about things before responding. The two of them had watched hours of nature shows together, just the two of them on the couch, tucked under a blanket, passing popcorn back and forth. Caydee didn’t just like animals. She wanted to understand them. She asked questions. She remembered details. She saw patterns.
And now she was seeing something else.
“Carlos says that lots of white people don’t like Mexicans just because they’re Mexicans,” Caydee said suddenly. “Is it like that?”
Laura blinked. Hard.
She hadn’t seen that coming—not because Caydee didn’t notice things, but because of how clearly she’d framed it. Seven years old, and already drawing a straight line from birds in a nest to humans on a sidewalk.
“Yeah,” Laura said quietly. “It’s like that.”
Caydee didn’t say anything for a moment. Then she muttered, “That’s stupid.”
“It is.”
Laura tucked the blanket a little higher around her daughter’s shoulders, her voice low now.
“When two men love each other, or two women, that’s not what most people do,” she said. “So some people decide it’s not normal. And if they think it’s not normal, they think it must be bad. Even though it’s not. Even though it’s just love, like any other kind.”
Caydee didn’t answer right away. She just looked thoughtful again. She was still watching the moon lamp, but her voice was clear.
“You and See-Ya love each other that way too, don’t you?”
Laura felt her heart pause, just for a moment. Then she nodded. “We do.”
“So ... does that mean you and See-Ya are gay?”
Laura smiled gently. “In a way, yes. See-Ya and I both love Daddy, and we both love each other the same way we love him. It’s not something most people do, but it’s the same kind of love. Just as real. Just as strong. A lot of people outside the family don’t understand that three people can be happy together.”
Caydee frowned slightly. “But if you love a man and a woman, doesn’t that mean you’re not really gay?”
“Kind of,” Laura said. “It means we’re something called bisexual. That’s when a person can have that kind of loving, marrying-type relationship with both men and women. Not just one or the other.”
Caydee nodded slowly. “And that’s not normal.”
Laura gave a soft chuckle. “No, it’s not what most people do. But it’s also not unusual. And Daddy, See-Ya, and I—we believe there’s nothing wrong with living and sharing the love we have for each other.”
Caydee’s eyes flicked back to her. “But other people don’t like it?”
Laura exhaled through her nose. “Some don’t. Some people think that if something isn’t the way they love, then it must be wrong.”
Caydee was quiet again. Her brows furrowed just slightly.
Then she asked, softly but clearly, “Why do other people care who people love? Shouldn’t people be happy for anyone loving someone else? It’s better than hate, right?”
Laura swallowed against the knot in her throat.
She couldn’t help it—she reached out and pulled Caydee into a hug, tucking her close against her chest and kissing the top of her head.
“Yes, baby,” she whispered. “It’s so much better than hate.”
The children were down.
Caydee, freshly brushed and emotionally rinsed, had rolled over onto her side and drifted off within five minutes of asking the hardest question anyone had posed all day: Why do other people care who people love?
Cap had been out cold since eight o’clock—curled around his little blanket like it owed him money and drooling faintly onto the sheet. He’d stirred once around nine, mumbled something about “Pa-Ho and sissa” and kicked the wall, but he hadn’t woken up.
It was 9:12 PM now. The moon hung clean and high in the clear sky over Oceano, just past new and still in waxing crescent mode, throwing down enough light to paint the cliffs in silver outlines. It was a warm night for January—52 degrees and holding steady, not a whisper of wind. The air carried that clean, quiet hush that coastal California occasionally achieved between chaos events.
Tomorrow, the pineapple express would arrive—one of those atmospheric river storms out of Hawaii that would dump two or three inches of rain, blow down some trees and fences, and leave every local pretending it had been some biblical event. But tonight?
Tonight, the world was perfectly still.
Yami and Kira had long since gone to their room. Sean and Westin had done their end-of-night sweep, secured the kitchen, refolded the emergency towels no one ever used, and retreated to their quarters without comment. The manor had powered down.
Celia turned to Jake and Laura and said, “Hot tub night?”
They didn’t need to be asked twice.
After all, tomorrow would be stormy, loud, and unfriendly to naked people in cliffside hot tubs. Tonight, though—tonight was perfect.
They retreated to the master bedroom, stripped out of everything, and pulled on their preferred post-kid-bedtime attire: fluffy white robes over naked flesh. Towels were gathered. Flip-flops donned. The girls headed out first, murmuring softly to each other in that hybrid rhythm they used when they were both tired and conspiratorial.
Jake lingered.
He made his way to the bar cabinet, opened the stash box, and extracted a little container labeled “PT” in Laura’s handwriting—Purple Tokalicious, their favorite after-kid-bedtime smoke. Heavy on the mellow, light on the paranoia. He added one of the test pipes from Tater and Asshat’s warehouse, and a torch lighter. He dropped them into the deep front pocket of his robe.
Then he grabbed a fresh bottle of Merlot—a 2010 Duckhorn Three Palms Vineyard from the Napa Valley. Silky, dark, and almost annoyingly smooth, it was the kind of wine that promised blackberry and espresso on the first sip and finished with just enough oak to remind you it wasn’t trying too hard. It retailed around a hundred twenty-five a bottle and drank like something twice that if you caught it on the right night. Jake figured this was one of those nights.
He added three glasses. No tray. Just fingers, balance, and long familiarity with the path.
As he stepped out onto the walkway, the cool air met the heat still clinging to his skin. He spared a thought about the kids. Both were out cold. Both would literally sleep through an earthquake. But if they didn’t—if one of them woke up and needed something—Yami would hear. She was off duty, technically. But Jake knew she’d handle it. That’s what made her family.
He moved down the path, the robe brushing his calves, the wine bottle cool in his hand. The distant sound of soft laughter floated back from the edge of the cliff.
The path sloped gently, stamped concrete cool beneath his feet, the crash of waves a steady hush beneath the quiet of the house. It was low tide. As Jake neared the edge of the bluff, the hot tub came into view, glowing like a private lagoon. The tub lights were on, casting soft halos beneath the surface, and the jets were already running—low and steady, like a purr.
The ladies were in.
Water up to their collarbones, hair pinned back or slicked behind their ears, they looked perfectly at ease. Robes hung neatly on the rack beside the tub, unused towels folded on the bench. There was nothing hurried about them—just two women relaxing into warmth like they owned the night.
Jake smiled in anticipation.
He poured the wine first—three glasses of the Duckhorn, rich and dark in the glow from the tub. No flourishes, no toasts. Just clean pours and practiced balance.
Then he pulled out the little baggie of Purple Tokalicious and packed the pipe with familiar care. The buds smelled like blueberries and something a little criminal. Once it was packed, he lit the torch, gave it a quick draw to make sure it was humming, and handed both to Laura.
“Prepped and ready, hon.”
Laura took the pipe and lighter with a smile. “God bless the stash box.”
Jake let his robe drop without ceremony and stepped into the tub, the hot water wrapping around him in a slow bloom. He exhaled as he sank in, spine unwinding inch by inch.
“Where am I sitting tonight?”
A necessary question. Hot tub seating wasn’t random—not in this household. It was determined by mood, impulse, and unspoken consensus. Sometimes it meant nothing. Sometimes it meant everything.
Celia lifted a finger. “I get the middle,” she said, without hesitation. “I want to snog both of you.”
Jake and Laura exchanged a glance, then nodded in unison.
“Middle C,” Jake said, sliding into place beside her. “That’s kind of a joke,” he added when no one laughed. “You know ... like Middle C in music.”
“We know what middle C is,” Laura said.
“And jokes are supposed to be funny,” Celia added.
Jake sighed. “No one appreciates my humor,” he said.
“We do when it’s funny,” Celia said.
Laura shifted over with a contented little splash and rested an arm behind Celia’s neck.
“I love girly snogging,” she said, smiling into the steam.
Celia gave the see-saw motion with her hand. “It’s okay, I guess.”
“You love it, you slut,” Laura said, slapping at her shoulder.
“Don’t you ‘slut’ me, you ho,” Celia returned.
“A ho charges for it,” Laura said.
“Good point,” Celia agreed. “How about ‘woman of loose virtue’?”
“Too clinical,” Laura said. “Not insulting enough. And it doesn’t roll off the tongue.”
“How about WOLV then?” Jake suggested. “You can’t go wrong with a good acronym. It’s snappy and has that bitchy dog kind of feel to it.”
“Are you saying I’m a dog?” Laura asked.
“I plan to fuck you like one later while you’re licking my come out of Celia’s pussy,” he said.
She thought that over for a moment. “Okay. WOLV it is then.”
They passed the pipe around, slow and easy, each taking two hits and no more. That was the magic number with the old PT from the biker warehouse—two hits. Anything more, and you risked forgetting how your legs worked or launching into an unsolicited ten-minute monologue about the metaphysics of guitar tone.
But two?
Two was perfect.
Jake leaned back against the edge of the tub and let the water pulse at his shoulders, eyes half-lidded, wineglass resting easily in one hand. The wine and the weed settled into him like old friends—warm, grounding, and just fuzzy enough to take the edge off what had been, by any measure, a shitstorm of a week.
Celia sighed happily, then reached out to clink glasses with the other two. “To hot water and well-timed weed.”
Laura smiled. “The original healing arts.”
They drank.
For a while, they just floated—wine, jets, steam, stars overhead. The crescent moon hadn’t moved much since Jake came outside, but it felt more present now, like it was watching them with interest.
Then Celia said, “So ... Pauline called earlier.”
Jake made a soft sound. “She say anything new?”
“Not about the article. Just the fallout. Apparently Barb got hammered with calls all day. Reporters. Publicists. Everyone wanting a quote.”
Jake groaned. “Of course.”
Celia nodded, smiling. “Pauline says she’s never seen Barb happier.”
Jake smiled. “Barb does love a good Kingsley scandal. Keeps her in her warm and fuzzy place.”
“She told Jack Wilson from the Modesto Bee that if he called her one more time, she was going to have a structural engineer make a ten-times-life-size replica of her middle finger, then she was going drive to Modesto and teach his colon the true meaning of urgent local coverage.”
Jake let out a bark of laughter that echoed off the bluff. “That’s a pretty good one.”
Laura chuckled into her wine. “God, I love Barb.”
“Paulie says she said it like she already had the engineer in her contacts list and a business account set up,” Celia said.
“She probably does,” Jake said.
There was another round of easy laughter, then the quiet returned—less stoned now, more thoughtful.
Laura set her glass down on the edge of the tub and said, “So ... what’s our response going to be? Ultimately.”
The question hung there. Not rhetorical. Not casual.
The real question. The one they couldn’t giggle away.
Jake swirled the wine in his glass, watching the dark red cling to the edges before he answered.
“We hold with ‘no comment’ through the weekend,” he said. “At the very least.”
Celia raised an eyebrow. “The story will be global by tomorrow morning.”
Jake nodded, exhaling slowly. “Yeah. Some dude in Sri Lanka’s gonna open up the Colombo Times and see that me being a homo has officially bumped the fucking tsunami off the front page.”
He said it with a smile. The sarcastic kind. But under it, there was a flicker of something darker.
Laura turned toward him. “Is denial really going to be our response? When the new week starts?”
Jake didn’t answer right away. He took another sip of wine, then leaned back and looked at the sky.
“I don’t know,” he said finally. “Maybe. Maybe not. Ultimately it’s my call—I’m the one being accused—but I want all input. Facts. Ideas. I want to hear everything before we land on anything.”
He looked at them—Celia to his right, Laura on the other side of her. The perfect throuple snogging alignment.
“I mean, we could stay quiet,” he went on. “Keep the wall up. No interviews. No press. Just let it ride and let people believe what they’re gonna believe. It’s not like they’re not doing that anyway.”
“But that’s not good either,” Celia said. “You’re not just some guy. You’re Jake Kingsley. Yes, people have been saying that you’re gay for years. I heard the rumor before I even met you. But this is different. Someone published the rumor and it’s going to be global. Already is, really, thanks to the internet. If you disappear into silence, the world assumes you got caught with your hand in the proverbial cookie jar and you have no explanation.”
Jake nodded. “That is a good point.”
He ran a hand through his hair and sighed. “So ... I need to say something. But what? Deny it flat out? Mock the article? Spin a counter-story? Make a joke out of it on The Tonight Show?”
Celia shook her head slowly. “It’s not like we can just tell the truth.”
There was a pause.
Then Laura, quiet but firm: “Why can’t we?”
They both looked at her.
Not in anger. Not even disbelief. Just ... blank. Like it was the first time the idea had ever been spoken out loud—which, in fact, it was.
“I’m sorry,” Celia said. “Please repeat that.”
“Why can’t we just tell the truth?” she said clearly. “Maybe it’s time to do that.”
“Are you serious, hon?” Jake asked. “After more than three years of faking breakups and separations and divorces and marriages and remarriages? After pulling off the scam of the fucking century? You just want to tell everyone what it was all about?”
“They wouldn’t believe it even if we did tell them,” Celia said. “In fact, they almost certainly know the truth. The two pap and the reporter anyway.”
Closer examination of the article and pictures in the notorious celebrity stalking tabloid had revealed the name of those two photographers. Paul Peterson, the longtime stalker of everything Kingsley, and Drew Conners, his young cliff-climbing protégé. Jake had already expressed his intention to do something to Conners that would make one of Barb’s threats seem like a mother’s kiss in comparison. He still had not explained how he was planning to have a rabid weasel and a lubed up hairless mole rat readily available to him should he unexpectedly encounter the man.
“What do you mean they know the truth?” Jake asked.
“They staked us out and shot pictures of us in our private home for days,” Celia said.
“Yeah,” Jake said sourly. “I seem to remember expressing my displeasure with that particular invasion of our privacy.”
“The privacy is not the point,” Celia said. “The point is that they saw everything that we did in that entertainment room for several days and nights. Everything. They had to have seen you and me kissing each other, or me and Lala kissing each other. I love kissing Lala. I do it whenever I get the opportunity. I’m not talking tongue sucking kisses—I do love those as well, but we don’t do that in the entertainment room as a general rule—but normal, everyday, I love you because you’re my person kisses. Don’t tell me they didn’t catch a shot of that.”
And now that Jake had it pointed out to him, it made perfect sense. Celia and Laura kissing? On the lips? Even without tongue involvement, that alone should have had an entire issue dedicated to it. But not a whisper? That was very suggestive that Celia was right. They didn’t even care what the real story was. It was an orchestrated smear campaign.
“She’s right,” Jake said to Laura.
“I know she’s right,” Laura said, “but it doesn’t matter.”
Celia turned to her, eyebrows drawing together. “What do you mean it doesn’t matter, mi amor?”
Laura set her wineglass aside, her hands resting in the steaming water. “I mean ... it’s out there. The lie, the spin, the smear campaign. If we announce the actual truth—if we come out and say exactly who we are and how this works—then we’ve got nothing left to hide.”
Celia’s eyes narrowed slightly, but she didn’t interrupt.
“If nobody believes it?” Laura shrugged. “Who cares? Let them think it’s a publicity stunt or a cover story or a mental breakdown. Once it’s out there, we don’t have to sneak anymore. We don’t have to dodge questions or hide affection in public or pretend I don’t kiss you when I pass you in the hallway.”
She paused, looking from Celia to Jake.
“We can walk hand in hand in hand through the Mission and maybe people will whisper, or stare, or assume we’re just playing out the ridiculous fantasy we claim we’re living in. And that’s okay, because we’ll be free.”
There was a beat of silence.
Jake blinked slowly, digesting it. Celia leaned back a little, head tilting as if trying to look at the idea from another angle.
Neither of them spoke.
Because they couldn’t find the hole in it.
Jake finally broke the quiet. “When did you come to this particular epiphany?”
Laura gave a soft smile. “While I was putting Caydee to bed.”
That got both of their attention.
“You talked to her about it?” Celia asked.
Laura nodded. “She asked me why the papers were saying Daddy was gay. I asked if she knew what that meant, and she did. She brought up Sean and Westin without hesitation. Said it was just two people who love each other.”
Jake looked stunned for a second. “Seriously?”
“She said it like it was obvious,” Laura said. “She wasn’t confused. Wasn’t weirded out. Then she asked why anyone would care.”
Celia let out a breath. “God, I love that kid.”
“She’s not blind,” Laura continued. “She sees how we are with each other. She told me that she knows I love you. And you love me. And we both love Daddy. She asked if that means we’re gay too.”
Jake gave a low whistle.
“And I said not exactly—that we’re what’s called bisexual. She got that too. Asked a couple more questions, and then she just said... ‘Shouldn’t people be happy for anyone loving someone else? It’s better than hate, right?’”
Celia’s face softened, her eyes going glassy.
Jake sat back with a long exhale, staring at the moon like it might have answers.
“She understands more than we thought,” Laura said.
“It would seem so,” Jake said.
“That’s why I want to tell the truth,” she said. “I want us to be free to be who we are anywhere we are, not just inside the walls of our fortress. And I want our children growing up without us having to tell them to lie or distort the truth to outsiders. I want them to be able to say they have two moms and a dad and that they all love each other very much. And fuck you if you don’t believe that shit.”
There was a long silence after Laura spoke. Not awkward. Just full.
The steam drifted gently around them, the jets humming a steady background rhythm as the wine breathed in their glasses and the night pressed in quietly from the bluff.
Jake let out another breath, softer this time. “Well ... fuck.”
Celia gave a small laugh. “Yeah. That about sums it up.”
Laura reached for her glass again, took a slow sip, then leaned her head back against the tub wall. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to blow up the mood.”
“You didn’t,” Jake said. “You just ... changed the gravity.”
“And gave us something to chew on besides each other,” Celia added, voice light again.
Laura smiled at that. “Only temporarily.”
Celia stretched her arms over the edge of the tub, letting the wine settle in her limbs. “All right,” she said, looking between them. “I think we’ve solved enough world problems for one night.”
Jake arched an eyebrow. “Are we moving on to local affairs? My Tokalicious is at perfect therapeutic range right now.”
Celia grinned. “Mine too. I think it’s time to start snogging.”
Laura began to run her fingers over Celia’s bare shoulder sensuously. “Thank God.”
It was just after eight the next morning, and the manor kitchen was already alive with color and scent. Turmeric-yellow bowls. Sliced green chilies. The sharp-sweet tang of red onion. Curry leaves crackling in oil. A little sizzle. A little smoke. And Jake, standing at the island in a Black Sabbath T-shirt and tattered gray sweats, carefully chopping cilantro under Yami’s watchful eye.
“It needs to be chopped finer,” she said, without looking up from her sauté pan.
Jake adjusted his grip and started again. “If I chop these any finer Matt might wander by and snort some of it.”
Yami smiled, tossing in a handful of mustard seeds. They popped like popcorn as they hit the hot oil, dancing around the pan. “Good. That means they’re ready.”
He passed her a bowl of grated carrots and arranged the cilantro like a garnish palette on a cutting board. He’d been demoted to cutter, shredder, and garnish guy—a role he’d accepted with quiet professionalism. Yami, meanwhile, was recreating one of her childhood favorites: poha, a breakfast dish her mummy only made on rare, important mornings. Exam days. Temple holidays. Days that needed to start with bright food and spice.
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