Felicity's Beast World Apocalypse-Chapter 167: Chef Felicity

Damien, crouched beside her in the supply area, held one of the bowls just out of her immediate reach until she stopped trying to steal it back. "The bowl?"

"The situation." 𝘧𝓇ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝘣𝓃ℴ𝓋𝑒𝑙.𝑐𝘰𝑚

Ivan’s mouth moved by a degree. That was enough to count as amusement from him. "You’re carrying enough food for a small army."

"I AM feeding a small army," she said, like that explained everything, which to her it probably did she reached for another tray anyway.

Damien moved it farther away.

Felicity blinked at him. "Excuse me."

"No."

"Damien."

"No."

She narrowed her eyes, then turned to Ivan with an expression of deep betrayal "he’s being difficult."

Ivan did not even try to defend Damien. "Your not getting out of this one he’s being correct."

Felicity huffed softly, pushing a loose strand of hair behind her ear with the back of her wrist because her hands were too full for anything else. "I was doing fine."

"You nearly fell twice," Damien said.

"That was before."

"There was no before, that was just now."

She made another small, grumbling noise and shifted her weight, immediately proving his point when one of the trays tipped again and had to be steadied by Ivan’s large hand.

Felicity sighed with exaggerated suffering. "Fine, go get the others."

Damien raised one brow "the others?"

"Yes. The husbands. The useful ones." Her eyes brightened again as the frustration passed almost as quickly as it had come. "Tell them to hold things. Plates, meat, vegetables, sauces, whatever. I want everything outside."

Ivan glanced at her, "outside."

"Yes." She nodded decisively, already reorganizing the containers in front of her into new stacks with the unshakable confidence of someone who had never once considered scale a reason to stop. "We’re doing it properly. A big fire pit, lots of food, everyone sitting around and cooking together. It’ll be fun."

Damien looked at her for a second in that quiet, hard to read way of his, then glanced toward the open edge of the space where the others waited outside. "You say that like nothing is on fire already."

"It isn’t." Felicity paused, then added with complete sincerity, "Emotionally doesn’t count."

That actually got a low breath of laughter from Ivan.

Felicity looked pleased with herself for roughly half a second before something else occurred to her. She turned her head slightly toward where Lucan had been left outside the immediate supply area, her voice lifting just enough to carry.

"Luuuucan."

He appeared almost immediately not literally. He had not teleported, but the effect was close enough that her eyes widened slightly anyway, because one second he had not been there and the next he was standing in the entrance to the supply area, all dark attention and composed ease, as if being summoned by her was the most natural thing in the world.

"Yes little bunny?"

Felicity pointed with one of the tongs she had somehow acquired without anyone noticing. "Can you make a big fire pit outside the building? Like, a really nice one. Big enough for everyone."

Lucan looked at her, then at the trays.

Then at Damien and Ivan standing at either side of her like they had both already accepted that their next hour belonged entirely to her planning. Something warm and very dangerous moved beneath the calm of his expression, he laughed softly. Just deeply, genuinely amused in a way that made him feel even more dangerous somehow.

"Yes," he said. "I can."

Felicity’s face brightened immediately. "Perfect."

Lucan’s gaze moved over her once more, lingering for the briefest moment on the oversized shirt hanging from her frame, on the sleeves she had tied in front, on the small shorts hidden beneath the hem, and then returned to her face with that same composed intensity that made everything he said feel more deliberate than it should.

"You’ll need help carrying all that."

Felicity gave him a flat look, "That is literally what I just said."

His mouth curved. "Then I’ll let the others know."

She nodded as if she had delegated something appropriately and turned right back to her work without another thought, already sorting sauces by color because, in her opinion, that mattered.

Lucan stayed exactly one second longer than necessary, watching her bounce lightly on her feet as she rearranged half a supermarket into some new internal system only she understood, then he left.

Damien looked at her, "you know he’ll do it."

"Of course he will."

Ivan’s tone was mild. "You’re very certain."

Felicity glanced up from a tray of mushrooms and smiled in that open, easy way that always made the men around her look slightly more serious afterward. "He likes me." The understatement was so ridiculous that both Damien and Ivan went quiet.

Felicity either didn’t notice or chose not to. She pointed at another stack, "take that one and that one and someone needs to get extra chopsticks, because if Tommy fights Sarge over utensils again I’m not fixing it."

Damien exhaled through his nose and rose to his full height. "I’ll get them."

"And get Voss," she added quickly. "He carries a lot without looking like he’s trying, it’s very efficient."

That earned her a look.

"What."

"That’s what you notice about him."

She blinked. "He also looks nice doing it?"

Damien gave up on the conversation right there and turned toward the outer edge of the space.

Ivan did not Ivan’s gaze stayed on her just long enough to make her tilt her head at him.

"What."

"Nothing," he said.

It was very clearly not nothing but before she could ask again, he bent, picked up three heavy trays at once without visible effort, and said, "Try not to pick up anything else."

"I make no promises, what if we need sauce?"

"I know."

By the time Damien returned with the others, Felicity had somehow acquired more food instead of less. Voss stepped into the supply area, took one look at the spread she had assembled, and laughed under his breath.

"You’re serious."

She looked at him like that was an insult. "Obviously I’m serious."

"Mm." His gaze drifted over the organized piles, the meat, the vegetables, the plates, then back to her in Victor’s shirt. "That’s a lot of confidence for someone who almost fell over carrying a bowl."

Felicity’s face flushed immediately, "i did not almost fall over."

"You absolutely did."

"It was one wobble."

Damien, from the side, said, "It was three."

Felicity pointed at him accusingly. "You’re supposed to support me."

"I am, structurally."

Voss laughed properly at that and crouched to start gathering trays into his arms. "All right, little menace. What’s the plan."

Her whole expression brightened again. "We’re doing KBBQ outside. Lucan’s making a fire pit. You’re all helping. No one is allowed to complain, also Tommy is not allowed to season anything because he’s reckless with chili oil."

The movement that followed was quick and full, husbands coming and going through the edge of her space to gather dishes, meat, utensils, small stoves, trays, napkins, sauces, all the little domestic pieces of something that should have felt absurdly normal for the ruined state of the world and yet somehow only made it feel more intimate.

And then, finally, she came out, she stepped through the threshold of her space into the morning air of Orange with the kind of bright momentum that suggested she had entirely forgotten the emotional weight of what had happened earlier, and the contrast was almost violent.

"All right!" she announced, her voice carrying ahead of her before the rest of her properly cleared the opening. "Okay, okay, okay, we are having KBBQ. Hello, everyone."

The effect on the gathered men was immediate, Snow Team had been in the middle of setting up camp, or at least pretending to. Richard and Dimitri had been standing near the edge of the building discussing scouting routes with the kind of cool precision men used when they needed a practical subject to stand between themselves and everything else. Dawn had been sorting the carts. Thane was overhead. Exile had been one bad thought away from wearing a trench into the earth.

Then Felicity appeared in sunlight.

Victor’s shirt hung from her body like it had been made for the wrong purpose and somehow suited that purpose better. The sleeves tied over the front made the loose shirt hold close enough across her chest to be indecent in a way she clearly did not understand at all, and the tiny shorts under the hem only made the whole thing worse because they confirmed there was something beneath it without actually helping anyone’s concentration.

Victor and Lucan were quick to move next to her, as when she looked around she went a little red faced and hid behind victor and her other hand tugging at Lucan’s sleeve, what made both of her men smirk.

Shadow had helped drag over an old table from inside the building and now leaned against it with his arms folded, watching the flames settle into the pit with the practical satisfaction of a man who liked fire when it behaved. Sarge and Tommy had started arguing about where the grill plate should sit over the heat and whether Tommy was allowed to "test" the first batch. Marx had already resigned himself to whatever this had become and was carrying things with the face of a man who had accepted that apocalypse hierarchy now included being bossed around by one very soft fox woman.

Leaf Team had not relaxed.

That was obvious the second Dimitri’s people were made to wait outside a space they could not enter, with only scent, sound, and imagination to fill the gap.