Disclaimer: Still. Don't. Own. It. Miranda, the Garden of Heaven, and the crab are mine. That's it.

AN: To all my American fellows, HAPPY THANKSGIVING! Or, as you call it anywhere else, Thursday.

"Oh my god. This is amazing. This soup has vegetables in it, and I like it."

Ranger smiled, spearing a tomato from his salad.

"I can't believe you got a salad, when you could be eating this…this masterpiece."

"I'll be sure to give the chef your compliments. What was it, exactly? 'It has vegetables in it, and Stephanie Plum still likes it'? What a rave review. He might have to quote you."

I nudged his knee under the table, eyeing his salad in distaste. He frowned, shook his head, and pushed it across the table, toward me. "Try it."

"That?"

"This."

"But it's…mostly green. You know green and I have never had the best relationship."

"Just try it."

"If I have to spit it out, I'm using your napkin."

"Babe."

"And these are cloth. I would feel like such a jerk if your sister had to clean green spit off her cloth napkins."

He stared at me, and, frowning at him, I stabbed the fork down and took a bite. The dressing was a bit like a mix between Italian and Caesar, and as I chewed, my opinion of salad was quickly shifting.

I pointed at the bowl. "That is not salad."

Ranger smiled. "You liked it."

"It isn't salad. It can't be."

"You won't admit it, but you like salad."

"I like that. Which is not salad. That is…magical."

We ate in silence, and just as I finished off the last bite of Rangers salad, the curtain opened again. A few curious people from tables nearby peeked in.

Miranda was carrying plates that looked too large to fit on the table. Deftly, she slipped one plate onto the table—Ranger's crab—and grabbed the empty bowl of soup, setting it in the salad bowl and picking it up as she set my steak down in front of me.

"Did you like everything?"

Ranger smiled.

"Did Ranger really order a salad?"

"As far as I know."

"It didn't taste like salad."

She stared at Ranger. "You let her eat your food?"

Ranger shrugged.

"It still didn't taste like a salad."

Miranda smiled. "It never does."

When she'd left again, I glanced up at Ranger. "What did she mean, 'You let her eat your food'?"

"I have a thing."

"You have a thing?"

"I don't like people eating off my plate. Bad experience when I was a kid. A dog was involved."

"You have sharing OCD."

"You could say that."

I was silent, mulling it over as I chewed my steak. "You've never stopped me from eating your food. Or using your cars. Or your apartment, your shower, you shower gel, your bed…"

"You're different."

I speared another piece of meat. "Good different?"

"Good different," he said fondly, taking a bite of the rice he'd been served.

"How good different?"

"Very good different."

"Good enough to try your crab, different?"

Wordlessly, he slid the plate across the table.

AN: I'm off to eat. And eat. And eat and eat and eat. No tofurkeys will be consumed in the process, so the napkins can thank me for that. Now, if only I lived in a 1,000 person town, had a new boyfriend who I could awkwardly kiss(and then not so awkwardly kiss) and/or a guy who was willing to skip Thanksgiving to play hymns on his guitar all night (and a little Black Sabbath) and crazy rich grandparents to dine with, a scary French man who I could practice French on (Voulez-vous coucher avec moi, ce soir?)