A Chef's Nightmare
Chapter 2
Playing Games with Your Head
Summary: Reid, a talented young chef, moves to Oakdale to work at the Lakeview. Everyone loves his food, except Luke, who won't even try it.
Pairing: Luke/ Noah, Luke/Reid
Rated: T
A/N: I wanted to add the games because I think that they're interesting and I love to read through them and I hope I wrote them well. By the way, this was inspired by a Whose Line is it Anyway? Weird Newscasters segment where Ryan had to act out the same thing Luke does as a weatherman. It is hilarious.
After everyone ordered and the food arrived, the conversation slowed down. The other side of the table also took more of an interest in Reid.
"So where are you from Reid?" asked Will as he was finishing up his plate of fries.
"Dallas."
Looking for more of an answer than that, Will pressed on, "What did you do there?"
"I cooked."
Obviously not getting anything more or useful from Reid, Will stopped talking. Meanwhile, Reid was doing his best to burn the food on his plate from the heated death glare he was sending at it. He was a gourmet chef, one of the best in the country, and he was stuck eating sub-par chili, soggy fries, and a burnt hamburger. Although he loved everything about food especially consuming it, Reid had barely touched it. The tension at the table was obvious because of the chef's rude behavior and obvious hatred for the food.
"I guess this kinda food isn't what you're used to" laughed Noah, trying to relieve the tension. If anything it had the opposite effect.
"That's for damn sure" Reid replied, squishing one of his French fries with an aghast look upon his face.
The tension continued throughout the entire dinner with no one knowing quite what to say. After the checks arrived Katie made a suggestion.
"Sooo, why don't we have a game night at my place so Reid can get to know everyone" Katie said, anxious to have everyone get along.
"I don't play games."
Katie just kicked Reid again and smiled at the group.
Only Reid, Katie, Noah, Luke, Gwen, Casey, Maddie, and Ali ended up at Katie's house. Will had to take care of his and Gwen's daughter and Chris had a shift at the hospital. Henry just couldn't bare Reid's presence any longer.
Katie, ever eager to entertain, sat everyone around the couch and went and got sodas, beer, bottles of water, and even some cartoons of juice out of the refrigerator. She then went and grabbed chips, pretzels, and popcorn and dumped them into bowls. Reid glared at her during this time. Katie shrugged at him, not feeling the slightest bit of guilt for telling him she didn't have any food. Casey helped Katie carry everything into the living room. As soon as the food arrived Reid grabbed a bottle of beer and the bowl of chips. He was sitting on one end of the couch with Katie and Ali next to him. The others were sitting on the floor around the table. Casey was closest to him on his other side and Luke was across from him with Noah across from Katie.
"So" Katie exclaimed, clapping her hands together, "I thought we could play charades".
Reid groaned while the others didn't look to enthusiastic either but were willing to play.
"The teams can be…" she started staring around the room.
"How about light hair versus dark hair. Me, you, Casey, and Gwen against Noah, Maddie, Ali, and Reid" Luke suggested, glancing up to look at Reid then Katie.
"Sure. I have a few pieces of paper here. Everyone can write down a few suggestions and the other team will have to act them out."
About thirty minutes later, everyone, but Luke of course, had been through a number of beers and were having quite a bit more fun than they expected. It was now the light haired team's turn and Luke was up. He picked out a piece of paper from one of Katie's hats. At the time he was sipping on his soda and as he read it, he promptly spit it back out over the table. They had decided to forgo picking normal things like movies or TV shows, and all wrote down different actions, situations, or people to act out.
"No. There is no way I am doing this. Which one of you even wrote this?" he asked looking at the other team. Go through all 9 months of having a baby. All of the acts had been fairly challenging but easy enough to finally guess. This one was ridiculous though. Looking up and seeing Reid raise his eyebrows at him, Luke blushed and stood awkwardly in front of everyone. Luke new that normally the card wouldn't be that bad but, everyone else was drunk and doing this in front of everyone was embarrassing. Not to mention Noah was there. His boyfriend would think it was hilarious and never let him live this down. Reid was there as well. Luke knew that that shouldn't mean anything, but there was something about him that made Luke nervous. A nervous he hadn't felt since he first met Noah. He sure as hell didn't want to embarrass himself with either of them in the room.
"Oh come on Luke, it can't be that bad" called Casey, clearly drunk out of his mind.
Luke sighed and started. He turned around and hugged his arms around his body to make it look like he was making out with someone. The laughter of course began. There were random guesses from his team like 'first time' or 'lonely nerd who can't get a date'. He then grabbed a blanket from Jacob's crib and lay down under it on the floor. He made one or two pleasured faces and got up as quickly as possible. By now, most of the group had tears in their eyes from laughing so hard. Casey and Noah were leaning on each other laughing drunkenly. Even Reid had a smile on his face. Luke then stood sideways and showed his belly growing bigger. He even added a few bouts of morning sickness in. His team had stopped guessing a while ago, intent on just watching the show, not caring about points anymore. Deciding to just go for it, Luke picked up a pillow from the couch and put it under his shirt. He then laid on the grown and pretended to push. He pulled the pillow out and held it like a baby. Luke stood there holding the pillow in his arms. Once it was clear that his team wasn't going to guess, Luke just groaned and sat down. On the pillow.
"Aww Luke, you just crushed baby Luciano. You're such a bad mother" Maddie cooed at him. Luke turned bright red and buried his head in his hands.
"Why don't we take this party outside and get some fresh air" Reid suggested lifting Katie and Ali up from the couch. Luke looked up in relief at Reid. Reid was looking everywhere but at him though. Grateful, Luke jumped up and helped pull Gwen and Maddie up. He then went and pushed Casey and Noah over. Noah got up and slung an arm around him as they headed out the door of the apartment and down the stairs.
"You were quite the hot mother Luke" Noah teased. "Maybe I'm not gay after all."
Smiling, knowing Noah was drunk, Luke still felt horrible at that statement thinking that it might just be true. Hopefully, he thought, no one would remember this in the morning though. Except Reid he seemed fairly with it for a man who had four beers.
Once outside Casey led the group to a local playground where they all ran and swung from the swings. Luke saw Reid on a bench a few feet away, frowning at the rest of the group. Luke decided to walk over.
"Mind if I join you?"