Who: EVERYONE Where: Kitchen and dining room (FREE FOR ALL) When: Around 4:30pm
It was hard to really put a finger on it, but ever since Jack had come back from...well, wherever he'd been in those few weeks he'd disappeared from the house, he hadn't felt entirely like himself. As much as he smiled and joked, shifted back into old routines and helped around the house, there was a part of him that just felt off. Paranoid, even. Mornings were hard, unable to help the edge of panic in those first few minutes after waking. There was no way of knowing how long he'd been gone until he checked the network, or posted and waited to see who, if anyone, would freak the heck out over his mysterious return. It hadn't happened yet, not since that first time, but that fact did little for his nerves. The mornings the door locked were the worst, always spending a few seconds staring at that blinking dot on the computer, wondering how confused the message there might make him if he'd missed out on crucial context due to a forgotten absence. Today's mini survey didn't bring out any particular feeling of relief, just a bit of annoyance at yet another seemingly innocuous poke into his brain.
Today, that slight edge didn't quite leave until he was wrists deep in pizza dough, sliding into familiar routines and welcoming helpers as they drifted in over the course of the prep. It didn't bother him that they'd already had a pizza day, despite the fact that it had been a while. Pizza was easy to make, easy to share, easy to go into on autopilot. It was also easy to teach, for the helpers who had less cooking experience than others. It also helped that it had been the most common answer to the survey he'd thrown out to the house a few days earlier, so he figured he was pretty safe on all fronts. He stuck with a mixed variety like the last time, though he threw in a beef fajita style pie alongside the standard mixed veggie pizzas, meat lovers, garlic and broccoli, and extra cheese. There were seven extra large pizzas in total, cut into large slices and filling the large kitchen with spicy, savory, and drool-inducing smells. Instead of traditional chicken wings, he tried his hand at a variety of crispy chicken tenders, including a batch of sweet and savory dry-rubbed curry that he kept shamelessly stealing pieces from.
Instead of setting everything up in the dining room, as per usual, a food line was created in the kitchen to allow more space where everyone was going to be eating, and let people come and go at their leisure. A makeshift salad bar was created on the kitchen island, with the pizzas, chicken tenders and plates taking up spots on the table, along with silverware and napkins. A few fresh pots of coffee were ready and waiting, and the fridge was stocked with as much soda, beer and water as he could get in there. He knew it wasn't as fancy as some of the other group dining they'd done, but sometimes simple and familiar was better. He figured no one was going to complain.
For the first time since the group meals started, Jack waved off his instinctual need to hover and wait on people. Instead, he helped himself to his plate first, throwing a large slice of meat lovers onto his place along with a few curry tenders and hopping up onto the bare counter near the sink to watch people come and go. He stopped his munching only long enough to pull out his phone and type out a message on the network, then went back to chowing down.