the five times that Piper completely failed at cooking (and the one time she succeeded)
1.
It was very rare that Piper woke up before Harry in the morning because he had some sort of internal clock that usually went off at some ungodly hour in and around the crack of dawn. So when it happened — Piper rolling over to find Harry's face firmly planted into his pillow, his heavy breathing audible against the soft cotton — she decided she was going to make the most of it. Sliding stealthily out of her bed so she wouldn't wake him, she crept out of her room and headed straight for the kitchen.
She was going to make Harry breakfast this time. He was always doing it for her, each and every morning that he stayed the night, and she felt like it was her turn to return the favour. Knowing that anything too complex would inevitably lead to disaster, Piper pulled up a recipe for pancake mix on her phone and got to work. How hard could pancakes be right?
It went well for the most part. Pancake mix was easy. It was like baking, mixing together ingredients she actually had like flour and baking powder, and she even used up a couple of yogurt containers that were on the verge of going bad. She was feeling pretty good about the whole thing, dancing around the kitchen as a big pancake cooked in the only pan that she owned. Walk the Moon was playing low in the background so she wouldn't wake Harry and there was something about buoyant, upbeat music that made mornings just a little bit better.
She should have known better. There was no way she would be lucky enough to get through a whole cooking experience without something going wrong and that wrong thing was one little utensil — a spatula. She couldn't find one. She opened every single drawer in her kitchen looking for one because she knew there had to be one somewhere. After all, she lived off of cheese toasties. There was no way that she didn't have a spatula. It just seemed to be hiding.
"Don't need it," she muttered to herself as she took the pan handle in both hands and stared down at her sizzling pancake. "We can do this, can't we pancake?"
The pancake didn't respond, choosing instead to sit silently in the pain and let her wonder whether she could flip it on her own.
"It's just physics," she told herself as she poised to toss the pancake. "If we give it enough force with a firm flip of the wrist, it should toss up and come back down properly. This will work."
She took a deep breath in preparation and then tossed the pancake, flicking the pan so it soared up into the air. She watched it fly up high, high enough that it smacked into her ceiling, sticky side up.
"Fuck."
"What're you doing?"
Piper spun around at Harry's gravelly voice, thick with sleep and deep from lack of use. He was standing in the kitchen doorway in just his form-fitting black boxer briefs, complementing the dark leaves that decorated his hips and the butterfly resting on his stomach. He was squinting at her, rubbing one eye with his big hands so that he looked like an overgrown toddler and Piper resisted the urge to cuddle him and kiss him all over his face because of how cute he was.
"Nothing... I, um, was just, uh, just about to make pancakes." She figured that what Harry didn't know wouldn't hurt him and he didn't need to know that she'd just tossed a pancake onto the ceiling. That could be a little secret between her and the pancake.
Except that it chose that exact moment to drop, splatting down onto the floor just behind her. Harry's eyes had followed the movement, watching as it unlatched from the ceiling and fell to its death on the floor. He studied the pile of pancake for a moment and then rose one inquisitive brow in her direction.
"I fucking hate physics," she muttered as she crossed her arms with a huff, the pan abandoned back on the stove.
"Oh petal," Harry cooed sympathetically in his groggy morning voice as he stepped forward toward her. She let him give her a quick cuddle and a kiss on the head but when she heard his chuckle she nudged him hard in the stomach. "Ow. Sorry, didn't mean to laugh. You just surprise me sometimes."
"How so?"
"You know you're shit at cooking but you try anyway."
"I'm not shit at cooking!" Harry gave her a long look and she sighed, rolling her eyes. "Fine, I'm shit at cooking. Forgive me for trying to do something nice for you."
Harry rubbed his hand down her back gently and then propelled her forward with a gentle push to the small of her back. "Go and have a lie in. I'll finish making breakfast."
"But I wanted to make you breakfast." Piper frowned, breathing out a heavy sigh. "I wanted to do something nice for you."
"The effort is all that matters," he told her with a fond smile as he forcefully pushed her from the room. "Now, go on. Find out which channel is playing Corrie re-runs so we have something to watch while we eat."
She flopped onto the bed a moment later, wanting to be frustrated and annoyed, but Harry was humming to Walk the Moon under his breath and she could hear it over the sounds of another pancake sizzling in the pan. She delayed turning the telly on for just a moment so she could listen to it. She loved when Harry hummed and sang quietly because he only did it when he was really happy. Like now, apparently.
He came into the room within five minutes with two plates stacked with pancakes. He'd found nutella in her cupboard and had smeared it over top and Piper was in breakfast heaven. It was a hundred times better than anything she could have made even if her pancake hadn't ended up on the floor. Sometimes, she figured, it was best to just do what she did best and eat Harry's creations instead of trying to create inadequate impostors.
Because no one could cook breakfast like Harry could.
2.
Harry enjoyed quiet days with Piper more than anything else. He liked the days where he had nothing to worry about except sitting around and being lazy and spending a lot of time with his girlfriend. He liked watching her and the funny little things she did when he thought she wasn't looking, and she was like a puzzle that he tried to solve that he could never quite master. She was an enigma and he loved that about her.
His favourite thing to do was watch her read because he could almost tell the plot of the book just by watching her facial expressions. She scrunched her face up when the characters did something she didn't like, or she'd frown and look up in front of her for a moment if something confused her, or she'd tap her fingers on the cover when something exciting was happening, and when something cute or romantic happened, she'd press her lips together and widen her eyes. He was sometimes just as entertained watching her reactions as he was reading the damn book himself.
When she'd called earlier to say she was having a lazy day and asked whether he wanted to come over and help her eat the leftover lasagna that she'd brought home from her dinner at her mum's (store bought, not homemade, of course), he'd practically leapt into the car and raced over. He'd been having such a shit morning trying to slog through paperwork and he just needed to get his mind off of it and onto something more interesting — namely Piper.
And he got free lasagna out of the deal so it was quite literally a win-win.
"Smells good," he muttered to her, nuzzling into her neck where he'd been resting his head since she'd sat down with him on the couch. She was sitting between his legs sprawled out on the tiny couch in her living room, leaning back against his chest, and he'd been intermittently resting his forehead against the side of her neck and peeking up to see what she was reading.
"Should be ready soon," she said back quietly as her hand moved to turn the page. She paused for a moment, looking straight up at the wall in front of her. Slowly, she reached over for the scrap of paper she'd been using as a bookmark and stuck it in place before closing the book. "Actually," she said as she picked up Harry's wrist to look at his watch, "it should have been done already."
Both of them jumped when there was a loud pop. Piper nearly tumbled right out of Harry's lap and it was only his quick reflexes that kept her sitting on the couch. She looked back with an apologetic grimace and muttered, "I'm afraid that was what I think it was."
"Better go check," Harry prompted, guiding Piper up to her feet and then rising to his own.
Sure enough, when they got to the kitchen, the microwave was still going but the lasagna, instead of being a neat square shape, was now plastered to every inch of the interior. Harry reached past Piper to press the pause button so it didn't get cooked to the sides of the microwave.
"Shit," Piper muttered, reaching a hand out toward the button to open the door but pausing with it hovering about halfway. "I'm afraid to open it."
"It'll be hot," Harry agreed, taking her hand in his and using it to pull her closer to him so he could wrap an arm around her.
"I don't understand," she grumbled unhappily as she frowned hard at the microwave. "I followed the instructions and put it in for five minutes —"
"There's our problem." Harry reached around her to tap the display where 33:26 was flashing intermittently on the pause setting. "I think you accidentally set it to fifty minutes instead."
Piper dropped her face into her hands with a groan. "I have a Ph.D. in computer science and I can't even manage to set a microwave properly."
Harry chuckled, placing his hands on both of her shoulders and craning his head around so he could press a kiss to the sliver of cheek that wasn't covered by her hands. She split her fingers so she could eye him warily. "How about we go out for dinner?"
"You sure?" she asked. "Do you really want to be associated with someone as completely inept as me?"
"You know how to reprogram satellites. I think I can forgive you one microwave mishap." That managed to make her smile which was all he'd been hoping for. When she nodded that she was up for going out for dinner, he walked with her to her bedroom so she could put on a proper pair of trousers rather than her joggers. "Anything in particular you'd like to get?" he asked her as she perched on the edge of her bed to pull on her boots. She glanced up with a cheeky smile.
"Anything but Italian."
3.
"How're you feeling, love?"
Harry opened his mouth to answer but all that came out was a horrid cough from deep in his throat that sounded just awful. It was forceful, dragging him upward from where he was lying and bending him over as he coughed hard. With a hand to his chest, he dropped back onto his pillows with a whine. "Like shit."
Piper felt so bad for him and wished she knew what she could do to help. He'd just come back from a long mission and within three days of returning, he'd contracted whatever this was and he was practically bedridden. He was supposed to be on vacation and they'd planned to go up to a little cottage in the country for some time alone but instead, they were stuck in HQ with Harry confined to his bed by Niall's orders.
The worst thing about all of this was watching Harry suffer. Because that's the only word that could describe the way he cringed every time he swallowed, or how he heaved for breath after a coughing fit, or how he whined low in his throat every time he had to move. He was suffering and Piper couldn't think of a thing to do to help him.
"Can I get you anything?" Piper asked as she ran her fingers through the messy hair over his forehead. It was damp with sweat and so was his skin when she swiped her thumb over it. When he was feeling a little better later, she was going to force him into a bath because she knew personally how much she hated it when she was sick and she felt all grimy and gross. For right now, her only focus was on making him as comfortable as she could so he could fight this thing off.
"Could you —" He stopped himself, looking away from her for a moment as a flush rose up on his cheeks.
"What do you need?" she asked with a frown. He just shook his head. "Harry, tell me."
"I just wanted some soup," he told her in a quiet voice. "But you don't have to go to any trouble."
"You think I'll screw it up," she guessed and when he tried to shake his head and apologize, she pressed her fingers to his lips to keep them shut. "I'll have you know that I am perfectly capable of dumping soup into a pot and heating it up."
"I never doubted you, petal." Harry's eyes were wide and glassy from his illness, and she found it hard to be mad at him when he was like this.
"A likely story," she said doubtfully instead, rising to her feet. "I'll be back before you know it with a perfect bowl of soup."
Down in the kitchen, it took her longer than she wanted to admit to find the cupboard that housed the soup but when she did eventually track it down, there was a can of chicken noodle sitting right at the front. The whole pattern repeated for the pots (which had their own special drawer) and the can opener but she managed to get it open and cooking on the stove.
"He'll probably want tea too," she mused, flitting around the kitchen and turning the kettle on while she set up a mug of tea for Harry. While it steeped, she put some toast in the toaster and she answered a call from her mum and she washed some of the dishes that someone had left in the dishwasher. She got halfway up the stairs with Harry's tea when she remembered what she'd actually gone down there for and realized she'd forgotten the soup.
It was sludge by the time she got to it, all of the liquid having boiled out and leaving a slop of vegetables and chicken behind that looked completely inedible. Cursing under her breath, she dumped the whole thing in the green bin and attempted to wash off the parts that had burned to the pot.
"What smells so bad?"
Piper glanced over her shoulder as Louis sauntered into the room. He took one look at the pot in her hand and the frustrated look on her face and began to laugh. She dropped the pot into the sink with a huff and crossed her arms unhappily. "Don't laugh at me."
"Ah, love, what were you even trying to do?" Louis asked sympathetically as he crossed the kitchen so he was standing beside her, staring down into the pot. "Soup? For Harry?"
"I'm the worst girlfriend ever," Piper grumbled. "I can't even make my sick boyfriend a bowl of soup."
"But look, you made him tea and toast," Louis pointed out, nodding toward the mug and the plate sitting off to the side. "Why don't you bring those up to him, and I'll heat up some soup."
"You sure?"
"Yeah, I can manage. Even a monkey can heat up soup."
"LOUIS!"
"Only joking," he said with a sly smirk. He gave her a shove in the direction of the food she'd already made and she begrudgingly left Louis to the cooking.
She had hoped to slip into Harry's room to find him sleeping but he was wide awake and watching the door. He managed a smile for her when he saw her walking in and then his eyes dropped immediately to what she was carrying. "Tea? For me?"
He sounded so excited that she forgot to be embarrassed and found herself grinning instead. "I burned the soup into an inedible mush so Louis's making more and in the meantime, I have tea and toast."
"Sounds lovely," Harry rasped as he attempted to sit himself up. Piper gave him a hand and when he was propped up, he sipped happily on his tea. "God, that feels so good on my throat."
"Good," Piper said with a smile, happy that she'd done at least one thing right. "And I think I have an idea on something that will help out too."
She crossed to Harry's bathroom and rummaged around until she found what she'd been looking for in one of the lower drawers of the vanity. When she walked back into the bedroom, Harry was munching on his toast, waiting patiently for her return. He frowned at the jar in her hand, wondering what it was. "How about a little bit of vaporub?"
He scrunched his nose up a bit. "Do I have to? It's just, I don't like the smell."
"You're not supposed to like the smell," she told him as she took the plate of toast from his hand and put it aside. His eyes shot wide open when she straddled his hips and dragged down the duvet so his bare chest was exposed. She scooped a dollop of the stuff out with her fingers and then smeared it over his sternum. With gentle circles, she smoothed it out over his chest. She bit her lip to hide her smile when Harry groaned and let his head drop back, his eyes shutting as his face smoothed out with pure bliss.
"Feel good?"
"Hmm." That was about as much as he could muster by way of a response as Piper gently slid her fingers over the base of his neck to apply the rub to his throat. His nose scrunched up at the smell but it seemed to be helping already with the soreness in his chest and Piper knew from experience that it was going to provide him with a cough-free sleep which was what he desperately needed.
When she pulled her hands away, Harry whined low in his throat. "Don't stop."
"Louis's bringing up soup soon," she told him. When she attempted to lean back, one of Harry's lethargic hands caught her wrist and pulled her hand back to his chest.
"Who the fuck cares about soup?" he said in his gravelly voice which, despite being painful for him, sort of sounded a little sexy. "Don't you dare stop."
This was one task that Piper was absolutely excellent at doing.
4.
"I don't know why you didn't just let us make it," Louis said to Piper as she doled out a serving of chilli from the pot into each of the bowls in front of the five men crowded around the kitchen table in HQ. "It would have been faster."
She'd been in the kitchen all day making one pot of chilli, which really shouldn't have taken all that long, and she'd just finally gotten around to making them taste test it. Q branch was doing some sort of team-building day and the T branchers had been roped in. Somehow Piper had been volunteered for the chilli making contest despite the fact that she could not cook whatsoever. Unfortunately, Piper took challenges very seriously and she wasn't about to go down without giving it her best effort.
"If I have to participate in this stupid challenge," Piper snapped back as she poured a spoonful into Niall's bowl, "then I'm going to do it myself and I'm going to fucking win, understand?"
Every lip zipped shut as Piper finished filling up each bowl. With a sigh, she walked back across the kitchen to put the pot back on the stove. While she was gone, Harry leaned in and kept his voice low as he told his mates, "tell her you like it even if it's shit."
"I'm not going to lie to her," Zayn said firmly as he twirled his spoon on the table. When four pairs of eyes narrowed in his direction, he raised his hands defensively. "What? I don't think that's fair to her."
"She's been cooking all day and if we all hate it, it'll crush her." Harry peeked over his shoulder to make sure Piper wasn't within hearing distance and leaned in even further. "I don't want to pull rank but I will."
"You can't fucking order us to like it," Niall snapped back at him.
"Try me," Harry hissed back viciously. It was Liam's hand on his chest, firmly pushing him back away from the table, and therefore away from Niall, that brought him back to his senses. Liam was giving him a warning look so he sat back in his chair with a huff, crossing his arms.
"Let's not do anything drastic until we've actually tried it," Liam said to the four of them. "For all we know, it could be really good."
Harry wasn't the only one trying to keep the smile off his face.
"Alright boys," Piper said exuberantly as she came back to the table with her own bowl in hand. "Let's just get this over with."
All of them seemed to take a collective deep breath as the dug their spoons into the chili and took their first bites. Harry hoped that it would surprise him and be expertly made and tantalizingly delicious. Unfortunately, it was everything but. Instead, it was too spicy and runny and there was something in it that did not agree with his taste buds. He only barely managed to swallow it back and that was because years of eating whatever he could find in remote mission locations had prepared him for this moment. Louis struggled more, his jaw tight as he forced himself to swallow. It was Zayn who ruined it though by spitting his back into his bowl.
"I'm sorry babe," he said to Piper with a grimace. "I love you but I can't eat that."
"Zayn!" Harry snapped, kicking him hard in the shin under the table. He hissed and kicked back and Liam was forced to stick his leg between theirs to stop them from turning each other black and blue.
"I think it's... uh, wonderful." Louis's statement was completely invalidated by the scrunched up expression on his face and the way he kept smacking his lips.
With a sigh, Piper took her own spoonful. She only chewed a couple of times before she was spitting out her mouthful too, going as far as to scrape off her tongue and down a whole glass of water. "Holy hell, that was spicy. That was honestly the worst chili I've ever had. Were you all just not going to tell me?"
"I told you," Zayn reminded her, earning him an appreciative finger point from Piper while she narrowed her eyes at the rest of them.
"I like it," Niall piped up from the end of the table where he'd been shovelling it back. All of them looked at him curiously as he scraped his spoon on the side of the bowl to pick up some more. "What?" he asked before sticking another spoonful in his mouth.
"God, Niall, don't eat it," Piper scolded, tossing one of the rolls that had been sitting on a plate in the middle of the table at him, hitting him in the forehead. "You're going to make yourself sick."
The one thing that could be said about Piper is that she was realistic about her cooking ability. While she did make an effort to try, she knew she was pretty shit at it. "I'm sorry, petal," Harry said sincerely. "We should have told you the truth. You've just been working so hard."
"You're right, you should have," she scolded, rolling her eyes at Louis's attempt to give her puppy dog eyes. The only one who could get away with that with her was Liam and that's because he had those damn brown eyes. Harry didn't even try anymore because she could see right through him. "As your punishment, I expect a damn good chili to bring to work tomorrow."
"Piper," Louis whined as she stood and collected their full bowls (and Niall's empty one) to bring them to the sink, "we were all supposed to watch the footie game tonight. It starts in ten minutes."
"Should've thought of that earlier, hmm?"
The other three lads got up from the table and Zayn shot them a particularly haughty look as he crossed past them. Within minutes, they could hear the commentary from the match playing loudly in the other room. Taking pity on Louis who looked about ready to pull his hair out, Harry sent him off and decided to tackle this thing on his own. It had been his idea to lie to Piper so it was him who had to do the punishment. And in the end it wasn't so bad. Piper felt so guilty about him missing one of the best matches of the season that she bought him his favourite banana crepe for breakfast from her dessert cafe.
And his chilli ended up winning first place.
5.
She was in way over her head and she wasn't sure exactly how she'd gotten to this point or how she'd let it get this bad. It was supposed to be a simple dinner for the boys of One Direction as a celebration of her and Harry finally moving into their new house and it had evolved into this huge party. She wouldn't have minded — after all she enjoyed a good party every once in a while — but she'd promised to cook. When it was just the One Direction lads, she didn't give a shit if her cooking was awful but there were a whole bunch of people from work milling about out there who would be a lot more critical.
She was sweating like a pig and her hair was a frizzy mess and she was absolutely certain that her makeup had all melted off. She'd been chopping vegetables and marinating meat and peeling potatoes all morning, and she was at her absolute wit's end. She was tempted to pick up the stupid chicken and just throw it across the room but then she'd have to clean it up and she didn't feel up to doing that either.
"Need a hand in here?"
Piper looked up and saw Marlow, Eleanor and Perrie crowded in the doorway of the kitchen, each with a wineglass in hand. Piper wanted so badly to switch places with them that she could cry. Instead, she wiped her forehead off with her forearm and forced an inauthentic smile onto her face. "Hi."
"Nope, this is beyond me," Eleanor said immediately before she slipped out from between the two other girls and headed back into the party. It was a well known fact that Eleanor burned water and that Louis was the sole chef in their relationship.
"Do you want some help?" Perrie asked, looking warily at the spread of food that Piper had set up before her on the counters. It was certainly a lot and it was part of the reason for all of her stress. "I don't mind," Perrie insisted. "I'd be glad to help."
"I'm fine," Piper insisted, her cheeks hurting with how hard she was forcing her smile. "I've got everything under control."
Perrie looked sceptical but she eventually just accepted that Piper didn't want help, taking one last sip of her wine before she ducked out of the doorway and back to the party. Piper's eyes drifted to Marlow how had one eyebrow quirked as she slowly sipped her wine. She smacked her lips and then gave Piper a long look. "I'm calling bullshit," she told Piper as she wagged her finger at her. Before Piper could ask what that meant, she was gone, the door to the kitchen shutting behind her.
She didn't have to ask in the first place because a moment later, Harry was walking through the doors to the kitchen and Piper knew that Marlow had ratted her out. He crossed the kitchen so he was standing on the other side of the island and leaned down on his forearms. Piper, knowing that Harry would see right through her, let out a long sigh and leaned over so she was mirroring his position. "Hi."
"Hi," Harry said back, looking out at the spread of food around them. "You doing alright?"
"I can handle this."
"You're freaking out," Harry countered as he studied her face carefully. She tried to keep it smooth and flat but she could feel a layer of sweat on her face and she was having some sort of weird eye twitch that she was certain was visible. "Marlow told me," Harry added when he saw her attempt to keep it from him. "And even if she didn't, I know you better than that."
"So I've got a lot on my plate," Piper acquiesced, ignoring Harry's scoff. "But I can do this. There are fifteen people out there waiting for food."
"You don't have to cook, Piper." Harry reached across the counter to take her hand in his, rubbing his thumb in gentle, comforting circles on the back. It was one of the little tricks he'd picked up along the way to help calm her down. "I've got a bunch of steaks in the freezer and we could just do a barbecue —"
"It's my housewarming party and it's my house. I have to cook."
"But —"
"Harry, let me do this."
He looked like he wanted to interject but he knew better than to stop her when she had her mind set to something. With a resigned sigh, he straightened, his fingers curling over the edge of the counter for a brief moment before he pushed himself off. "As you wish, petal. But, if you decide you need a hand, just let me know, alright?"
"You'll be the first to know," Piper promised, giving Harry as best of a smile as she could muster. He walked backward toward the door, keeping a steady eye on her, waiting for her to call him back if she needed him. When she kept quiet, Harry gave her one last wink and then spun and pushed the kitchen door open, stepping back into the party with a exuberant greeting to whoever was on the other side.
She lasted twenty minutes running around doing a million things before it got to be too much. She had four pots on the stove that were all boiling over and the chicken wasn't cooking fast enough in the oven. She'd dropped half the rolls on the ground and she'd forgotten to buy lettuce for a salad so all she had was the add-ons. When Harry came back into the kitchen to check up on her, she was sitting in the corner with her legs bent up to her chest and her chin on her knees.
"How're you doing?" he asked once he'd slid to the ground beside her, mimicking her position. She sagged sideways, leaning against him heavily and dropping her head to his shoulder.
"I'm in over my head."
Harry shifted so Piper could press herself to his side and wrap her arms around his waist. He, in turn, put his arm across her shoulders and held her close. "What do you want to do?" he asked.
"You know that idea you had earlier?"
"Barbecue?"
"Barbecue," Piper agreed.
Harry leaned over to press a kiss to her forehead gently and then untangled from her, pushing to his feet and then offering his hand to help. Once she was on her feet, he helped straighten out her dress and then wiped off some of the makeup that had smeared under her eyes. "Alright, petal, let's knock the socks off this dinner party."
In the end, Harry found a bunch of steaks and a rack of ribs in the freezer and grilled up a storm. Piper turned her salad add-ons into a rocking cucumber and tomato salad. And no one could stop talking about the chocolate cake Piper had made for dessert. The only downer of the evening was when the chicken she'd forgotten in the oven caught fire but Niall and Louis fighting over who got to put it out with the fire extinguisher and then slipping and sliding in the foam was the definite highlight of the night.
+1 (6.)
"This is so shit!"
"Calm down," Harry snapped as he pushed past Liam into the tiny flat that was acting as their safe house. "It's not so bad."
"How is this not so bad?" Liam stormed into the small space and began pacing around, throwing his arms up in the air. "We missed our extraction, we've lost contact with Louis, we have absolutely no strategy from here —"
"We have Piper," Harry cut in, gesturing wildly behind him to where Piper was still hovering in the doorway, stunned by Liam's outburst. "This is what she does. She can figure this all out and everything is going to be just fine. Okay? Now could you cool it for a minute?"
"I'll show you cooling it —"
"Okay, that's enough!" Piper stepped between the two of them, keeping them separated so they wouldn't start clawing each other's eyeballs out. "You both need to take a step back and get your acts together because this is the absolute worst time to be losing it. We need to stay calm and focused. Now, can you two both sit down and take a breath? I'm going to find something to eat."
"To eat?" Liam asked incredulously. "Piper, we are stuck in Jakarta until we can find some way out of here and instead of trying to get in touch with Louis, you want to eat?"
"Yeah, because I know for a fact that if I'm hungry, then all of us are hungry because I ate everyone's snack bars on the car ride to the drop site. Sorry about that, by the way," she added sternly when she saw Harry's disapproving look. "And being hungry makes you angry and I'm tired of you yelling at me so I'm going to find food."
"Piper, I don't think —"
"Sit down and shut up or you're not getting anything to eat!"
Harry very wisely moved to the couch and sat down. When Liam took too long to follow, Piper pointed violently to the empty spot beside Harry and gave Liam a vicious stare. With a huff, he did as he was told and sat down on the couch. "No arguing," she warned them before heading toward the teeny tiny kitchen tucked away in the back.
The great thing about safe houses was that someone was in charge of keeping them stocked so there were fresh groceries waiting for them in the fridge. Piper had little to no cooking ability so she was worried that they were going to have to rely on eating whatever random fruit was there along with whatever carbs were stashed away in the cupboard. She was pleasantly surprised to find a fresh loaf of bread and cheese in the fridge and knew just what to do to help everyone's mood.
She came out of the kitchen ten minutes later with three plates balanced over two hands. Harry and Liam both seemed stunned by the sight of the cheese toasties sitting perfectly on top, cut on a diagonal to make two even triangles. "How?" was all Harry managed to ask as he took the plate from Piper with an expression on his face that could only be described as wonder.
"There was bread and cheese and a hot plate so I got a little creative," she told them as she sat down on the table in front of the two of them, placing her own plate on her lap. She picked up a slice of her sandwich and was about to dig in when she noticed Harry and Liam still completed fixated on their own plates. "Go on. Eat up. I promise that these won't kill you. Cheese toasties are one thing I can actually manage."
Liam was more wary but Harry was too hungry to care so he picked his up and shoved it in his mouth, eating half the piece in one go. As he chewed, his lips spread into a wide, closed grin. "Dear lord, Piper," he murmured reverently once he had swallowed. "I didn't realize how much I needed that until just now."
Liam, who had deemed it safe to try his own, took a bite and his eyes widened in surprise. "There're tomatoes in it."
"Yeah, I found some in the fridge and they looked pretty fresh so I thought I might as well throw them in."
"Fuck, this is good." Liam devoured the whole rest of the half in one bite, moaning in ecstasy as he chewed. "What are the chances of getting another one?"
Piper smiled proudly down at her own cheese toastie before forcing herself to be stern with Liam. "I'll make you another as long as you promise that you won't try to tell me how to do my job again."
"Deal," he said immediately, nodding his head vigorously. "Anything you want. Seriously, Piper, anything. Just give me another one of these."
Piper made him wait until she finished her own sandwich (which, granted, wasn't long because she wolfed that sucker down too) and when she stood and held her hand out for Liam's plate, Harry held his up as well with an adorable little smile full of hope. "You too?" she asked to which she received an exuberant nod.
"Best cheese toastie I've ever had," Harry admitted with a wide grin that made Piper blush. "And you said you couldn't cook. Have you been hiding this from me all this time?"
"Hey, don't get any ideas. All I can do is cheese toasties." She gave Harry a cheeky little wink. "But a girl's got to have her secrets."