15.4 T.G.I.F.

The banter of the group lasted until they got to the kitchen because that's when they collectively noticed the delicious scent of food. Said food was not in the kitchen however and the group eventually ended up in the dining room where there treated to the sight of an assortment of food stuff assembled as if it were a traditional family dinner. Kendrick summoned up their reaction with a single word inflected like a certain actor.

"Wow~"

"This looks good" Jamie added.

Stan was the only one not fazed by what he saw as he swaggered into the room towards his girlfriend.

"Hey Ez" he accepted the deep kiss with only the tiniest bit of hesitance before hastily breaking off when she tried to slip in her tongue "what-uh what's on the menu tonight?"

"Well I felt a bit inspired. Since you all seem so fond of ordering food from restaurants I decided to emulate their style a bit" then she gave a smile that was all teeth "but better."

Now that she said it he could see it and it wasn't just the items itself but the way they were assembled looked oddly familiar to him.

It was Liam who managed to figure it out first "the restaurant you took inspiration from wouldn't happen to be TGI Fridays would it?" he asked while Amelia whipped out her phone and began tapping and swiping.

"How did you know?"

"We live close to a TGI Fridays and order from there every once in a while."

"Yep" looking between the phone and the food Amelia nodded in confirmation "this is definitely from TGI Fridays" then she took a picture to post on Instagram "works of art like this deserves to be immortalized."

Stan rolled his eyes while Ezraphel brightened "well good then you can be the one to determine whether or not mine is better."

"Oh honey I can already tell yours is better" Amelia commented.

"Yeah for one it actually looks like the picture they put on the menu" Kendrick agreed before his eyes caught the lone outlier "except for that."

What he pointed to was a picture of milk placed with the soda and juice. Stan eyed the milk then his girlfriend with suspicion which only intensified after Kendall made a comment.

"I don't remember getting any milk."

"Well you did seem to be preoccupied" Ezraphel countered smoothly without missing a beat.

"Why milk though?" Jamie asked.

"Its-" Stan attempted to do damage control only to be interrupted by Ezraphel hugging him close so that his face was smothered into her chest.

"It's for my Stanley. He needs it to grow big and strong~"

*Pause*

Ezraphel's words took a moment for them to register and in that time Stan managed to push himself away but froze looking to his friends and as he did his cheeks turned red in a visible blush. That was the straw that broke the camel's back and immediately his friends all busted out laughing and snickering at his expense.

"That is adorable" Jamie spoke with a smile on his face.

"Shut up!"

Kendrick was quick to join in "the secret to Stan's growth spurt revealed"

"Are we eating or what?"

Stan's friends would prove to be great at multitasking as not only were they able to organize themselves into their seats while also teasing the hell out of him. He gave as much as he got but between them and Ezraphel it's safe to say that his good mood was ruined. At least that was the case until they started eating the food and suddenly it was like Shokugeki No Soma, lots of sighs, hmms and he's pretty sure somebody was having an orgasm.

"This is definitely better than TGI" Liam commented whilst eating some of the ribs.

While everyone voiced their own agreements Stan felt a little differently 'could be better.'

Not that the food wasn't delicious but having been exposed to a certain quality of food for over half a year and after her explaining that this time the quality would be lower than usual Stan could actually taste the dip in quality.

As if sensing his thoughts Ezraphel spoke "thank you for your praise however" she frowned "this meal is not up to my usual standards."

"This isn't up to your usual standards?" Kendrick boggled wiping the chicken grease from his lips with a paper towel.

"Well of course not" the woman spoke as if it were obvious "since I couldn't make them from scratch most of the ingredients are…store bought" she almost sneered at the term "that is not even mentioning that the ingredients themselves are not exactly high quality. Without the adequate time, quality ingredients and inferior kitchenware I could only do this much."

They as a group took in what she said before Jamie turned to Stan "sounds like you don't spare any expense when it comes to food."

"I don't."

Or rather he was forced not to in this case.

See what started out as shopping at the local supermarket became something more as time passed. Ezraphel while maintaining a heavy presence in the household wasn't exactly constrained to said household. She would frequently take trips outside to explore the city whenever he has to work long hours which was actually pretty frequent in some months.

Where she goes and what she does Stan didn't ask but he was at least now aware that she frequented the food stores, specifically the specialty shops that sold the specially prepared high quality ingredients. They were often places too far and tedious to drive to and he didn't see a reason to spend the extra time and money to get 'better ingredients' when Ezraphel's food was already A-tier. At least that's how it was…until she tricked him into buying from one of these shops.

The 'how' she tricked him was a long story involving a multi-step plan orchestrated over the course of several weeks on her part and his dumb ass getting caught lacking. TLDR she ended up teleporting him to a certain specialty butcher shop she found that was about an hour's drive from his house in a part of the city he's never been in. The prices for the meat seemed outrageous at first then Ezraphel gave him a long winded lecture on meat quality and how it affects the meal preparation and taste among other things.

Despite everything she managed to convince him but she just would…not…stop and by the ten minute mark Stan ended up getting frustrated with the whole thing.

His exact words were "just shut up and take my money" before shoving a couple hundred dollar bills in her hand and sending her off.

Just as she said, quality ingredients made for better food and once he's tasted that 'forbidden fruit' he could never go back to mediocrity.

'Which is exactly what I'm eating right now' Stan thought to himself with a sigh.

An exaggeration, it's not like he Flowers For Algernon'd his taste buds or anything. Plus the whole idea was to impress his friends and they seemed plenty impressed with this much.

'Actually it might be better for them not have food made at her best.'

Ezraphel noticed his contemplating "is everything all right?"

"I'm fine, not sure about everyone else though. You might have just ruined them on other food forever."

"I wouldn't go that far" Liam muttered only to be interrupted by his fiancée.

"No he has a point" Amelia interrupted swiftly "you need to step up your cooking game babe."

Liam's eye twitched a bit "you know it would be better if you helped out in the kitchen every once in a while."

"Liam" Amelia began after daintily wiping her lips she pinned him with a calm expression "when we got together we made a deal and signed a metaphorical contract" then still maintaining that calm business-like expression she bridged her fingers together "I receive cooked meals, you receive sloppy toppy among other things that shall not be named in the presence of good company…and Stan" she added before going back to her meal.

In the face of that succinct explanation Liam went to retort only to come up short and ultimately had nothing to say to that. Unfortunately for him the same could not be said for Stan.

"Damn man, you got scammed."

"Shut up."

"Yeah Stan your voice is ruining the food" Kendrick added "which is amazing, my compliments to the chef."

"Thank you~"

"I'm thinking about doing a mukbang stream" Jamie suddenly spoke.

Naturally this led Kendrick to asking the obvious question "why?"

Jamie shrugged "just thought it would make for an interesting stream."

"One and done or…" Stan trailed off.

"Oh no I'm definitely not making it a regular thing" he paused "unless your girlfriend's cooking. Now there's an idea."

"I don't get that" Kendall interrupted before they could ponder further.

"What? Mukbang streams?"

"Yeah, what's the appeal? I mean it's one thing to do it for like food reviews but I genuinely don't get it as a form of entertainment."

Liam chose to interject "the whole appeal of mukang stream is on the ability of the streamer to entertain the audience and not a lot of people can do that without using games or videos as a crutch."

"Hum" Ezraphel raised her hand a bit "excuse me but what is 'mukbang stream'?"

'This ought to be good' Stan thought.

"It's a type of streaming where people eat food while they engage with their audience."

"Oh, I see…" she paused "and what is 'streaming'?"

Liam opened his mouth closed it and as one they all turned to Stan waiting for an explanation.

"So I tried to explain the concept of content creators a bunch of times but I realize that it was a lesson in futility."

He wasn't lying either as the earliest instance had her asking a bunch of seemingly needless questions about the technical and historical details that he could have answer but would have literally taken him all day. Plus at that point he was still wary of her overall presence in his life and didn't really want to spend any prolonged amount of time with her. The next example of him attempting to explain had a lot of let's say distractions and Ezraphel herself didn't seem to be overly concerned about it so he stopped trying after the third instance of his attempt at explaining things devolved into sex.

Lately Ezraphel was showing more ingenuity in how she would get him to spend more time in bed with her so whenever he found himself in a situation where he had to explain himself Stan deliberately did his best to put it off, distract her and basically held himself back from doing a full on explanation. Her ignorance was a blessing allowing him to have liberal use of his get out of sex free card which was a very sad phrase but it is what it is.

Unfortunately for Stan in admitting his failings to correct her ignorance on the subject he opened the floor for his friends to try their hand at it. Stan himself had no choice but to pitch in as well if only to keep up the ruse. Even with the six of them it was by no means a simple or quick affair especially since Ezraphel seemed to be doing all in her power to make the process as tedious as possible. Luckily for her splitting the work among six people acted as a balm on the process not to mention some of them had the patience of a saint while the others were just too mindful to let their frustrations show.

Between the six of them they managed to teach her the loose history, evolution and miscellaneous details of content creating that she would be interested in knowing. It still took several hours lasting from the middle of dinner through desert and included breaks, audiovisual aids and a few surreptitious Google searches to answer some of the frankly bat shit questions Ezraphel had.

In any case Ezraphel now had a better understanding of content creating and internet culture as a whole. He could already see her working out ways to leverage this newfound knowledge and that brought about mixed feelings. On the one hand he could say goodbye to abusing Ezraphel's ignorance to get out of spending more time with her (and boy doesn't that phrasing makes him look like more of an asshole than he already is) but on the other hand the impromptu lecture was actually a nice group activity for them.

He was grateful for their help in educating Ezraphel and while her ignorance has a certain charm it actually felt nice having her actually understand what it is he does. What didn't feel so nice was her seeming to gain an interest in his 'work' since that could play out a few ways. It would be nice if she became interested in playing video games. Actually that would be fantastic but just as easily she could get into the YouTube and/or Twitch culture which was not so fantastic if he's being honest. Sure he's a schizoid nerd and hermit who technically played videogames for a living but he liked keeping his business separate from his pleasures and Ezraphel fell firmly into the 'pleasure' category.

Ironic huh?

'I really hope this doesn't come back to bite me.'

In that moment Stan could have sworn he heard God laugh.