"Pie for dessert," beams Andi.

"Yes. Well, probably. I've never arranged pie delivery before; maybe it's not very reliable."

"Uh-huh," says Trouble.

"Do you need to be compensated for ingredients or anything?" Bella wonders.

"Nah."

"Freeeeeee piiiiiiiie!"

"My consolation for the weirdness of this situation is that I can't think of any reason you would be likely to poison us."

"Yeah, I'm sure that's consoling as hell," snorts Trouble.

"Renée's likely to invite you to stay for dinner if you show up at six," Bella adds to Trouble.

"Fine by me," he says, shrugging.

"Tonight is bean stew, there's always leftovers of that anyway," Andi says, nodding.

Trouble smiles.

"I wonder if she will make you eat salad to get dessert if you literally made dessert and brought it to our house?" wonders Andi.

"Be kind of a dick move, wouldn't it?"

"Well, the rule stands even if one of us makes dessert. Haven't tested its application to guests, before."

"Guess we'll find out," says Trouble.

"You're gonna try and skip the salad, huh?"

"Course I will."

"Were you going to do that before we mentioned that it might be a dessert prerequisite?"

"Who knows?" says Trouble.

"You, I'd hope. That's why I'm asking."

"Come on, Bella, sometimes people just do stuff without X-raying their brains to find out why."

He shrugs. "I didn't even know there was going to be salad before, how would I have known I was gonna skip it?"

"There's always salad," groans Andi.

Bella reflects on the conversation. "But you didn't know that," she acknowledges.