Page 78 of Hittin' the Right Note
Luke moved with quick efficiency. It turned out he’d already had a couple of loves of frozen bread dough already thawing out in the fridge, so it didn’t take him very long to roll them out, sprinkle in some mozzarella and a few slices of pepperoni, and then roll them up. As simple as it was, though, Mikey found himself a little entranced at just how deft Luke was with his fingers. He knew just how to move so everything looked effortless.
At last, all of the pepperoni rolls were nice and laid out in the pan, and then Luke revealed the secret to getting them to rise faster than they would if just left to their own devices.
“The key,” he said, “is to heat your oven up to what you would ordinarily use to bake them. Then, you let it cool off for a few minutes, plop them in, and let them sit there for a bit. It’ll take probably about an hour or so for them to rise, and when they dothey’ll be even fluffier. I don’t know about you, but I always like mine a little bit more on the fluffy than the doughy side.”
Mikey honestly couldn’t say he’d given too much thought to the consistency of his pepperoni rolls, but he wasn’t going to say as much to Luke, particularly not when he’d clearly put a great deal of thought into just what kind of pepperoni rolls he was going to make for Mikey’s benefit.
He really is something else.
Once the pepperoni rolls were in the oven–and, if Luke was right, rising–the two of them returned to the couch, where they curled up and cuddled.
Duke, predictably, sprawled out on the floor in front of them, clearly happy just to be near them.
“How long have you had him?” Mikey asked.
Luke hummed as he thought about it.
“I’ve had him ever since he was a puppy, and that was a couple of years ago. All of the stuff with the coming out hadn’t happened, so I was on the road a lot, and I just needed someone who I knew I could count on. So, I got a puppy. He proved to be the best friend I could’ve asked for, and he’s been that way ever since.”
“He’s really a good dog,” Mikey said. “I’ve always wanted to get one, too, but it just wasn’t possible when I was on the road with the guys, and then once I was going solo, it just never quite made sense.”
Luke’s chest tightened up under his cheek, and he wondered what was coming next.
“Well,” Luke said, clearly trying to work up the courage to say something important, “he really seems taken with you. Maybe…if you come back here a lot, we can sort of become co-parents.”
Mikey thought the idea of co-parenting a dog was a little funny but, since Luke was clearly in earnest, he wasn’t about to make light of the situation. Instead, he gave the proposal theseriousness it deserved. If Luke was going to go out on a limb like this and actually talk about the two of them trying to forge some kind of future together–whatever form it took, even if the entrypoint was coparenting a dog–then Mikey was going to think about it.
“I think I’d like that,” he said.
By now the smell of yeast and bread dough had begun to permeate the house.
“Wow,” he said. “You really weren’t kidding about the method of making the bread rise faster,” he said.
“You should never doubt me,” Luke said. “We’ll give it another few minutes, and then we’ll put them in to bake.”
And that’s just what they did. They talked about nothing much, just this and that, little snippets of memory, experiences they’d both had as musicians that were kind of similar. It was refreshing, really, to be able to have this kind of conversation with Luke without having to worry about stepping on any kind of verbal landmine.
Finally, though, it was time to put the rolls in to bake. Fortunately, the actual baking didn’t take nearly as much time as the rest of it, and it wasn’t long until the rolls were done. When Luke took them out of the oven Mikey was a bit blown away by just how perfect they looked. They’d been baked to just the right shade of golden brown, and they smelled so heavenly it was all Mikey could do not to devour them on the spot.
As it was, Luke made sure to prepare them both a nice salad, and they made sure to eat it before they finally allowed themselves to dive into the pepperoni rolls.
They were now just the right temperature. Not hot enough that they burned the mouth but still luscious and warm, just the right mix of soft and crunchy, the unique texture of fresh-baked bread. The pepperoni was just the right kind of spicy, and the mozzarella…well it was simply divine. Taken together, they weredefinitely the best pepperoni rolls Mikey had ever had, and he thought he might just be in heaven.
“You almost look like you’re about to have an orgasm,” Luke said, a twinkle in his eye. “And I know better than most just what that looks like.”
“I know you do, you rascal,” he said, waving a half-eaten roll in Luke’s direction. “I don’t want you to get too big of a head, but you’re the best lover I’ve ever had.”
That quickly the energy in the room changed. Luke got a pensive look on his face, and Mikey wondered what he’d said wrong.
Oh great,he thought.I’ve managed to put my foot in it again.
“What did I say this time?” he asked.
Luke shook his head
“No, it’s not that. It’s just…there’s something I want to ask, but I’m not sure how to do it without sounding insensitive.”
“Oh, come on,” Mikey said. “I mean, we’ve been inside each other. I’m pretty sure there’s nothing the two of us can’t say.”
