Page 27 of Knife Volume 2

She put the marinade together fast while she ate, tasting it with her finger, adding a little more peach along with two more cloves of minced garlic.

When the meat was happily marinating in her concoction, she climbed into his truck without arguing — thank the gods — and directed him to an Asian market he hadn’t even known existed.

At the store, she handed him an empty basket when they stepped in the door and then moved through the aisles quickly, loading the basket without hesitation. She clearly knew the brands she wanted without having to decide.

Back home, thinly sliced liver pieces hit the pan with a sizzle, each one dredged in flour and egg, and the smell was nothing like the chicken livers on the mountain. Cleaner. More deliberate. She had a second pan going for the bulgogi, the thin beef hitting hot metal and caramelizing fast, and she worked both pans without looking hurried.

And all the while, his task was to cook the noodles, which had a name he wasn’t going to try to pronounce, but google told him they were sweet potato glass noodles.

She’d also bought chopsticks at the market, which he washed before setting the table.

She’d taken over his kitchen, and that was a good thing. He wanted her to move in. Wanted it to be their kitchen instead of his, and she wasn’t wasting time making that happen. The odd ingredients he’d never even heard of before. The chopsticks. Her pans. Her favorite knife.

She’d put her brand on it already, and this pleased both the man and the wolf.

They were eating long before he expected. The meal came together fast and looked like something you’d get at a restaurant.

She lifted the chopsticks and ate with them like a pro, closing her eyes and just experiencing the flavors.

He lifted a piece of liver with his fingers and tried it first, and nearly closed his eyes to enjoy the experience. This was better than any Southern-fried or Appalachian-style liver he’d ever eaten. By far.

He struggled with the chopsticks, but managed to get a bite of the bulgogi into his mouth — and truly did just sit back and close his eyes this time.

“The peach works,” she said. “Supposed to be pear, but I think I like it this way just as much. What do you think?”

“No idea what it’s supposed to taste like, but this is phenomenal. So many flavors, but they work together. They don’t fight. It’s beyond good.”

A corner of her mouth lifted, but he wasn’t finished. “I want this to be our place, so thank you for starting the process, putting your stamp on the kitchen. There’s more to go, but ingredients I’ve never heard of is a good first step.”

She stared at him, and he realized she hadn’t grasped what she’d done. “This is us,” he told her. “Upstairs with my pulleys, and downstairs in the kitchen. Two sides of the same coin. Thank you for being here.”

“Thank you for inviting me in.”

He looked at her across the table — loose-limbed, hair flowing around her face, completely at home — and everything felt right with the world.

She fit into his life so perfectly. Someone who broke for him beautifully and then put herself back together afterward, cleanly and without drama, and sat across from him like an equal because that’s exactly what she was.

- - - ❖ - - -

The week passed quickly, and Knife woke well before the crack of dawn for his long workday on Thursday. Surprisingly, Tuesday woke with him, and left when he did, headed to her apartment for a day of filming. She was going to try to do it all in a single day to keep from having to go back, and she warned him she might be there pretty late.

It made him resolve to figure out the lighting for her in his kitchen, so she’d make the change sooner.

Sure enough, when he called it quits around ten that night, she was still at it. She’d texted him around nine to let him know she’d be bringing lots of food home for them to eat, but it might be close to midnight.

And wow, she hadn’t been kidding about the food. She’d cooked collard greens, which he isn’t a fan of, but he tried a taste and they weren’t half bad.

There was a potato dish he really liked — ground chuck, caramelized onions, garlic, beef broth, and sour cream, layered with thinly sliced potatoes, sharp cheddar on top. So good.

And then the lamb shoulder braised with pomegranate and several ingredients he’d never heard of, but it was beyond good.

And that’s what he’d figured out about her channel when he’d watched pieces of different episodes — she mostly shows recipes with normal ingredients people likely already have in their kitchen, but she also tosses a few exotic, fancy recipes into the mix. Like the lamb. No matter what, though, she focuses on clean eating. There are no canned soups or flavor packets in her recipes.

He really liked the chicken dish, which she told him was braised in white wine, garlic, fresh thyme, and whole grain mustard.

But the absolute best was the duck confit. Simple but so fucking good. Duck legs cooked in their own fat with garlic and who-knows-what herbs, cooked until the outside was crispy and the inside was tender and juicy.

She only fixed him a little of each, to taste, but he finished off the duck with her help, and then they both crashed. Hard.