Page 29 of Dirty Chef
“Awesome.” For some reason, Adam headed for the walk-in closet next to the front door. We only had coats and bags and outdoor gear in there. “You can hop up on the island,” he told me from the closet. “I’m gonna run this show.”
All right… Hmpf. I’d been hoping to play with the pipettes.
I went back to my seat. No need to plant my big butt on the counter. Countless bottles of alcohol—mostly smaller ones for sampling—all the treats from Elise, and some other stuff took up half the work surface.
Adam returned and threw his ball cap on the couch, and he was holding something in his hand. I couldn’t see what it was. Looked like fabric.
“I said the island for a reason, love.” He nodded at the counter, then opened a cupboard over the sink. “Do you want a drink?”
I furrowed my brow and slid off my stool. “Sure…” Why did I have to sit up there? Thinking ahead, I jumped up while he still had his back to me. He didn’t need to see everything fucking jiggle. Then I tugged down my top and peered around me. I noticed one of the bottles was his favorite whiskey, Black Barrel by Jameson. He’d bought four bottles when we’d visited their distillery in Ireland.
There was no way he was going to waste the last two bottles on a dessert for guests at Coho.
Adam gave me a glass with ice and lime inside. He’d taken two glasses for himself, a lowball and a tall glass of water.
“Why can’t I sit on the stool?” I asked.
His mouth twitched as he poured himself a whiskey. “Because I say so.” Next, he retrieved something from a pocket in his jeans. It was the scrap of black fabric he’d grabbed from the closet, only it wasn’t just a scrap of fabric. It was the sleep mask I had in my carry-on when we traveled.
It dawned on me what he was up to, and nerves tightened my stomach.
“You’re not going to blindfold yourself with that, are you?”
He chuckled. “Correct.”
Well, shit.
Adam turned around and opened the freezer, fetching someth—ah, my bottle of Cîroc. My favorite vodka. He poured it over the ice and lime in my glass.
“All right, what’s missing…?” Adam surveyed his workstation and took a slow sip of his whiskey. “Palate cleansers—gotta have that.” Which he produced a few seconds later: a plate with plain crackers and two bottles of water. “I think we’re ready.” He held up his glass. “You ready to guess flavors?”
I laughed shakily and clinked my drink with his. “Since I’m not competing against you, I’ll give it a shot.”
I remembered once when we were in Italy to visit my parents. He’d wanted a recipe from this local restaurant, but he never asked for it. Instead, we went in there for lunch every day for a week straight, and he ordered the same dish each time.
When we came home, he recreated it to a freaking tee.
I took a small sip of my vodka and let the smooth, ice-cold burn flow through me.
Adam handed me the sleep mask, and I slid it on, the black, silky fabric turning everything dark. I may or may not have stolen it from my one and only experience in first class because it was shaped after my face. I couldn’t see a damn thing.
“Remember when I stole this?” I grinned impishly.
Adam laughed quietly. “Can’t steal what’s complimentary.”
Oh, whatever.
“That was a good flight, though.” He did something; I heard him opening the boxes with the treats, and there was rustling and clinking. “Good food festival, too.”
Definitely. I loved traveling with Adam. He made it so easy to pretend there was more between us. He could be incredibly focused on the task, usually when we traveled for food festivals and restaurants he wanted to try, and still make sure I was right there next to him. He was very attentive.
We had two trips this year to look forward to. A work thing in Vegas in April, and then we were flying to Italy to see my family again. And we tried to make something of our connections. The time we’d connected in Dublin, we’d spent four days traveling the south-east coast. Once when we’d middle-landed in Frankfurt, we’d spent the weekend stuffing our faces with cheese, sausage, and chocolate. We’d held an Oktoberfest at the restaurant that year.
“Here’s some water.” Adam gently grabbed my hand and gave me a bottle of water to remove the taste of vodka. “Let’s start out easy.”
And that was what he did. He’d cut up several of the treats, so as not to overwhelm me, and the bastard fed me little morsels of sweetness infused with various types of alcohol. Vanilla bean with bourbon, caramel with an apple liqueur, dark chocolate with Limoncello… Songs about desperate lovemaking and pining became my dizzying soundtrack, and the only thing that distracted me from my guessing was Adam’s close proximity.
