Page 16 of Next Season
“You got it.”
I supplied him with the tools he required and leaned on the counter to watch the master at work. And though you wouldn’t think basic sandwich-making would be entertaining, it was with Jean-Claude.
“As with most things in life, balance is key. There is much to consider here: the thickness of the bread—approximately fourteen millimeters per slice—and the fact that it has been at a room temperature of approximately twenty degrees Celsius must be accounted for as we set the timer on the toaster. I don’t personally know this appliance, but if it’s an average toaster—and it looks average enough—it will take two and a half minutes to achieve a light, crispy surface. No burning.”
I grabbed two water bottles, slid one toward him, and uncapped my own. “Do you really think about all those things when you make toast? ’Cause that’s a little batty.”
“Of course not. I’m imparting great knowledge to you here.” He pointed at the toaster. “Any ordinary cook can throw bread into a toaster, hope it doesn’t burn, then slop tuna fish on top and call it a day. Achefwill make it correctly.Voilà! See, the bread is not burned.”
“It’s rye bread. How can you tell?”
Jean-Claude’s over-the-top reaction was priceless. He threw his hands in the air and burst into a mini chef tirade…all in French. I wasn’t fluent by any means, but I’d taken enough French in high school to understand the gist.
“What is wrong with people? Burn the bread. Who cares? It goes to the same place. No problem at all.”
He switched to English again, moving on to the importance of a light spread of Dijon and precisely measuring your ingredients. He added a touch of salt and pepper, cut the sandwich diagonally, and pushed the plate to me.
“Thank you. It looks amazing as usual. But, uh…do you always add salt and pepper? I’m asking for future solo assembly purposes.”
“Not always, but I didn’t add much to the tuna salad, so a little is fine,” he replied as he prepared a second sandwich.
Side note: Rain battered the kitchen window and the light above the table flickered a few times as lightning and thunder raged outdoors, but Jean-Claude didn’t seem to notice. His razor-sharp focus was flawlessly professional. If I hadn’t known he was a chef, I would have figured it out. No one I knew moved the way he did in a kitchen.
For instance, my mom was a great cook, but she wasn’t concise. She was casually good at it, while he was casually excellent. Kind of amazing for someone who, if I added the time he’d spent in Quebec City, Montreal, and Elmwood correctly, had only been a chef for eleven years. And he was forty now, so…what had he been doing in his twenties?
There had to be a story there. Men like him didn’t languish in the far reaches of northern Quebec to become busboys before making their way to a big city. Maybe he’d had a whole other life in his twenties. Hell, maybe he—
“Were you ever married?” I blurted, my mouth full of an insanely delicious tuna-salad sandwich.
Jean-Claude did that arched-brow thing again, set his half-eaten sandwich on his plate, and reached for his wineglass. “No. Were you?”
“No.”
“Good to know. I’m going to guess you aren’t dating anyone or we would have seen her…or him in town for a visit.”
My mouth went bone dry. “Uh, I’m straight. Mostly straight, anyway. I mean, they say no one is totally straight or gay, but I’m definitely on the straight curve. No offense to the gay curve, but it’s not me. I’m not gay on any curve…I’m—straight.”
My heart thumped in time with the roll of thunder as silence stretched and folded around us.
I rubbed my parched lips together, powering through a bite of my sandwich to keep myself from opening my gob and adding anything else to the stupid column. I wanted to assure him I didn’t mean any insult. One of my best buddies was gay…or bi. I wasn’t putting up the straight shield as a reminder that I wasn’t interested in him “that way.”
But Iwasinterested. And I wasn’t sure what that meant either, so…eating was safe.
The air crackled, buzzing with heat and yearning and questions I hadn’t formulated and feelings I didn’t know how to label. My cock swelled in my joggers, my pulse raced, and still…he was quiet.
And undeniably masculine. And sexy.
But quiet.
“I am gay.”
“I know,” I said softly. “You mentioned that.”
Damn it, this was getting more awkward by the second. I needed help tearing my gaze away from his and steering the conversation elsewhere.
“Since you are very…straight.” He hesitated over that last word before continuing, “You must have many women worried about you. I’m surprised they all haven’t followed you here.”
“No, I haven’t had a girlfriend in a while.”