“Ooh, it does. Maybe some black beans and jalapenos? Give them a little kick?”
With a nod, he got to work, pulling out Monterey Jack cheese and grabbing a couple of limes.
“Now I know why Cassian bought fresh mahi mahi for you guys.” She stirred the marinade. “One of you can cook.”
He shrugged. “We take turns cooking at camp every Friday night. So, I think a bunch do.”
“That sounds fun.” She thought about the snacks in the pantry. “Training camp’s not for a few months, right? I saw all those bags of chips and pretzels. I guess you don’t have to worry about your diet for a while.”
“It doesn’t really work like that. Everyone has cheat days, but it’s too hard to get back in shape.” He set the ingredients down on the counter and busied himself with finding a skillet and pulling the right knives out of the block.
As she breathed in the ocean smell of the fish and the earthy peppers, they worked in companionable silence, but she couldn’t help noticing the flex and pop of his biceps when he opened jars and pulled a cutting board down from a cabinet. All that smooth, tan skin, the round bubble butt…and his sexy lips. God, she’d never seen such a sensuous mouth.
Since Trace, she’d mostly dated people from the culinary world. Who else did she meet?
“I heard what happened this afternoon.”
Snapped out of her thoughts, she felt her stomach pitch. He couldn’t mean the conversation outside the taco truck?
“I just wanted to get that out there. We were all sitting at a picnic table eating tacos, so we heard your conversation.”
Perspiration popped out along her hairline, and she felt uncomfortably warm. She wanted to defend herself, explain. But she didn’t know what to say.
He cracked the eggs into a ceramic bowl. In a separate pan, bacon sizzled. “I thought you should know. Doesn’t seem right for you to be hanging out with us, not knowing what we overheard.”
She couldn’t think clearly enough to know if that was nice of him or totally unnecessary. “I appreciate that.” Maybe?
Actually, these guys would be in Calamity all summer for Cassian’s football camp. That’s why he’s telling me. Plus, she was their captain’s future sister-in-law. It was nice of him. Respectful.
And that loosened her tongue. “I feel like an idiot.” She swiped the dampness off her forehead with her forearm. “I’ve never lied to my family before.”
“Why did you?”
Okay, wow. She hadn’t expected him to ask such a direct question. Not exactly something I’m dying to talk about. She poured the marinade over the fish and rubbed it all over.
“You don’t have to answer. It’s none of my business.”
“No, I’m just thinking. I mean, the short answer is that I was embarrassed. I got the dream job—and lost it the first month. But there’s a lot of history behind that.”
“Your mom.”
He said it so matter-of-factly, it surprised her. “Yes, she thinks big.”
“It’s the expectations.”
It wasn’t so much that he was perceptive. It was more that he’d paid attention to her. I like that. “Not just hers, though. When you’re good at something, and you start getting feedback…well, it’s a long story, but I’m sure you get it.”
“I do. When did you start cooking?”
“Oh, really young.”
“Yeah?”
He seemed to want more, so… okay. “When we were kids, my parents used to take us to the farmers market every Saturday during the summer. Each of us got to buy one thing. My sisters always got a treat—like a muffin or a scone, a cupcake. But I was the weirdo that chose some kind of vegetable or fruit.”
“I probably would’ve done the same thing.”
“Really?” After rinsing her hands in the sink, she looked around for a dish towel.
He pulled one out of a drawer and handed it to her.
“Thank you.” She shouldn’t be touched by such a simple gesture…and yet she was. “I mean, I could have a muffin any old time, but a jicama? I used to drive the vendors crazy with my questions—what’s it taste like? How do you use it? They’d humor me or laugh it off, but this one guy—Sam—he’d give me challenges. He’d hand me the jicama or dragon fruit—whatever—and tell me to take it home and figure out how to eat it. He’d go, ‘Come back next week and tell me what you did with it.’”
“That’s cool.”
“I loved it. Eventually, he gave me the idea to start my own garden.” Ugh, she’d better get to the point. This story’s going on too long. “In any event, I lied because—”
“So, you did it? Started a garden?”
She thought about the question his friend had asked him, if he wanted the woman in the red bikini or the blonde…or both.
Wouldn’t he rather be with them than talking about jicama?
If he did, he’d be out on the patio with them. Trust a man’s actions. That’s the advice her dad had given her after Trace. “Oh, yeah. I got really into it, growing all kinds of things and figuring out how to cook them. And, of course, I made my family taste everything, and that’s where it really all starts, you know? That positive feedback. It made me want more of it. When I was thirteen, I opened a pop-up restaurant in town, and people raved about my food so much I was featured in local magazine and newspaper articles. One day, the chef of a fancy restaurant came in and told me I’d be a star one day. So, the feedback kept getting better and bigger, and it just fueled me, you know?”
“Yes. I do.”
She wondered what that meant, but with his attention so focused on adding cheese to the scrambled eggs, she knew he didn’t want to explain. “I wound up working in his kitchen for years, every holiday, vacation, all summer long…and he’d parade me around the restaurant, telling people to remember my name…” She loved Chef Jonny. Loved the way he’d taken in a girl who didn’t fit in anywhere and gave her the space to be creative in his kitchen. “All that to say…I lied because I’ve always excelled, always surpassed everyone’s expectations…” She hated saying it out loud. “Until I got fired from the dream job, the one it takes most chefs twenty years of experience to get.”
“I got the impression you didn’t lie to them so much as not tell them about it.”
He was intimidatingly handsome—thick lashes that framed cognac-colored eyes, surfer-blonde hair, and those defined muscles…gah. He was so hot.
And he’s real, too.
“Technically, that’s true. I never pretended I was still working at The Orchid, but it doesn’t matter. The bottom line is that I lied to the people I love most in the world. And now, instead of just being embarrassed about it, I’ve got the double whammy of being fired plus being ashamed of myself.”
He cocked his head. “Ashamed? You’re pretty hard on yourself.”
“Well, it’s easy to be a good person when things are going well. The true test of your character is how you behave in the tough times. And I bombed that one.” It’s a party, there’s music, food, drinks…let the man have fun. “But lesson learned, right? Anyhow, I’m just going to grill the fish, whip up a quick sauce, and then I’ll leave it all out for you guys. A do-it-yourself taco bar. Sound good?”