Love Is Overdue (13 page)

I smiled, taking another
drag of my cigarette. “You guys known each other a while,
huh?”

She nodded. “Yeah, like ten
years or something. I used to date his cousin and we all used to
hang out back in the day...”

“
Ben told me
you’re the one responsible for the whole youtube sensation he’s
become,” I joked.

“
I know,” she
said dryly. “Ben owes me fifty percent of all his success. Half
this shit you see should rightfully be mine.”

I laughed at that. I was
starting to enjoy her wacky personality and dry humour. She was my
kinda chick...

“
So you two have
gotten kinda tight,” she said, putting me on the spot. “What’s up
with that?”

My eyes popped open.
“Uhhh...not sure yet,” I said quickly, playing it safe.

She smiled. “It’s all
good... All his faults aside, Ben’s a good guy. But am sure you
know that.”

I raised my eyebrows.
“Faults, huh?”

She shook her head. “No, am
just messin’ wit you. I’m actually kind of surprised he allowed me
to be alone with you. It’s a good sign, though. It means he trusts
you.”

I laughed again. “That’s
good to know...”

Ω

A few minutes
later I excused myself and headed back through the kitchen and up
the stairs, in search of the toilet. I resisted the urge to peek
inside the two closed bedroom doors but I was impressed enough with
his pimped out bathroom. His tub/shower had a jet spa. This really
was fucking unbelievable. I was starting to second Lena’s
sentiment. He really was a lucky bastard...

I peeked inside the medicine
cabinet, needing to satisfy my urge to snoop just a little. I
smiled to myself when I noticed only the one toothbrush, if you
didn’t count the child-sized brush alongside the
bubblegum-flavoured toothpaste. And of course...he hadn’t lied
about the Armani cologne.

I heard the front door open
as I was washing my hands and reapplying my lipstick, so I composed
myself quickly and set back out to find Lena.

As I stepped back out into
the foyer I glanced over the railing and saw Ben in the kitchen,
looking as gorgeous as ever, wearing a pair of distressed blue
jeans that hung so irresistibly low on his hips and a yellow
t-shirt half-tucked into his waist, which sported a silver
ganja-leafed belt-buckle. He looked good enough to eat, his dreads
tied back in that sexy way of his.

I took one glance back at
the mirror, embarrassingly noting that I had taken a cue from his
ex, Angela, and was wearing some tight-fitting skinny jeans and a
purple low-cut top that showed off that cleavage that Ben seemed to
love so much.

I saw Ben glance up the
stairs as I made my way down to meet him.

“
Hey.” I smiled
sweetly as I watched his eyes molest me from head to
toe.

“
Hey,” he said
simply, not taking his eyes off me. “How you doing?”

I sighed as I stopped in
front of him, leaning up over the kitchen island. “Good...nice
place, Ben.” Understatement, of course.

He smiled. “Glad you like
it.”

I noticed Lena still out on
the balcony, talking away on her cell phone.

“
Yup. This is my
dream kitchen actually. This and that view.” I gave him a little
teasing look. “You a lucky boy.”

“
Yes I am,” he
agreed with me easily, as he started unpacking a bag of fresh
vegetables and arranging them in a large fruit bowl. “Lena get you
a drink yet?”

“
No. Just got
here though,” I admitted, as I saw Ben glance over at Lena on the
balcony and then watched her mouth the words “on the phone” as if
it wasn’t obvious.

Ben kind of laughed. “You
want a glass of wine?” He nodded toward the three bottles of red on
the counter behind him next to the refrigerator. “Take ya pick...”
He pulled out a glass from the cupboard and a corkscrew from the
drawer and set it down next to me as he leaned over and gave me a
quick little kiss on my forehead. It gave me goosebumps. “Make
yourself at home...am just gonna go change...”

And so before I turned to
make my selection I decided to watch his delicious-looking body
head up the stairs and through one of those closed
doors.

Before Ben made it back
downstairs, Adam and Patrick showed up with two six-packs of
Heineken and introduced themselves to me briefly before busying
themselves with the camera equipment and a sleek Mac Book Pro. They
were both white boys, which surprised me a little, both around the
same age as Ben. Patrick was covered in tattoos, which looked good
on his muscular body, and Adam was smaller, skinnier, and looked
like a metal-head with his long blond hair and scruffy
beard.

“
Damn...” Lena
stepped back in through the sliding doors, clicking off her
phone.

Patrick looked up. “What’s
wrong, baby?”

“
Oh nothing –
just drama with Lisa,” she said then, making herself comfortable on
one of the bar stools. “My sister,” she said then, turning to me.
“She left for Barbados with one of her girls last night and they
lost her luggage at the airport and she’s trippin’...”

She turned to grab the
bottle of Shiraz I had opened and poured herself a glass, just as
Ben started making his way back down the stairs, looking fine as
hell in a light-grey button down shirt and those same sexy jeans.
He had tied his dreads back neatly with a thick black
band.

He grabbed an apron from a
drawer in the kitchen island. “So we ready to roll or
what?”

Adam was sitting browsing
something on the lap top. “I got a rough cut of the new promo video
– wanna check it out?”

“
Yeah, man...hook
it up in there,” Ben said nodding toward the living
room.

And so instead we all headed
over onto the massive leather sectional in the living room. Adam
set about hooking up the lap top to Ben’s giant 52 inch plasma
television mounted on the wall, while Patrick began rolling up a
massive communal blunt for us, some Tupac pumping from the
surround-sound.

I smiled, settling back to
watch Ben in his element, all the back and forth banter between him
and his boys making it obvious they were tight. I knew he’d met
Patrick through Lena but it turned out him and Adam had been
friends since high school – an odd pair physically, but looks could
definitely be deceiving, I realized, as I witnessed most of the
conversation – along with all the typical male-ego-driven jibes and
ribbing – went on between the two of them.

“
Do you get high,
Gabby?” Lena knocked me out of my daydreaming, as I silently lusted
over Ben and his gorgeous body which was resting an achingly twelve
or so inches away from me on the sofa.

I smiled and turned to Lena,
who was sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of the coffee
table, holding out Patrick’s blunt for me to take a turn
on.

“
Thanks,” I
answered simply and took a long pull on the joint. Too long, I
quickly realized, as I suddenly found myself assaulted by a minor
coughing fit.

Ben glanced over at me and
took the joint away quickly. “Easy, girl...you almost as bad as
Lena over there,” he teased me, and then turned back to his
boys.

“
All right, here
we go,” Adam announced suddenly, taking the blunt from Ben and
settling in with the lap top, which was suddenly in sync with the
TV on the wall.

He cut the music and we all
turned to focus on the footage that began playing across the
screen. I realized it was some kind promotional video for the
restaurant, scenes of Ben and his crew in the kitchen, customers
dining at the tables, Ben at work plating his creations, scenic
shots of the restaurant from the street, and interviews with some
of the diners themselves – which was the best part – as Ben and
Lena started putting in their two cents on which customers to scrap
from the video.

Then, suddenly, the screen
focused in on Ben, a shot of him in his chef coat, leaning up
against the counter in the restaurant kitchen, speaking to someone
just out of camera-shot, who had obviously just posed a question to
him. Then his voice. “Well, end of the day, to me, you come hungry,
you leave happy. Pretension never filled anyone’s belly where I
come from so the way I see it – art belongs on ya walls and food on
ya plate.” His eyes turned to the camera. “Plain and simple. One
love.” And the screen cut to black.

There were a few moments of
silence and and then Lena was the first to pipe up. “It should be
our new motto. ‘No pretences – Just damn good food!’”

Ben sucked his teeth at
that, but then let out a little laugh. “That’s so fuckin’
corny…”

“
Well, you said
it,” Lena shot back.

Ben
was still chuckling to himself. “You know what that was, right?
Footage from the interview I did with dude from
the Georgia Straight
– that article they did on the restaurant.”

My
eyes went wide. “You were featured in
the Georgia Straight
?”

Ben
glanced at me. “Yeah, last month. He asked me somethin’ about what
my take is on the whole
avant
garde
dining trend poppin’ up all
over the city...”

“
Oh, shit, that’s
right,” Lena said, remembering. “They ran that quote in the
article.”

“
I guess we can
use it and piss off some more food writers from Yaletown,” Adam
suggested.

Ben sucked his teeth again.
“Fuckin’ ask me where I store my liquid nitrogen…”

They all laughed.

I was confused. “Liquid
nitrogen?”

Ben
glanced at me. “It’s just a joke. When I used to work at the Four
Seasons they liked to pick on me ‘cause I was in charge of all the
science projects…the traditionalists over here won’t ever let me
live it own…and I mean, I don’t know, there is something to be said
for mixing food and art, I get it and everything, but if you’d
rather sit and stare at your plate of food for half an hour and
discuss the
symbolism
behind it – I mean if you put the
fucking space-needle on a plate down in front of me and told me it
was a hamburger, that would impress the shit out of me but I’m not
sure I’d want to eat it…” He gestured back at the TV screen. “See,
I guess that was my point there but am not sure it come across that
way…”

Lena’s eyes popped open. “No
way! I totally disagree...”

Ben sighed and then leaned
back on the couch. “It don’t work in this context, Lena – I should
have just said, ‘Don’t worry if ya food looks like shit, it’ll
still taste good.’”

“
Nah...” Adam
piped up then. “I wouldn’t run that either…”

Ben turned to me again.
“What you think?”

I smiled, flattered that he
wanted my opinion. “I like it. Unpretentious has nothing to do with
unappetizing. That’s like calling someone easy just because they’re
approachable.”

Ben kind of laughed. “Yeah,
maybe...”

“
Well, we gotta
get this shit up on the website soon, the festival’s less than a
month away,” Patrick pointed out.

The back and forth critique
of the video footage continued for another ten minutes or so, but
eventually it was time for business and the set-up for the shoot in
the kitchen was underway. Adam controlled the images from the lap
top while Patrick got behind the camera, setting up a few tripods
at two different angles and fidgeting with his hand-held, for what
I guessed were all the close-up shots.

I settled back with my glass
of wine, still feeling some of the effect of the weed we’d smoked,
as Ben got a big pot on one of the burners filled with water to
boil, set a large skillet on another burner and then assembled his
ingredients out on the kitchen island, next to the bowl of
vegetables.

“
Lena, can you
shut off my phone?” He looked over then, and nodded toward his
blackberry, which was lying next to her glass of wine.

That reminded me as well and
I set mine to silent.

“
This gonna be a
one-shot wonder again, man – or we in for multiple takes?” Adam
asked from behind the screen, popping open a bottle of
Heineken.

“
Nah, I think I
got this one,” Ben said, setting up a mahogany cutting board and a
scary-looking chef’s knife, along with a few other cooking utensils
and setting them up strategically in different
locations.

When
Adam called “
Action
”, Ben didn’t skip a
beat, his voice coming out as smooth and sexy as always. “Hey,
whassup people – it’s the
Dreaded
Fuzion
comin’ back at ya again
for another mouth-watering fill of what y’all been missin’ for a
good month or so... and I’ll start out by expressing my sincerest
apologies for that – to alla you who been blowin’ up the website
and the youtube page, I wanna make sure y’all know it mean a lot,
and much love to each and every one of you... Anyway, today we
gonna keep it simple and go a little
‘Old World’
on alla you –
I’m gonna show you a simple, easy,
de-licious
Italian pasta
dish with a little Island twist...” He picked up a small pepper
from the vegetable bowl on the table. “The Scotch Bonnet pepper.
Brace yourselves ladies...” He gave a little wink at the camera,
and I narrowed my eyes. He was such a flirt...