On the Steamy Side (28 page)

“Sneaky,” he told Lilah. “I’m impressed.” He was—she’d managed to put together a great test with widely varied textures and flavor profiles. She hadn’t taken it easy on him. Devon loved that about her.

“I can’t believe you got that last one.” She sounded faintly grumpy. “I thought I’d stumped you for sure.”

“Mace is tough,” Devon agreed. “It’s actually the lacy shell covering the nutmeg seed, dried and finely ground. Extremely similar tastes, obviously—mace is a tiny bit more delicate.” Lilah made a “hmph” sound. “There’s not a thing wrong with your taste buds, Devon. What have you been playing at over in that Market kitchen?”

Devon shrugged, the growing sense of frustration and confusion a nearly physical weight on his shoulders. “Hell if I know. My menu should be working; obviously my palate isn’t dead.” It all boiled over in an instant, like scalded milk frothing out of a hot pan. The self-doubt, the humiliation, the knowledge he was letting his friend down—Devon banged his open hand down on the breakfast table, rattling the discarded tasting bowls.

“Damn it,” he snarled. “What the hell is wrong with me?”

For a long moment, the only sound in the kitchen was Devon’s harsh breathing. Lilah was so quiet, Devon wondered if he’d finally managed to scare her off, but then she said, “You’ve got about fifteen seconds left on the clock. You want another taste?”

Devon swallowed the bitter, acrid fear and cleared his throat. “Hit me.” The last item was warm; it must have been one of the things Lilah made a trip to the stove for. The smell tickled his brain, almost familiar, but he couldn’t quite place it.

“Need a fork for this one,” she said. “Open up.”

He opened his mouth and let her feed him. The taste burst over his tongue, smoky, salty, mysterious—

Devon chewed quickly and opened his mouth for seconds.

The second bite was even more delicious. It had a firm give when he bit into it, and there was enough liquid and enough of a leafy green texture to remind him of sautéed spinach, but it was nothing so simple as that.

He scowled; it was next to impossible to parse individual ingredients when they married together so well. But he thought he read bacon in the meatiness of the smoke flavor and he was almost sure he tasted the savory caramel of slow-cooked diced onion and the subtle heat of red pepper flakes. And then there was a bright tang of something acidic that brought the whole thing together.

“Oh, my God,” he finally said, the last piece of the puzzle jigsawing into place. “I know what this is.” The timer dinged and Devon tore off the blindfold to stare down at the bowl of braised collard greens on the table in front of him.

“You tricky little witch,” he said, admiration clear in his voice. “I didn’t even know you brought that stuff home.”

“When you go to the trouble of cooking up a mess of greens, you don’t leave them sitting around a kitchen full of hungry cooks overnight. I wanted to have some left for family meal tomorrow!”

“I can understand your concern,” Devon said, dipping the fork back into the dark green mound. “This stuff is addictive. Oh, my God.”

“All right,” Lilah laughed. “Enough with the commandment-breaking. You keep taking the Lord’s name in vain, I’m going to have to stand across the room in case He decides to smite you.”

“No,” Devon said, going back to the bowl for more of the warm, comforting, complex braise. Every bite filled him with a kind of cozy happiness he couldn’t recall ever experiencing before. Or at least, not in too many years to count. He felt dazed with contentment. Blinking down at the bowl, Devon was shocked to see how much of the greens he’d put away.

“I mean, it’s not a curse or anything—I’m really . . . this is unbelievable. What did you put in this stuff?” No doubt responding to the helpless bewilderment in his voice, Lilah raised both brows in indignant concern. “Nothing bad! It’s my Aunt Bertie’s recipe. Well, really, it’s my grandmother’s, or maybe her mother’s. It’s been passed down in my family for a long time. And I come from a very old Virginia family! Which might not be a big deal to you, but let me tell you, it’s a big deal back home.”

“Christ.” He started laughing, rusty and hoarse enough to be just around the corner from tears.

Snatching up his bowl, Lilah said, “Hush that laughing. You’re the most aggravating man, I swear. Why did you eat it all if you hated it so much?”

Devon sat back. He met her eyes, allowing all of the weird, vulnerable emotion to be visible on his face.

“No. Lilah Jane. I loved it. I think it might be the best thing I’ve ever put in my mouth.” She gazed at him, then down at the empty bowl in her hand, then back again, her, strawberry pink mouth curving in a slow smile. “When I first moved up here, I saw signs for restaurants that served something called ‘soul food.’ Grant explained that what y’all call ‘soul food’ is what I always thought of as regular home-cooking: fried chicken, cornbread, barbecued ribs, pecan pie.” She tilted the bowl a little. “Collard greens. I never heard it called ‘soul food’ down South; to me, it was just the way food always was. But up here, so far from where it originated, I think the name works pretty well.” Still feeling sleepy and dim from the aftereffects of a good food coma, Devon shook his head. “What do you mean?”

“Oh, sugar,” Lilah said, setting down the bowl and sliding the table back so she could crawl into Devon’s lap. She straddled his thighs and crossed her arms behind his neck, her pretty, round-cheeked face mere inches from his.

Devon moved by instinct to clasp her hips in his palms and hold her steady, a warm, exciting weight against him.

“Don’t you get it?” Her voice was soft but intense with joy. “Your food hasn’t been missing taste. It’s been missing that something extra, that indefinable oomph, the secret ingredient that makes those collards so yummy. We didn’t need to wake up your taste buds. We had to wake up your soul.” The truth of it resonated down to the marrow of Devon’s bones. And when Lilah leaned forward and gave him her mouth, he felt the kiss like the sun coming out from behind the clouds, chasing away all the shadows.

Devon Sparks—the tosser so egregious that the rest of the tossers wouldn’t have him at their New Year’s Eve party—had gone potty. Screwy. Off his trolley. ’Round the twist.

Abso-bloody-lutely mad.

An eight-course meal for more than a hundred guests. In less than a week now.

Not nearly enough time to plan, and when it bombed, which it certainly would, Market’s reputation would go down the drain along with Devon’s. It was a disaster in the making, but Frankie couldn’t get anyone else to see it.

He felt like that bird who was cursed to know the future but unable to get a single bloody person to listen to her. Cassandra something. Whatever became of her? Probably she was killed in some gruesome manner. Those ancients always seemed to be killing each other off in the most creatively nasty ways.

No use musing on Greek women who came to a sticky end, he told himself. Things are going to be sticky around here, soon enough.

Worse than the Tosser’s mental breakdown was the fact that it seemed to be catching. When Devon first sprang the news on the crew two days ago, after Friday night’s service, Frankie felt himself blanch in horror—but the rest of the crew nodded like it was the best idea since lace-up leather pants.

Even Grant, who could usually be counted on to inject a dollop of gloom and doom into the proceedings, just shrugged his shoulders and gave a fatalistic “At least it’s for a good cause.” Frankie snorted. “Right. Your Lolly got sacked by her school when they ran out of money for her drama program—you see no connection between that and Devon’s choice of charities? He’s only trying to get into her knickers!”

Grant shrugged. Infuriating.

“Come on, mate,” Frankie complained. “Used to be you were always first in line to slag off the Tosser.

Fuck me, you practically arm-wrestled Adam and me into leaving Appetite.”

“I’m trying to give Devon the benefit of the doubt,” Grant said, but he couldn’t look Frankie in the eye.

Something off, there.

Frankie didn’t have time to puzzle out Grant’s drama, though. Not when he was consumed by the need to suss out exactly what form of insanity Devon Sparks exhibited.

And speaking of exhibitionism, that kiss! In front of everyone, the kidlet included. Full-on, sweep-her-off-her-feet movie kiss, it was. No one could accuse the Tosser of subtlety.

Jess said Frankie was overreacting. Actually, Jess called him a paranoid, grudge-tastic cynic. Frankie grinned, thinking of it.

The grin faded, though, as his wayward thoughts moved on to the rest of that conversation, which consisted mainly of yet another attempt by Jess to bring up the subject of how things were going to change when he started NYU in a few weeks, followed by yet another artful dodge by Frankie.

He didn’t want to think about the future he could feel breathing down the back of his neck like a bouncer at a posh club, just waiting for one false move to throw Frankie out on his arse.

Glowering down at his beloved grill, Frankie rubbed a thumb over the blackened edge of the seasoned cast-iron slats.

The future was coming, whether he liked it or not, he brooded. Did they have to talk it to death before it ever happened? Like living through it twice, that was.

He expected it would be bad enough just the once.

Loud footsteps banged up the back staircase. “No, the menu’s not ready yet! Tell them it’s a surprise.

Spin it! That’s your damned job!”

Frankie jerked around to see Devon stab viciously at the “off ” button on his cell.

“I miss the good old days when you could crash the receiver into the cradle when you wanted to hang up on someone obnoxious,” Frankie said.

It surprised a sharp bark of laughter out of Devon. Frankie didn’t want to share a sense of humor with the prick, but the hell of it was, they weren’t that different, Devon Sparks and Frankie Boyd.

Which, come to think of it, was probably exactly why Frankie couldn’t stand him.

Determined to shore up the animosity that might’ve been damaged by the shared joke, Frankie leaned against the counter and said, “Menu trouble? Be glad to give you a hand if you’re stuck.” There, that ought to brass him off.

Instead of getting irate, however, Devon rubbed his hands through his carefully tousled, artfully gelled hair and blew out a big sigh. “I might take you up on that. Christ, what have I gotten myself into? Fuck, fuck, fuckity fuck.”

Frankie had to grin. “Taking advantage of Miss Lolly’s absence, are we?”

“She and Tucker are on their way,” Devon said absently, still engrossed in his menu. “We spent the afternoon at the Central Park Zoo and the kid managed to spill grape snow cone all down his front.” He looked up, frowning. “Wait. What?”

Blimey, this was the longest Frankie and Devon had ever gone without insulting each other. Morbidly curious to see how long it would last, Frankie said, “The swearing, mate. Noticed she’s pretty well trained you out of it when she’s about.”

Devon laughed. Frankie refused to soften, even if the man was showing some startling signs of being human. “I guess she has. God, how embarrassing. You never think it’ll happen to you.”

“What’s that?”

“That you’ll meet someone who changes you. Or makes you want to change. Be better, maybe. Come on, you know what I mean.”

Frankie had to fight not to shuffle his feet like an errant schoolboy. How did this conversation get so out of hand?

“No, I don’t,” he said, not caring that he sounded sullen and childish.

Devon arched a brow, some of that old, familiar arrogance coming over his face and making Frankie feel more at home. “Bullshit. I’ve heard the stories. You took a bullet for that server kid you’re seeing.

Miranda’s brother.”

“Jess,” Frankie muttered. “All right, so you may have a point there. The Bit can make me act like a prat.

Oi!”

Frankie blinked, sifting through the natural defensiveness incurred by Devon’s reference to Jess and finally putting together what Devon was actually saying.

Devon and Lilah were involved; after that kiss in the middle of the kitchen Friday night, the whole crew knew that much. But from the sounds of what Devon was saying now, there was more going on than just a bit of quick slap and tickle.

It sounded suspiciously like . . . well. Love.

“You jammy bastard,” Frankie said admiringly. “Of all the buggers to get lucky with Lilah.”

“I know,” Devon said, looking justifiably surprised. “Sometimes I can’t really believe it myself. She’s gorgeous, makes me laugh, is better with my kid than I am, and as if that weren’t enough, she’s helping me with the menu for Saturday night.”

Frankie’s ears perked up. Maybe they’d manage to steer this steamship clear of the icebergs after all.

“You don’t say! Good on you, mate.” Fucking hel , the Pied Piper had nothing on Lilah if she could get a man as stubborn as Devon Sparks to dance to her tune.

Other cooks began to trickle in, the line filling up with the familiar sounds of Milo and Violet’s bickering, Wes’s quick, steady knife chopping shallots, Billy’s quiet laugh.

Devon gave Frankie a genuine smile and moved off to confer with Quentin, something about braising techniques. Frankie tried not to let the smile make his head implode, but really, the entire conversation was a little much to take in all at once.

Love was a tricky bitch, in Frankie’s experience. She could make a man over into a better version of himself, like as seemed to have happened to Devon, the poor sod, but the opposite was true, as well.

Love could turn you mean, selfish, blind . . . self-destructive.

Frankie put it out of his mind and determinedly went about setting up his station, but he was aware of it always in the back of his head, like an itch he couldn’t quite scratch, waiting for him to take it out and look at it again.

Waiting for him to do something about it.

“I declare, I don’t know when I’ve been so run off my feet,” Lilah said, wiping the back of her hand across her damp brow. Aunt Bertie’s voice floated through her head: Ladies don’t sweat, Lolly. Horses sweat. Men perspire. Ladies glow.