The Ides of Matt 2015

by M. L. Buchman

  “Well? Why haven’t you flirted with me?” She did her best to sound offended, but she was also too busy looking pleased with their sudden change of circumstances to really pull it off.

  And he was just tired enough to actually answer her question.

  “I don’t because I can remember every single thing about you since you walked in through that door.”

  “You what?”

  “I was coming out of the cooler with a salmon almost as big around as you are. You breezed in looking like you already knew more about the restaurant than the guys running it. Turned out you did. Gorgeous, opinionated, and feisty as hell. Want me to tell you what you were wearing that day?”

  She was looking at him with as much surprise as she’d shown at Angelo’s announcement that the two of them were taking over the restaurant’s operations.

  “Forget it. Never mind. Let’s talk about the restaurant,” he took a large swallow of the wine. Should have kept his dumb mouth shut.

  Luisa was continuing to eye him carefully. “No,” she said it slowly, “let’s talk about this.”

  Sam refreshed his glass, then set it aside because after everything else tonight, the alcohol was only going to make him even stupider.

  “Talk to me, Sam.” Luisa’s voice sounded soft, uncertain—something he didn’t even know she was capable of feeling until Angelo had blind-sided her with the offer.

  Sam would rather—nothing came to mind. Climb the highest alligator? Wrestle the fiercest mountain? He was really exhausted.

  “Sam,” a flat, insistent tone.

  “There’s that tone,” he acknowledged. “The utter surety of it. Woman who knows what she wants. Never thought you’d notice some lame prep cook.”

  “Of course I noticed you.”

  “Not really. I was just a lowly minion; not a chance that you’d actually see me. This was only supposed to be a damned temp job anyway.”

  “I—Wait!—What?”

  “I was just back in Seattle for a few months. Spent a couple years in San Francisco at Acquerello. Then a year cooking for Batali in New York. Graziella got me the prep spot here while I figured out what I wanted to do next.” Sam tried to think of some way to derail the story, but couldn’t come up with a way now that it was rolling. In the shitter now, boy! was all he could think.

  “But if you could do that, why did you stay here as a prep cook?”

  “Yeah, good question. I eventually learned just how damn good Angelo was and realized this is where I was supposed to be. Watching that man build a sauce is a serious education; way beyond even my coursework at ICI in Calabria.”

  “You graduated from ICI?”

  “Top of class,” why was he bragging to her? Impressing Luisa wasn’t something a guy was dumb enough to even try; she always knew what she wanted and just went for it.

  “Eventually,” she drew the word out, “you were impressed with Angelo. But not at first?”

  He shouldn’t have said that either. He just shook his head and decided that the glass of wine would do more good inside him that it would sitting on the table.

  “Because at first…” she was working it out.

  Even shutting up wasn’t going to do him any good. Luisa was too smart. He’d said too much. The moment he’d opened his mouth, he’d said too much.

  “At first…” tasting it like a fine wine, half-lidded eyes, pursed lips. The way he’d always imagined she’d look in that half breath before a kiss.

  “You sure it’s not too late to talk about the restaurant instead?” But he knew it was.

  Then he saw it click. Those stunning dark eyes zeroed in on him.

  He shrugged, “Got me.”

  “You stayed because of me.”

  He nodded.

  “Oh god. I really need a glass of wine.”

  “In your hand, Luisa.”

  She looked down at it in surprise, then knocked back a large swallow before returning her attention to him.

  “It’s not helping,” she said as if it was his fault; which was probably true.

  “Noticed that myself.”

  “Why didn’t you say anything?”

  6

  Luisa was trying desperately to make head or tails of what Sam was saying. But it wasn’t working.

  “I saw the kind of men who waited for you after work. Slick, urban,” Sam waved a hand at himself. He wore jeans, leather shoes battered and stained with too many hours in the kitchen, and a casual flannel shirt rolled up at the sleeves that had replaced his chef’s jacket.

  He was right; he didn’t fit with what she’d always reached for. Looking the way she did, it was always easy to take almost any man she wanted off the shelf. She came from desperate poverty and kept picking some Mr. Rich-and-Successful. But they never seemed to fit when she tried them on.

  “Did what I could to get over it. Then Angelo hooked me with his food,” and again one of those easy shrugs of his powerful shoulders.

  “And you told me tonight because you’re—”

  “Too exhausted to think before I speak.” Then he glared at his half-empty wine glass. “I thought I was ready. Could handle whatever you…”

  He cut himself off and looked up at her. She could see that the wine had nothing to do with what Sam was telling her.

  “I wasn’t ready for one thing,” he continued.

  “What was that?” She tried to guess. The hug had been nice, even promising. But if he was one of those guys who’d built a whole fantasy on such a brief contact, then he was in for a rude awakening. Life wasn’t that easy.

  “I’ve been cooking since I was six. Never wanted to do anything else. But I wasn’t ready to find out that you believed in me. I still amazed that you’re the one who saw…” he waved helplessly toward the kitchen.

  Luisa knew she was in so much trouble. It wasn’t the easy answer at all. Of course with Sam Walsh it couldn’t be, could it? And once she’d seen him, and began tasting his food regularly…

  “So I have a question,” his voice was little more than a low rumble.

  Was she ready for this? She wasn’t going to just jump into bed with him because he’d…touched her with his answer. Of course, it hurt that he was right, she’d have brushed off a mere prep cook. But the way he’d cooked tonight? That man, she couldn’t help but notice.

  For once not trusting her voice, she nodded for him to continue.

  “Now that I’ve been dumb enough to drop that fat in the fryer, are you still okay running this restaurant with me, executive chef and aboyeur?”

  At her nod of assent—how could she not find a way to make such an opportunity work—he sighed with relief.

  “Well that’s something, anyway,” he mumbled softly into his glass.

  It was clear that he was speaking to himself, so she did her best to pretend she couldn’t guess what else he was thinking.

  7

  For two months it was enough. A cool September turned into a cold November and they worked their asses off.

  Their every waking thought was consumed by the restaurant. At first, Manuel or Angelo had joined Sam on the daily shopping expeditions in the middle of his night. The restaurant closed at ten, they were cleaned up and out the door by eleven, and except for a few fantasies about Luisa, he’d be asleep by one. Up at six in the chill, predawn darkness to get the pick of the market at Pike Place. Asleep from seven to ten, if he got back to sleep, and then into the restaurant.

  Soon, he and Manuel had agreed to alternate mornings and do the shopping for both restaurants. But even on their off days, they were likely to bump into one another at the market, just seeing if there was anything particularly special that day.

  Luisa showed up one morning, looking gloriously rumpled in sweatpants, a heavy sweater, and desperately clutching a large thermal mug of coffee. She was good, spo
tting some possibilities for the Daily Fresh menu that he’d missed. It was soon a routine to shop together and go out for breakfast afterward; watch the late sunrise and the early tourists while someone else cooked them breakfast. He slept less, but in those quiet mornings is when he grew to know his aboyeur.

  At first they discussed Angelo’s. But soon they were discussing travels, different chefs and their restaurants, eventually they even wandered into past lovers. At the restaurant it was all business, but for the few hours between the shopping and the start of lunch service, that was theirs alone.

  Luisa worked with Graziella on the restaurant operations. He worked with the other chefs and his prep chef replacement. In the second month he started running dish variations by Angelo, who was often found experimenting with a new dish on a small side stove. The new restaurant was going to be Southern Italian, a broad departure from the Tuscan and Piedmont themes of the first two, and that needed a lot of prep. Soon they were collaborating and testing dishes together; Graziella and Luisa offering their own insightful palates to the process of turning dishes into a menu. Sam had never so enjoyed the simple craft of cooking as those moments with Angelo.

  At the end of the second month, Angelo sat the two of them down and laid out a chart. He didn’t need to say a thing. Rather than any dip in sales, there’d been a slow and steady increase. Angelo then laid down four new reviews that left no question he and Luisa were doing well as a team.

  Angelo had shaken Sam’s hand and kissed Luisa on top of the head before leaving them once again alone at the small table deep in the shadows of the closed restaurant. The silence stretched long after Angelo shut off the kitchen lights and left.

  “I like that you still keep me on my toes on the cook line,” Sam finally said to break the stillness. “Don’t stop doing that.”

  “Deal,” Luisa grinned at him. “Just don’t stop blowing my mind with your new dishes.” It was practically a caress that he felt right down to his heart. He loved that she loved his cooking.

  After another overlong pause, it was Luisa who broke the silence.

  “Do you think…” she trailed off.

  “I don’t know,” he answered, fairly sure they were discussing the same topic. It had become like a live wire, or perhaps a tug of war across the cook line. The tension had built between them until he wasn’t sleeping that much before the shopping trips either. They’d worked out such a deep cook line communication that it was, well, almost sexual. He couldn’t think of any other way to describe it. It was sexual in every way…except the complete lack of sex.

  But would that blow apart their working relationship? Since that one brief hug, they hadn’t touched so much as a fingertip: not in the restaurant, not while shopping, and not over breakfast.

  “All I can think…” All he could think was how she’d look at the moment of perfect ecstasy and just how much he’d like to be the one to help her find it.

  “Yes?” her voice was practically pleading with him.

  “We have to try. Because if we don’t…”

  “…we’ll both go stark, raving mad,” she finished for him.

  Sam could only nod.

  Again the long silence. His turn to break it.

  “Not to sound crass, but…Your place or mine?”

  Her smile quirked at that, “Mine is closer by about a block.”

  “All the difference in the world,” he rose to his feet, and held out a hand to help her to her feet.

  She looked at his hand, and then up into his eyes, studying him before she took it.

  The shock was visceral, though not electric. Neither was it cooking fire hot. It was simply such a powerful feeling of rightness that he didn’t stop there. With the slightest tug, he kept pulling her in until she lay against his chest, her head on his shoulder. He bent down to bury his face in her hair. Her slender form felt so perfect in his hands that he wrapped her tightly against him and simply held on.

  “This had better be worth it, Sam Walsh.”

  “No guts, no glory, Luisa Valenti.”

  “I’m thinking…”

  “…that your apartment is too far away.”

  A restaurant floor was no place to bed a woman for the first time. Then he remembered a luxurious sofa in the entryway for waiting patrons.

  He swept her up in his arms and carried her there. The soft light of the fire reached just well enough that he was able to see that she looked as incredible under her clothes as even his wildest fantasies had thought.

  Sam made love to her while the rain storm rattled the front doors.

  8

  Luisa felt thoroughly ravaged and pleasantly trashy. They’d made it back to her studio apartment around three a.m. and passed out. The shopping alarm had gone off at five-thirty. They’d been half dressed by the time they remembered it was Monday and the restaurant was closed for the next two days. They hadn’t gone back to sleep for a long while. The chill November rains gave them every reason to stay inside. So they did.

  Now it was Tuesday mid-afternoon. Delivery pizza and Chinese cartons were scattered in among their discarded clothes. Damp towels from the most erotic shower of her life had been tossed on the floor as well. A shocking amount of protection was now in her garbage can hidden by a discrete Kleenex. And the most amazing chef and lover of her life lay draped across her like a man dead. They hadn’t even gotten dressed—other than a quick robe for the food deliveries—in the last thirty-six hours.

  Sam mumbled something unintelligible in her ear, rolled onto his side, then scooped her back against his chest and buried his face in her hair. He couldn’t seem to get enough of that. He’d charmed her in so many ways that she could easily get lost in it.

  She rubbed a hand along the back of his arm where it curled around her waist and held her tight. Her studio apartment had little going for it, other than a bed, a chair, and a dresser. It hadn’t mattered to Sam. She idly wondered what his place was like. Did he have a masterful kitchen or did he care just as little for what lay beyond the restaurant as she did? No, Sam Walsh would have a one bedroom, maybe even a two. It would be messy around the edges, but the kitchen would be immaculate. He’d cook for her there.

  Luisa didn’t want to be charmed, not really. She wanted amazing sex and a challenging career. She had dreams, restaurant dreams. She knew how a restaurant should run—had learned an immense amount running Angelo’s—and could easily imagine being aboyeur to a whole chain of them. But she couldn’t imagine a chef-lover in that picture. Or at least she never had, which didn’t make it any easier now.

  Perhaps it didn’t matter, her lovers never lasted long. They’d cross some line and she’d throw them out. Or they couldn’t handle one of her caustic quips and they’d be gone.

  Maybe that had already been dealt with. The blinders were definitely gone after what she and Sam had done to each other in the last day and a half.

  “It’s morning,” she said even though the afternoon light—the first break from rain in days—was streaming in her west-facing window and warming the bed deliciously.

  “Uh-huh,” he grunted in her hair.

  “So?”

  “Wha?”

  “So, do you still respect me?”

  “I,” he nuzzled the back of her neck. She could feel against her backside that other parts of him were impossibly waking up as well. “I respect your sexual prowess no end. If I live through the afternoon, I’ll upgrade that from respect to worship.”

  It was hard to argue with that. Sam was a perfect blend of gentle, creative, and sheer stamina. His body was built to order by any woman, but what he could do with those strong chef’s hands of his had to be classified as pure glory.

  Even as she gave herself to his roving hands and carnal intentions, she couldn’t help wondering how she’d be screwing this up.

  She knew it would be her.

 
Sam was far too nice a guy to take care of that for her.

  9

  “You what?” Sam strangled painfully on the last word and grabbed his throat to stop himself from grabbing Luisa’s right across the cook line.

  “I got a job offer,” she repeated more calmly than she ever called out an order.

  Sam looked up and down the line. Marlys was staring at Luisa while searing a piece of mahi-mahi for table fourteen. He pointed to get her attention back on the fish before it burned.

  Valerie, Tony, Vic, even Marko the dishwasher had all ground to a halt.

  He looked down at the empty plate in front of him and for the life of him couldn’t remember what went on it. He looked back up at Luisa.

  “And you tell me now?”

  She shrugged as if his world wasn’t falling apart. They were practically living together. For three months they had been together every night, usually at his place because he had a kitchen and a decent sofa.

  “Where?”

  “L.A. at first; maybe Vegas and overseas after that. Wolfgang Puck wants an experienced aboyeur to vet and enhance the operation of two of his high-end restaurants at the Bel-Air and the Ritz-Carlton. If that works out well, I’d expand into Spago and Cut.”

  It was the entire fine dining line with one of the leading restaurateurs in the country.

  “It’s just talk at this point,” she finished prepping a plate and turned to hand it off.

  But her timing was off; neither Graziella nor the other waiters were anywhere to be seen. It was his only clue that she was not nearly as calm or cool about this as she was pretending. Luisa never missed her cues, not once in the last three months since they’d become lovers had she eased up on pushing him for perfection in the kitchen. She’d also trained someone for Manuel and was helping Angelo do interviews for his Southern Italian Hearth over in Bellevue at the top of one of the towers.

  “Just talk? You said you had an offer.”