Page 84 of Baking and Angels

Eleanor grinned as she noted it. “Scarlet Kovacs. You were there, weren’t you? You were the chef who worked the Winter Rose Ball? That’s why she’s doing this whole… sponsoring-you-thing. To get you to keep quiet.”

Rafferty didn’t answer that; he knew a loaded question when he heard one. He just wanted to enjoy the peace and ease that came with preparing a decadent, multistep dessert that took his mind and focus away from his… life.

“Hey, Rafferty!” Eleanor called.

He blinked and jerked. “Sorry, what?”he asked.

“Your syrup, man!”

He jumped as he realized that the coffee espresso in the pan had been boilingtoo long.

“Dammit, dammit, dammit,” he repeated as he set aside the brandy so as not to waste it, too. He grabbed up the pan and went to the sink to dump the ruined liquid. It hissed and smoked in burnt-coffee anger as it drained away.

He could feel Eleanor staring at him as he rinsed the pan, then set it on the back burner to cool down. Before he could go get a different, clean pan, the other chef set one down on the stove top for him.

“You don’t have to talk about it because it’s none of my business, and, frankly, I don’t really care, but…” She paused and leaned, seeking out his eyes. He found he couldn’t deny her gaze. “Are youalright?”

It was too hard. It was too hard to lie. Maybe it was this newly fragile human nature he had been saddled with, but his eyes filled up to blurry against his will. Even as he tried too late to look away, the words came tumbling out anyway.

“I saw a man bitten in half and eaten by a monster. And I just stood there. I couldn’t do anything about it. I spent my whole existence trying to never be powerless again… and I couldn’t do anything… I couldn’t even protecther. She saved me.”Dammit, I’m weeping like a child!he thought.

Rafferty sniffed hard, trying to clear his throat and bottle the feelings back down, but they didn’t seem to care about whathe wanted.

Eleanor stayed beside him, a horrible look of… pity! Her eyes were full of pity for him. “That’s not your fault—”

“If it hadn’t been for Helena, we would both be dead. I wasn’t able to save her or Scarlet, or the idiot who summoned the damn creature in the first place!” He grabbed the cup of brandy he meant to cook with and downed it. The burn sliced through him, hot as a knife and fortifying as it pinned his feet to the ground to keep from running away. He gripped the opposite sides of the stove, just to have something to hold onto; his altar to the only higher power he had truly worshiped inhis heart.

“So… she didn’t do it,” Eleanor said instead of asked, her voice barely above a whisper and full of acceptance.

“No,” he growled. “No, she didn’t do it. She could barely get out of her wheelchair, never mind…” He shook his head again as his throat threatened to close up. “None of us should be alive. She is just as innocent as the rest of us.”

He had never voiced it before.Do I feel… is this sympathy?he thought.Sympathy for Scarlet? Have I been feeling it this whole time? Do I care for someone other than Helena?

Churned up, he stepped back from the stove. Anger had replaced his guilt, and he wanted to destroy something. The only safe thing to him was the measuring cup he had poured the brandy into.

He hurled it with all hisstrength.

It smashed gloriously onto the unyielding, tiled floor.

They both stared silently at it, and instantly, Rafferty regretted it. That wasn’t his to destroy.

“Hey! Eleanor, are you alright?” the camera guy asked, his head popping out of the lounge. Even though he spoke to her, his eyes flashed warning atRafferty.

“Yeah, we’re fine, thank you, Peter,” Eleanor said, waving the cameraman away. She didn’tseem mad.

Instead, she went to get a broom and dustpan to clean up the tempered glass. “Look, I’m sorry. Like I said, it’s not my usual M.O. to pry into other people’s personal lives. I got enough of my own baggage and all that. But you clearly need to talk tosomeone.”

“I don’t… talk,” he said lamely.

“Yes, I know, I know,” she dismissed. “The idea of sharing all your private whatever is intimidating, and then you run your car through your boyfriend’s restaurant and lose your job and then your apartment and before you know it, you’re doing underground cooking contests for extra cash.”

“Or you’re dragged into hell,” he agreed, out loud, too late to rethink if it was a good idea to doso or not.

She paused, then dumped the shards in the large garbage can. “Yeah, and I’m sorry about that, too. It’s just I can’t say I have felt entirely comfortable with the whole Scarlet Promotions thing, taking it all over, you know? As much as I gripe about it, Cooking Underground saved my sanity, you know. I’m protective of it. But also, it’s not like any of my other opportunities were working out.” She sighed.

Rafferty could feel it. The signs of a mark. She was vulnerable; her gaze had drifted downward, staring long at dreams that have died before they got to live.

“So this whole thing with views and making videos and stuff, this isn’t what you really want to do?”

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