Page 25 of Accidental Wedding Crasher
The others exchanged a glance. “Let’s see. I think you should wash all the dishes,” Mia said.
Evan’s eyes widened as he looked around at the piles and piles of dirty dishes all over the kitchen. Everyone burst into laughter.
“No, no, how about you cut the bread?” Sarah suggested. “We’re supposed to finish up by making a bruschetta appetizer.”
“I can do that,” Evan told her. He found a wooden cutting board, a knife, and a loaf of fresh Tuscan sourdough.
“Wait!” Mia threaded to the other side of the kitchen and returned moments later with an apron, which she passed over his head. Her hands brushed against his lower back as she knotted the ties, and Evan was all too aware of her touch. “We all have matching aprons, and you need one too.”
“Now can I start?” Evan asked, grinning.
“Nope.” Sarah took a sprinkle of Parmesan cheese and pressed it onto Evan’s apron. “Okay, now you match the rest of us, sonowyou can start.”
“Good work.” Mia held up a hand to high-five Sarah, who slapped it.
“Thanks.”
As Evan sliced the bread, he found himself marveling that this could really be his family. They weren’t the kind of jokey, friendly family who told each other everything and had boisterous, fun-filled gatherings. They were more the kind of people who made stilted conversation about work and mutual acquaintances before escaping off to their own rooms.
Now, around him, his parents were joking with Luka about some kind of sauce-based incident while Sarah fetched everyone another round of wine. Evan paused his work to take a sip of the wine, which was earthy and rich.
“What do you think?” he asked Mia, holding up the empty glass.
“I have absolutely no idea.” She giggled. “But I know this is pretty fun.”
“Thank you for putting up with all this,” Evan added quietly, leaning a little closer. He smelled her perfume, something with notes of jasmine, along with the scent of basil and tomatoes. Up close, he could see the streak of flour on her forehead and was tempted to wipe it away with his thumb.
“It’s actually been fun.” Mia grinned, stepping back. “Now, get back to work. We have bread to slice!”
Within about ten more minutes, the last of the cooking was finished. The chefs who’d been overseeing the cooking lesson came around, offering praise and some feedback, then they moved the food upstairs for an early dinner on the patio outside the villa. All sixteen members of the extended Hirst family gathered around a long wooden table decorated with fresh flowers and beautiful blue dishes. The sun began to set, casting the sky in dusky blues.
As they settled in, Evan looked around at the dishes. All the cooking groups seemed to have made the same thing: two kinds of pasta, one with tomato sauce and the other with pesto, and a bruschetta appetizer. There were also bowls of salad and fried arancini, as well as more wine, which had been provided by the chefs.
“I’m willing to bet that our pesto pasta is the best,” one of Evan’s cousins piped up. “Everyone, give it a try, and you’ll see.”
“I wouldn’t be so confident,” Luka replied, holding up his own bowl of pesto pasta. “We have a secret ingredient in ours. And it’sdefinitelythe best.” He gave a stern look around the table. “Definitely.”
“And what might the secret ingredient be?” Arthur asked. “Because I was right there, and I don’t know anything about it.”
“Busted!” one of Evan’s uncles called. Everyone laughed. Again, Evan could hardly believe that this was happening. They were joking with each other as though they were all friends, not family.
“Okay, okay,” Mia said, patting the air with both hands. “We can solve this fairly. Everyone, take a little bit of each of the pesto pastas, and we’ll have a competition.”
Evan winced. No way his family was going to go for that. Instead of the silence he’d expected, though, there were cheers and shouts of approval as the pasta bowls traveled around the table — as well as a little smack talk, mostly from Luka.
“You’re really a miracle worker,” Evan whispered to Mia. She winked, brushing her hair behind her ear.
“It’s called classroom management,” she told him. “Now, if you don’t rate our pesto pasta as the winner, we are going to have problems.” She winked.
“Well, I wouldn’t want that.” Evan took a scoop of the pasta she’d handed him. Amazingly, she didn’t even seem upset about his month of silence or his abandoning her to his family’s clutches anymore. How she was seemingly able to have fun in any situation, Evan didn’t know, but he was impressed.
The pasta made by one of Evan’s uncles and his family won the first competition, but a second competition quickly broke out over the bruschetta and the tomato pasta. More wine flowed as everyone took their favorites from the earlier tastings, and laughter filled the evening air. The sky grew duskier overhead as long shadows stretched across the fields. The air smelled like Italian food and fresh-cut vegetation.
“So, I thought you said you weren’t a good cook, but this is great,” Evan said as he took a bite of the bruschetta.
“I reallycan’tcook.” Mia chuckled. “I can barely boil water. But it was fun to try. How about you? Can you cook?”
“Not really,” Evan admitted. “I can just about boil water, too, but I’m much more adept at ordering food. I have a delivery service that sends me a week’s worth of meals every Monday.”
