Page 42 of Steadfast
Denny helped me with the cooking. He boiled the noodles while I finished browning the meat. Then we began opening giant cans of sauce.
“That’s a good look for you,” I teased Denny, pointing at the frilly apron he’d put on over his clothes.
“Sauce stains,” he complained. “It’s the only apron I could find.” Gamely, he layered the noodles into one giant pan while I did the same in another.
“What are we serving on the side?” he asked.
“There’s spinach. A farmer donated the last of his crop. But it needs to be washed and chopped.”
“Should I ask…?” His eyes flicked toward the back corner.
Jude had not appeared the first ten times I’d looked for him. But now I turned my head and there he was. Jude stood behind the prep counter, tying a bandanna over his hair. He wore a tight-fitting T-shirt reading “Norwich Farmers’ Market, Est. 1977.” His biceps flexed as he fiddled with the knot behind his head.
A fine sweat broke out on my back.
Fuck.
“Soph?”
“Right,” I said a little too quickly. “Yeah. He should, um, take care of the veggies. The spinach is in the, uh, walk-in.” I gave Denny a little shove in Jude’s direction.
For the next hour, I tried to steer clear of Jude. But it didn’t work out so well. The eggs I needed to stir into the ricotta cheese were stacked up on the prep table. When I headed back there my traitorous eyes locked on his big hands as they piled cut spinach into a kitchen bin. Those hands had beenallover my body in the very recent past.
Yikes.
“Evening,” Jude said, his voice low and steady.
“Evening,” I repeated as casually as possible.Nope! I’m not thinking about you bending me over any furniture right now. No sir. I picked up the carton of eggs.
“You have any garlic?”
“What?” I raised my eyes.
His gorgeous eyes blinked down at me. “Fresh garlic. For the spinach. It will taste bland otherwise.”
“Um, I’ll check.” Setting the eggs back down, I spun around and headed into the supply closet. Alone inside, I took a deep breath and scanned the shelves for garlic. There was garlicpowder, but that wouldn’t taste nearly as good. It took me far too long to notice a cardboard box at my feet filled with—wait for it—about two dozen bulbs of garlic.
I grabbed a few of them and trotted back out to the kitchen, proud of myself. They landed with a thunk on the prep table.
It wasn’t until I returned to the ricotta cheese that I realized I didn’t have any eggs. They were back on the prep table.
“Forget something?” Jude asked when I returned for them.
“Uh-huh.” I watched as he raised the flat side of the knife, then brought it down with a smack onto a big clove of garlic. I was just about to ask why he’d do that when he picked up the clove and casually flicked the skin off of it. That was a neat trick. Removing the skin from a clove of garlic usually took me ten minutes and at least as many curses.
And now I was staring.
With my eggs in hand, I ran off to go back to work. I broke eight eggs into a mixing bowl. But the Gods of awkwardness weren’t done with me yet. I needed a whisk, and those were kept in one of the drawers under the prep table. Probably.
Once again, I circled the prep table, where Jude was mincing salt and garlic together into a fine paste. I tapped one of the drawers. “If you could take a half step to the right…” My face was burning up again—just the side effect of my stupidity.
Jude moved and I opened the drawer only to find it full of chopsticks.
“Um,” I said, closing it. I walked around behind him to the other side. “Sorry…”
He shifted his body out of my way for a second time, his hands still busy with the knife and cutting board.
There wasn’t quite enough space for me to get the whisk. “Jude, I really just need another inch.”
