Just One Taste

by Louisa Edwards

  “That’s the point.” Billy Perez, the quiet young Latino guy who worked on the fish station, looked up from his intense contemplation of his hands. He had burn scars notched up and down his fingers and arms, like the other cooks around the table.

  Wes was starting to accumulate his own collection. He was weirdly proud of it.

  “Right,” Frankie put in, his eyes on Jess. “There’s nothing like the threat of losing everything to focus a man’s mind on what really matters.”

  Jess’s head came up at that, anger brightening his blue eyes. “So what’s your last meal, Frankie?” he asked, his voice harsher than Wes had ever heard it.

  “What, you haven’t heard?” Frankie smiled and pushed away from the bar, doing a funny little bow. “I’m never going to grow up, so I’m never going to die. I’m the punk-rock Peter Pan, me.”

  Over the chorus of groans and catcalls, Frankie said, “Chapel awaits. You girls have fun braiding each other’s hair, now.”

  The other chefs and servers didn’t let Frankie’s defection keep them from playing. Violet got the ball rolling—her last meal choice was her mom’s rhubarb pie. Quentin wanted fried green tomatoes—“Comfort food, man”—the bartender, Christian Colby, picked homemade tagliatelle in Bolognese sauce. Billy Perez chose Chef Temple’s duck confit cassoulet with a shrug.

  “What? I like the way we make it here.”

  Wes nudged his friend in the ribs, breaking Jess out of the semiparalysis Frankie always seemed to induce in the young waiter. “What would you have?”

  Jess sighed. “I don’t know. If we’re going with comfort food from childhood, I feel like all I ate growing up was frozen pizza. Kind of lame. What about you?”

  Wes was about to toss out some quick response, something easy and facile that would hide who he really was out of sheer force of habit. But glancing up at the group of people around the bar, his coworkers—his friends—Wes felt a powerful blast of belonging, as if he’d finally come home. The sensation was unfamiliar enough that for a long moment, he almost didn’t recognize it.

  When he did pin it down, finally, he had to swallow back a totally idiotic surge of emotion. But it was unreal to find this here, after so long. And it made him remember exactly how not at home he’d felt back at the academy.

  Most of the time there, at least.

  Which, of course, brought to mind that thing he wasn’t supposed to think about.

  Or, more specifically, that person.

  Rosemary.

  Longing swept over Wes in an unexpected rush, replacing his physical aches and pains with the much more insidious hollowness in his chest. Before he could think twice about the vulnerability of sharing even this much, Wes said, “I’d have strawberries dipped in chocolate.”

  His voice was cracked and rough enough that everyone at the bar noticed, but Wes refused to duck his head. “And it’s a fantasy, right? I can have whatever I want?”

  “Sure,” Jess said, gentle understanding pulling his mouth up at the corners.

  Wes smiled, even though he was pretty sure it was the saddest specimen ever. “Then I want the strawberries served by a gorgeous blonde in a Star Wars T-shirt.”

  Before anyone could question him about that idiosyncratic little detail, Chef Adam Temple and his right-hand man and Market’s manager, Grant Holloway, slammed out of the kitchen in the midst of a full-blown Boss Throwdown.

  “But we’ve talked about expanding—maybe this is a sign!” Grant argued, his boyish face red and a little wild.

  Adam snorted, curly dark hair sticking up as if he’d been gripping it in frustration. “Sure. A sign that no one on the Upper West Side is into Latin Cajun fusion mumbo jumbo.”

  “Come on, at least let me find out what the rent is.”

  “It’s the building next door. It’s going to be the same as ours.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “It’s a waste of time.”

  “Is not.”

  “Is too!”

  A rustle of bills distracted Wes from the epic battle, and he looked over in time to see Violet Porter taking bets on who’d win. The cooks were loyally sticking to Chef Adam’s side, but the servers looked pretty confident in their odds.

  Only the bartender, Christian, shook his head at getting in on the action. He was watching Adam and Grant arguing with a frown. As if he felt the weight of Christian’s gaze, Grant glanced at the bar and stiffened immediately.

  “We can finish this discussion later,” he said, with as much dignity as possible through a clenched jaw.

  “Fine. I’m dead on my feet anyway. Hey, good service tonight, guys,” Adam said, turning to the assembled line cooks draped around the bar. “We pulled it out, we fought hard, and every one of you came through for me. I’m a proud papa. Now go home and get some rest, or go blow off steam someplace else.”

  Christian nodded and started locking down the bar, and the cooks and servers hauled themselves up and started sorting their shit out to leave, amid quite a bit of moaning and complaining.

  Wes felt like he’d been beaten all over with a wooden soup ladle. This probably wasn’t the best time to corner his boss.

  The bitch of it was, though, he didn’t think he’d be able to get a wink of sleep unless he got this conversation over with. He steeled himself.

  “Hey, Chef? You got a couple minutes?”

  Adam paused in the act of shrugging on his coat, his gaze immediately intent on Wes, who tried not to shift or toe the floor like a shy kid or something. “You bet.”

  “Good luck,” Jess whispered out of the corner of his mouth as he grabbed his backpack off the bar. “I’ll be up late doing homework tonight; text me later and let me know how it goes.”

  Wes nodded and waved him off, swallowing down an unwelcome flock of nervous butterflies. Adam Temple was, quite simply, the coolest boss in the world. He was a kick-ass chef, a great leader in the kitchen, and he’d made Wes feel welcome and accepted right from the start.

  Somehow, none of that made it any easier to talk to him about this.

  Once the dining rooms had cleared out, Adam flopped onto the barstool next to Wes.

  “So. What’s up with Grant?” Wes was aware he was stalling, but decided he was fine with it.

  “Oh man. I love the guy, and he’s got mad skills when it comes to running the front of the house, but when he gets an idea into his head it’s like the rest of his brain goes out the window. You know the restaurant next door?”

  “That weird Cajun place that’s always empty?”

  “That’s the one.” Adam nodded. “Anyway, they shuttered yesterday. Heard it from their meat supplier, who’s pissed because they owe him money. Grant wants to look into what it would take to expand Market into the available space.”

  “Makes sense. I mean, Jess keeps talking about how slammed the bar gets with walkins and people waiting for tables.”

  “We could maybe use some more space,” Adam conceded, “but things are tough out there right now. And I just got finished buying out our last investor, which rocks—but doesn’t leave us with a ton of extra money lying around.”

  Wes sat on his hands to keep from fidgeting. “So … does that mean you don’t have the money to hire another line cook?”

  Adam’s head whipped around. “Let me guess. You don’t want to go back to the academy.”

  “I can’t go back.” Wes winced the moment the words were out of his mouth. “Wow. That sounded less melodramatic in my head.”

  Adam didn’t question him, because he was the coolest boss ever. But he also didn’t look terribly happy; his face got serious and pinched in a way Wes didn’t think he’d ever seen before.

  “Look, man. I would love to hire you on—I’m planning on it, in fact—but I’ve gotta be honest. I was counting on having the extra time while you went back and finished up at the ACA to make a spot for you. You’re saving our ass right now, when it comes right down to it, doing the kind of work you’re doing for nothing.
I feel like a shit half the time, like I’m taking advantage of you, because you’re a damned good cook. And God knows, I’m dreading the day you leave—but I can’t afford to keep you on full-time right now.”

  Disappointment was a hard lump in Wes’s throat, too big to swallow. Can’t go back, can’t face it, can’t face her. If I see her again, I’ll mess everything up, and she deserves better than that.

  “I’ve got some savings. What if … what if I stayed on for free? For the experience? Like a stage,” Wes said, referring to the ancient practice of a young chef apprenticing himself in a successful chef’s kitchen.

  Adam leaned back in his chair. “I’m not going to lie, that would rock for me. But for you—Wes, man, are you sure you wouldn’t rather stage someplace else? In Paris maybe, in some famous kitchen that would look good on your résumé. I could probably help you out with that; I’ve got some connections. And Devon Sparks, he spoke highly of you after his stint running the kitchen here. That dude knows everyone worth knowing.”

  The lump in Wes’s throat wasn’t getting any smaller, but now his head was whirling with possibilities. “That’s … shit, I don’t even know what to say. That’s an amazing offer, Chef. I appreciate it more than I can tell you—but if it were up to me, if you didn’t mind, I’d stay right where I am.”

  Until he said it, he wasn’t sure that was how he felt. But the moment the words were out of his mouth, a feeling of rightness took over his whole body, and he knew.

  “Are you sure?” Adam wanted to know, his eyes keen on Wes’s face.

  Wes looked up at the ceiling and tried to get his spinning thoughts to settle down. “Hey, I know it would probably be good for my career to stage with some Michelin-starred, cheese-munching Frog, but despite how much I love foie gras, I’ve never been a huge fan of the French.”

  Adam smiled but still looked skeptical, so Wes dug deep and gave him a portion of truth. “Maybe Market doesn’t have a Michelin star yet, but you guys are building something here. Something amazing, and I want to be part of that. Plus …” Wes blew out a breath and got his voice under control before it could wobble. “I’m not ready to move on yet,” he said.

  And there it was. That was as close as he could get to admitting the whole truth—that working at Market felt like his last link to Rosemary. He’d left her and whatever it was they’d built between them to come here; he’d be damned if he left before wringing every last drop of goodness he could out of that shitty, fucked-up situation.

  He couldn’t go back to the academy and pretend not to care about her. Cornell would be all over them, and all this heartache would’ve been for nothing. Chances were, he’d never see her again. The thought sliced through him with a sudden, vicious thrust. And even the wide, welcoming smile on Adam’s face and the clasp of his hand as he welcomed Wes aboard couldn’t quite mask the pain of it.

  But Wes had learned early on that life wasn’t fair, and things didn’t happen just because you wished for them. You got nothing but bones to work with? It was up to you to make soup out of them.

  Adapt and regroup, boy, Pops used to say. No point wasting time and energy on what can’t be changed.

  Good advice. Of course, Pops would no doubt have pushed Wes to work Adam over for whatever connections and favors he could get out of him, then leave him in the dust without a backward glance.

  But Wes didn’t have to be like that. He could choose his own way. And if he chose to stay at Market because he liked the people there—because he liked who he was when he was with them—that was fine.

  Maybe he’d never see Rosemary again, but that didn’t mean he should stop trying to be the kind of man a woman like her deserved.

  Chapter 12

  One week later, and Wes was finally starting to settle into the knowledge that his time at Market was extended indefinitely. He didn’t have to bail on his buddies on the line in the kitchen; he didn’t have to leave the life he’d worked hard to scratch out for himself.

  And, most importantly, he didn’t have to test his own admittedly weak resolve by seeing Dr. Rosemary Wilkins again.

  It wasn’t permanent, and there was always a sense in the back of his head that maybe, if he messed anything up or didn’t deliver, he’d be out on his ass in the cold. But all he could do was make himself as indispensible as possible so that when things picked up, Adam would have no choice but to hire him full-time.

  And until then, life was pretty damn good. He’d been promoted up the line to garde-manger, the cold appetizers and salads station; he hung out with Jess Wake and his other friends from the restaurant at their favorite after-hours hangout bar, Chapel; then he stumbled a few short blocks to his tiny one-room studio apartment in a fifth-floor walkup in Chinatown and fell into bed—or futon, as the case might be—just as the sun was rising.

  If, nine nights out of ten, his dreams were invaded by a certain petite blond chemist, no one had to know about it.

  Wes pounded up the stairs of the Seventy-ninth Street subway station, thankful once again to escape business commuter hell, packed trains hurtling down to the Financial District, each car bulging with office drones choking in ties and suits, hauling around briefcases and laptops.

  He was a salmon swimming upstream, the one lone guy in jeans and a battered leather jacket, with a nylon messenger bag holding his roll of knives against his hip.

  It was good to be a chef.

  He grinned into the bright blue of the sky, that amazing September sky that reminded him of the bluest eyes he’d ever seen, except he wasn’t thinking about that, so he dropped his gaze to the busy city streets instead.

  Cabs blared their horns at pedestrians who were stupid enough to be texting while crossing Broadway. Up and down the street, the jingling metallic ring of shop owners raising the chain-link security gates in front of their doors accented the shouts from construction guys working on a site around the corner. The air smelled like roasted honey and burned butter from an enterprising vendor setting up his cart to sell hot candied nuts on the next block.

  Wes soaked it all up, letting the life of the city fill in the cracks inside his head and heart until he felt almost human.

  He was ready to cook.

  Jess Wake was the only one changing in the locker room when Wes got there. They both liked to arrive early; Wes wanted plenty of time to get his prep work done for his own station—lots of vegetables to peel for garde-manger—and still have time to put something tasty together for family meal. Jess had confessed he came in before his shift officially started because he couldn’t stay away, the poor sap.

  “You beat me,” Wes said, stowing his knife roll on top of the bank of lockers while he unfolded a freshly laundered white chef’s coat from his bag. Working clean was one of the precepts drilled into ACA students, and it was one Wes had embraced wholeheartedly. He liked to get to the end of a hectic night’s service without a single smear or stain on his rolled-up white sleeves.

  It didn’t happen often, but a man could dream.

  “Yeah,” Jess said, his mouth going crooked in that way that meant he wasn’t sure if he should grin or frown. “I’m a masochist, I guess.”

  “Is he here yet?” Wes hadn’t seen anybody in the kitchen, but he hadn’t checked the back alley where a few of the chefs congregated for a smoke before getting down to work.

  Jess’s shoulders slumped. “I don’t even know. I’m too much of a chickenshit to go looking for him, and what good would it do, anyway? We’ve both made our positions clear. I love him. He knows it. And I know he loves me back.” The fierce light faded from Jess’s dark blue eyes. “At least, I thought I knew that. Now I’m not so sure.”

  Wes felt a pang of kinship. Jess was so fucking gone on Market’s Brit punk sous chef. He and Frankie Boyd had been an item for a few months, just long enough for Jess to come out to his sister, get superinvested in the relationship, and get dumped. The poor kid had been pining ever since—not that Frankie was doing much better, as far as Wes could tell.


  He didn’t get their deal at all; they were stupid in love. Nothing was keeping them apart except some dumb idea that they were better off apart. As someone who knew about pining, Wes found himself frequently struggling with the desire to knock both Jess and Frankie on their stubborn asses.

  “Pfft, come on, dog. Frankie’s head over nuts for you, anybody can see that.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Jess said, shrugging into his work shirt. “We’re over. I know that. I just wish I could get my idiotic heart to believe it.”

  “I know what you mean,” Wes said. “Sometimes it’s hard to let go, even if holding on is like gripping the handle of a pan straight out of the oven with both hands.”

  “You’re thinking about her, aren’t you?” Jess’s look was knowing, but he was smiling again, which helped Wes get past the freakiness of talking about this stuff. He didn’t think about it that often, but somehow bringing the topic of sex right out there on the table made him remember, oh yeah, Jess is gay.

  But he was Wes’s buddy, too, so in the end it wasn’t that difficult. “Yeah, I still think about her. But it wasn’t going to work. There were reasons we couldn’t be together, and those reasons still exist, so I finally had to move on. I’m not going back to the ACA, not going to see her again, and it’s done. I’m through torturing myself. You might want to think about that, buddy. It’s not like this is the only restaurant in New York City. You could get a job someplace else, someplace where you don’t see Frankie every damn day and remember how things used to be. Shit or get off the pot, man.”

  Jess flinched, his already milk-white cheeks going even paler. Wes immediately felt like an asshole, but before he could apologize, the locker room door swung open and in sauntered Frankie Boyd.

  The tall sous chef took in his ex standing half dressed with Wes, and scowled ferociously. Jess put his hands on his slim hips and glared right back, the tension between them filling the air with crackling sparks.

  Oh yeah, these two were so over. Right. Wes rolled his eyes and finished buttoning up his jacket. He grabbed his knives in a rush and made for the door.