Just One Taste

by Louisa Edwards

  “Like I said,” Wes tossed over his shoulder, one hand on the doorknob. “I think it’s time for you to stop torturing yourself.” He whisked out the door, slammed it shut, and shot the lock home. It was a simple double-cylinder dead-bolt lock with a twist knob; all the doors down here were equipped with them. Wes had no idea why, but he did know that it wouldn’t be long before another employee showed up needing to change into uniform.

  “Hey!” sounded from inside the room, Frankie’s Cockney accent muffled through the thick door. “Did you just—fucking hell, he did! He locked us in.”

  “Wes!” Bang. “Ooooh, I’m going to kill you when I get out of here.” Jess didn’t sound happy. The ingrate.

  “It’s for your own good,” Wes called. “Don’t worry, someone will be along soon to let you out. If I were you, I’d take advantage of this time to hammer some shit out. But then, if I were you, I’d be locked in there with a gorgeous miniature blond science nerd, not a skinny dude with Sid Vicious hair.”

  “Oi!”

  Wes shrugged. To each his own. “In the meantime, work. It. Out.”

  “Do not leave us in here! Wes!”

  Ignoring his friend’s cries, Wes pounded up the stairs to the kitchen whistling a happy tune to drown out the banging from the locker room.

  He’d done his good deed for the day. Wonder what his reward would be?

  Jess leaned his forehead against the locked door, his entire body clenched in horror.

  “Wes?” he croaked. “If you can still hear me, I want you to know you’re dead to me now. Just FYI.”

  “Aw, don’t take on so, Bit. Hardly the end of the universe, is it?”

  “Don’t—” Jess ground his molars, tried to hang on to his composure. “Do not call me that, please.”

  “What? Bit?” Jess squeezed his eyes shut, wished he could close his ears to the telltale snick of Frankie’s lighter and the faint hint of smirk in his voice. “Why shouldn’t I? You’re still a bit of all right, same as you were when I first clapped eyes on you all those many moons ago.”

  Against his will, the memory shimmered into view in the foreground of Jess’s mind. His first sight of Frankie, unbelievably tall and shocking, with his sinewy pale Englishman’s arms on full view due to the ripped sleeves of his black T-shirt. The dark outline of the tattoo on his bicep—Patti Smith, godmother of punk, though Jess hadn’t recognized her at the time.

  Now? He could sketch the figure from memory.

  Not that he needed to. Jess had never been all that great at drawing, anyway. Photography was his thing, and he’d practiced on Frankie. A lot.

  There was a file on his laptop at home full to the brim with portraits of the man behind him, in various poses from full-on raging punk rocker, on stage with his electric bass at Chapel, to sneaky candid shots of Frankie, shirtless and smoking among the pillows cushioning the floor of his attic apartment, affectionately known as “The Garrett.”

  It was a good thing he almost never managed to print his stuff out unless it was for school, Jess reflected, the metal door cold against his heated skin. Because at the rate he was going, he’d have worn the edges off every single photo with constant handling.

  He couldn’t fall asleep at night without clicking through his treasure trove of pictures, snatching what echoes of happiness he could from the images of things he could no longer have.

  Would no longer allow himself to have.

  Bracing himself against the door, Jess turned to face the man who was stuck in his mind and his heart like the hook of a pop song on endless repeat, stubborn and painful and annoying as hell.

  The knowledge of how Frankie’s mouth would curl into a sneer if he ever knew Jess had just equated him with a Top 40 hit gave him the strength to straighten up and say, in a somewhat level voice, “I know it goes against the grain, Frankie, but if you wouldn’t do your best to make this as difficult as possible, I’d appreciate it.”

  Frankie’s black eyes were dark, glittering opaquely in the dim light of the locker room. “Can’t think what you mean, Bi—sorry. Was your mate what locked us in here, not me. And he wants us to work it out. Care to take a stab at what he meant by that?”

  Jess shivered at the emphasis Frankie placed on the word “stab,” the barest hint of tongue curling over his thin upper lip making Jess have to close his eyes again.

  God, he was pathetic.

  A rush of displaced air stirred the hair at his temples, a sudden warmth along the front of his body, and Jess opened his eyes to see Frankie mere inches away, that steady dark gaze trained on him like a hypnotist charming a snake. The cigarette smoldered, forgotten, between the long index and middle fingers of Frankie’s right hand, which he raised to Jess’s cheek in a soft caress.

  “Want to tell me again how hard this is for you?” Frankie’s low voice was pure sex as it slipped into Jess’s ears like honeyed poison, but it was the tenderness in his touch against Jess’s shivering, starved skin that jolted him out of his trance.

  Jess got his palms against the tough meat and bone of Frankie’s shoulders, and shoved. “Cut it out. You had your chance—God knows, I would’ve given you everything. Anything.”

  The surprise at Jess’s move faded from Frankie’s face, to be replaced by something darker, a blend of regret and resignation that made Jess’s stomach hurt. “That was the problem, yeah? You would’ve kept giving, and I would’ve kept taking, forever and ever, amen. And then what? You’d be happy waiting tables every night of the rest of your life, going down the pub to watch me thrash with the band at the weekend, spending your tips on pints? That’s not the life for you, Bit.”

  Jess shook his head hard, so pissed he couldn’t be bothered to get on Frankie’s case for using the nickname that still had the power to twist Jess’s head all around. “Bullshit! That is such a load of self-serving crap, Frankie. I can’t believe you’re still … God, it’s like you haven’t heard anything I’ve said the fifty other times we’ve had this same, pointless, gut-wrenching conversation!”

  There it was—the patented Frankie Boyd sneer. “What? You mean, that you could be with me, work here, and still go to school, do your art and photography clubs, make new friends, all of that shite?”

  “Yes! It isn’t shite, or shit, or whatever, and you know it! I was doing all of that before we broke up, and since then, nothing has changed.”

  Frankie started patting his pockets agitatedly, looking for his cigarettes, before realizing he had one already lit in his hand. He took three deep drags around the silk filter, the tip glowing red hot in the gloom, an ember as bright as the anger burning in Jess’s belly. He wanted to look away, but he couldn’t.

  Every time. The same damn arguments every time. They couldn’t be together because Frankie wanted him to have some mythical “real college experience,” grow up and go to classes and become a real boy. As if hanging out with guys his own age would magically make Jess normal, make him fit in, when it never had before.

  He had friends at school, sure—kids he ate lunch with and walked to the photo lab with, studied with and joked with around the dorms. But the only place he’d ever truly fit? Was in Frankie’s arms.

  Frankie, who’d loved him back. Just not enough.

  “Of course nothing’s changed,” Frankie scoffed, his voice roughened with smoke. “You’re still here, aren’t you? Spending all your free time working at Market, instead of out gallivanting and making mischief like you should be doing.”

  The pang caught Jess squarely in the chest, making it hard to breathe. “Are you saying you want me to quit?”

  Frankie studied the stub of cigarette still pinched between his fingers, then dropped it to the cracked linoleum floor to smolder sullenly. “Once you get away from here, you’ll see just how much world there is out there. There’s a lot more to life than Market and me, Bit.”

  Pain like Jess hadn’t experienced in weeks welled fresh and bright from the wound Frankie inflicted so casually.

  He wants
me to go. He wants to stop seeing me every day, anymore, maybe ever. He wants to stop being reminded of what we had, what he threw away.

  And what Jess wanted? Mattered as much as it ever did, which was not at all.

  Reeling, hurting, Jess lashed out with unerring precision and slashed into Frankie exactly where he knew it would bleed the heaviest.

  “Oh, believe me, I know. Just ask Kevin Howard.”

  Frankie froze, one combat-booted foot raised to stamp out the cigarette. “Who the buggering hell is Kevin Howard?”

  Jess shrugged, adrenaline making the movement jerky. “Guy from my photography club. We went out last weekend, after I got off work.”

  Frankie’s eyes widened, and Jess could practically see him casting his mind back, trying to remember if he’d seen Jess at Chapel, the usual after-work hangout for all the Market staff. “You … went out. After work. With some guy.”

  “He’s not just some guy,” Jess said deliberately, even though, if he were honest, that was exactly how he’d described Kevin to his sister when she asked about the date. “He’s someone I know from school. A photography student, like me. He’s taller, though. Dark hair.” He laughed, and the sound actually hurt as it pushed out of his throat. “Guess I have a type.”

  Frankie’s foot fell to the floor as if he were a puppet whose strings had been snipped. He dropped to one of the benches in front of the lockers, his face blank.

  “Come on,” Jess said, sharp and snide. Every word like broken glass in his mouth and he welcomed it, wanted to slash at Frankie and make him bleed. “Don’t tell me you’re upset. This is what you wanted, right? You cut me loose so I could go out and be normal. Well, normal gay guys go clubbing, it turns out. We dance, we let strangers buy us drinks, and sometimes, we find someone who’s looking for the same thing we are—and we fuck.”

  Frankie flinched as if Jess had actually spat a razor blade at him, and for an instant, Jess almost backed down and told him the truth, that nothing had happened. Because Jess knew himself well enough to know that casual sex in some skeevy club was never going to make him happy.

  But then Frankie said, as toneless and calm as if they were discussing the weather, “Right. Sounds like a good time was had by all,” and rage exploded in Jess’s chest.

  Bile pushing up the back of his throat in a stinging rush, Jess said, “Did you hear me? I had sex with him. Kevin. Are you going to sit there and tell me that’s what you wanted?”

  Please. Please tell me you know that’s a lie. Tell me you never wanted it to come to this.

  “Wanted you to be happy, Jess.”

  For some reason, it was the fact that Frankie used his given name that broke Jess. “Fuck,” he sobbed, hating himself, hating both of them. “I can’t do this.”

  Turning back to the door, he pounded the side of his fist against the metal, uncaring of the bruise already purpling on his stupid, fragile skin. “Is anybody out there? Come on, open up! Open—”

  The lock clicked over just before the hinges screamed a protest. Grant stood on the other side of the door, confusion and concern giving his handsome, boyish face a quizzical look.

  “Are y’all okay in here? Why was the door locked?”

  “Ask Wes Murphy,” Jess growled, shoving past his immediate supervisor. “If you find him before I kill him, that is.”

  Chapter 13

  The orders came in fast and hard, Chef calling them out in a loud, clear voice from the pass.

  It was the height of dinner rush, and the heat of battle was on. Wes was working garde-manger, which meant if a table ordered salads or appetizers, he pretty much set the pace for the entire ticket.

  “On order, a four-top, one endive, two dumpling, one tower; one pork, one trout, two lamb, one well, one regular.”

  He added the new orders to the list in his head, his hands automatically reaching for what he needed to get the plates going. The endive salad was chopped to order, to keep the edges of the crisp white vegetable fresh and clean, so that was last. The dressing was already made up, and sat in a squeeze bottle with the rest of his mise en place ranged around his station at the stainless steel counter.

  The tower had to be started first. A nickname for the inventive way they plated Market’s house-cured charcuterie and pickled vegetables, the tower took time to build, but once it was done, it was ready to go and could easily wait for the other two dishes to catch up.

  The dumpling order was his autumnal chicken soup, which had graduated from a smash-hit special to a regular menu item yesterday. Wes still got a tingle of pride every time an order came in for it, but on a night like tonight, when they were getting slammed hard and it was up to each cook to knock out as many perfect meals as he could, that tingle got lost in the shuffle pretty quick.

  Not that all emotion left the kitchen when the tickets started piling up and they were hit hard—hell no. In fact, when Wes had to push his way down the line to race downstairs to dry storage to grab a new hunk of Earl Grey tea-smoked duck breast because the piece he’d started with wasn’t up to snuff, he nearly got hip-checked by a coldly furious Frankie Boyd as he ran by.

  Other than one wild, white-lipped look, Frankie hadn’t shown much obvious reaction to having been locked in a room with Jess—but the sous chef had been riding Wes all night, pushing him harder and mocking him louder than anyone else.

  First Wes’s mise wasn’t tight enough, the bottles of sauce and infused oils, bowls of chiffonaded parsley, diced chives, and all the other assorted accoutrements that garnished his plates, weren’t arranged according to Frankie’s suddenly nitpicky standards. Leaving aside the fact that the unwritten commandment of the Market kitchen was Thou Shalt Not Screw With Another Chef’s Mise, Frankie was over the top about it. His rant must’ve lasted a good five minutes until finally Adam stepped in and drew him aside, talking to him in a low, worried tone.

  A certain amount of flak was normal and expected; Frankie was never going to be one of Wes’s biggest fans. Wes knew and accepted that. But tonight was clearly exceptional.

  Shit. Guess they didn’t work things out.

  Shaking his head at the stubborn pointlessness of it all, Wes grabbed the duck and hauled ass back upstairs, moving as fast as he could. They couldn’t afford to fall behind. If they did, if they got weeded and it was all his fault? Wes couldn’t even imagine the hell of it. He still felt like he was on shaky ground here, a little—like every day was a chance to prove himself a valuable part of the team, especially knowing Frankie, the boss’s best friend and longtime sous chef, didn’t like him.

  So if Wes was the one who brought the kitchen to a standstill? Yikes. Frankie would probably spontaneously combust.

  Which made Wes wonder how Jess was doing. He considered it for all of two seconds before deciding, fuck it, he was already off his station, he might as well take another two seconds to stick his neck out into the dining room and check on his friend.

  “Behind,” he called, booking up the line of chefs all bending, whirling, slicing, reaching. Wes tossed the duck breast on his cutting board—clean of scraps, he noted absently, President Cornell would be so proud—and ducked around the end of the counter to get a view of the dining room through the open pass-through window.

  Chef Adam Temple, expediting meals, tasting dishes, and wiping plates before sending them out on servers’ trays, barely spared Wes a glance. He might wonder what his garde-manger man was doing off the line, but until it became an issue, Wes knew Adam would keep his cool. It was kind of awesome working under a chef who didn’t blow a gasket over every little thing.

  Wes peered out into the atmospherically lit dining room, the golden yellow of the covered lights seeming dim after the bright fluorescence and leaping grill flames of the kitchen.

  He scanned for Jess’s red hair and finally spotted it near a table in the corner. A deuce, it looked like, although only one person was seated at the table and the second place setting had been cleared away.

  Wes squinted, tr
ying to make out his buddy’s facial expression—if he still looked murderous, Wes thought maybe he’d skip out on Chapel and head home early tonight to avoid the wrath of Jess—when he was distracted by the very weird sight of the guest’s handbag wiggling.

  Seriously. The oversized purse, one of those jobbies that looked like it had originally graced some cowboy’s saddle on a multimonth cattle drive over the open range, moved on its own. He would’ve thought maybe the woman had kicked it or something, except he could clearly see her shapely, slender legs crossed at the knee, feet well away from the bag, which was positioned beside her chair.

  Jess hadn’t noticed it. Or at least, he hadn’t jumped or anything; he appeared to be reeling off the specials, his back to Wes. He was blocking the rest of the woman, but neither of them seemed agitated.

  Another shimmy from the bag on the floor drew Wes’s attention once more. He was just about to ask Adam if he’d seen it, too, when the bag gave a huge lurch and a very familiar white, furry head poked out of it—to the accompaniment of gasps from nearby tables.

  Wes’s entire body turned to stone. Silently willing Jess to move to the side, an inch, just an inch, he waited with frozen breath to see the face of the woman at Jess’s table.

  And then Jess did move, jumping back about a foot when he caught sight of the dog panting up at him from the handbag, and Wes realized he hadn’t really needed his friend to move at all—he’d known who the woman was the instant he saw Lucille.

  Dr. Rosemary Wilkins. Here. At Market.

  Holy shitballs.

  Wes kind of wanted to duck and hide, but that was ridiculous because she obviously knew he was here. She must’ve come here specifically to see him, and didn’t that just make his blood want to pound right out of his skin?

  “Murphy,” Adam barked in his ear, making him jump a foot in the air. “Orders are piling up. You tired of tossing salads? Think I should give your job to Matt? He’s probably sick of washing dishes, maybe you could switch for a while.”

  The sarcasm in his boss’s usually happy-go-lucky voice got Wes’s brain working again. “No, Chef. I’m on it. I just … well, are you seeing this?” He gestured out at the dining room where Jess was leaning close to Rosemary, clearly using his body to try and shield the now constantly wriggling bag from the rest of the dining room. He appeared to be trying to politely inform Rosemary that it was against restaurant policy to allow pets other than service animals like seeing-eye dogs—and from the familiar mulish set of her dainty jaw, Jess could see she was having none of it.