Taste on my Tongue

by Beth Bolden

  Maybe he read Quentin wrong yesterday. Maybe Quentin is just naturally flirty.

  What happens is that Landon tries really hard at first, listening intently to his partner’s instructions on how he should be slicing the vegetables that he’s set out in front of him. But as the morning drags on and Landon’s concentration isn’t rewarded with anything other than Quentin’s genuine-but-still-polite smile, he definitely starts to slack.

  Landon isn’t aware that Quentin even notices because his tone of voice and demeanor don’t change at all. But then they break for lunch—today, Quentin doesn’t even suggest any kind of food competition. He just whips up a big calzone and makes it look dizzyingly easy in the process.

  When they’re finished eating, Quentin pins Landon with a very firm look. “Why aren’t you trying?” he asks.

  “It’s boring,” Landon whines, which is part of the problem. The other part is, of course, that it's definitely boring to work on knife skills if Quentin won’t flirt with him anymore. Part of why yesterday was so fun from start to finish was the effervescence in his veins every time Quentin stared, blushed, laughed, or was in general blown away by Landon’s presence.

  “It’s not going to be boring when we’re on air and you’re trying to chop vegetables and you can’t manage,” Quentin reminds him, still nicely, but it’s definitely one of the harsher things that Quentin’s said to him. Landon is pretty tough. He wouldn't have been able to make it through the industry otherwise, but for some reason, this one single comment of Quentin’s still gets to him.

  Landon grimaces. He’s hopeless when he has a crush and he definitely has a crush on Quentin, though three hours into today Landon can’t help but wonder if he read the situation all wrong yesterday.

  “Here,” Quentin sighs, “let’s see if we can’t get somewhere. We only have an hour or so before everyone else is meeting here to go over some basic rules.”

  “Everyone is showing up today?” Landon squeaks. He’s not even done any research yet. Ian sent over some information packets on the celebrities and their chefs two days ago, but last night Landon was far too busy melting down over Quentin’s insane hotness to possibly read them.

  Quentin shoots him a strange look. “Don’t you ever read your email?”

  “Yes,” Landon retorts. “All the time.”

  Quentin’s face softens. “Let me guess. Only when it’s not boring.”

  Landon would be offended by how easily Quentin has read him, but it’s pretty true so . . .

  “Pick up the knife,” Quentin continues before Landon can interject and probably get them off on another long tangent that has everything to do with flirting and almost nothing with knife skills.

  Landon could argue. But for once, he doesn’t. He picks up the knife. It’s what Quentin called a “chef’s knife,” earlier—a medium-ish size with a delicately and wickedly sharp curved blade.

  Quentin moves behind him. Close behind him. Every molecule of Landon’s body perks up in interest.

  “You’re gripping it way too tightly,” Quentin says quietly, air tickling the hairs that brush Landon’s neck. “Relax.”

  Landon wants to tell him that it’s a little hard to relax when Quentin’s practically humping him against the prep counter. He might have yesterday, in a teasing lilting voice—but today, he keeps quiet and tries to do what Quentin says.

  “Now, the carrot,” Quentin directs. “One-inch slices. Go as slowly as you need to. Remember the rocking motion.”

  Landon does remember the rocking motion. They’d practiced it without even chopping anything. But when there’s an actual physical vegetable under his blade, the feel is totally different and he can’t get it right.

  “Slowly, slowly,” Quentin says firmly but gently. When Landon still doesn’t go slowly enough for him, he reaches his arms around Landon, neatly caging him in.

  Breath stutters out of Landon’s lungs. He’s barely composed enough as it is, but Quentin invading his personal bubble like it doesn’t even exist is both the best and the worst thing that’s ever happened to him.

  “Slowly,” Quentin repeats, and the words churn sluggishly through Landon’s brain. It’s on Quentin overload right now. The way he feels all around Landon, his muscular arms and torso boxing him in, making Landon feel a bit smothered, but in all the best ways—protected and worshipped and beloved and wanted so damn much. The intoxicating smell of Quentin. Lemons and coconuts and a tiny hint of mint and rosemary. Landon wants to flip their bodies and push him back against the counter and eat him whole.

  Quentin causes the strangest reaction in Landon. His heart is beating so quick, it practically flutters like a hummingbird in his chest, but Quentin’s also so warm that he relaxes Landon right down. It’s the oddest combination, but Landon wouldn’t trade it for anything. He never wants Quentin to move.

  Quentin’s hands skim over Landon’s and finally come to rest on them. “Just relax,” Quentin murmurs and Landon can feel the heat of Quentin’s breath on the shell of his ear and it’s suddenly too much. His knees wobble a bit and nearly threaten to give out. His cock has hardened in his jeans and he wants Quentin to kiss him so much he can barely breathe.

  They begin to move together in unison, moving the knife as one instead of as two.

  Landon has been told countless times that he marches to the beat of his own drum. He knows he’s a bit odd and more than a little quirky, but he’s always enjoyed that he understands and does things differently than the rest of the world. He’s dated lots and lots of boys and even a handful of girls, but he’s never met anyone he ever truly gelled with.

  But Quentin—Quentin is different. A different different than Landon, but somehow instead of pushing them farther apart, their differences just emphasize how good they are together, and it feels natural as breathing to move together.

  Landon feels a bit faint when he realizes how good their sex life could be if they’re this attuned to one another and they’ve literally known each other for less than two days.

  “That’s it,” Quentin murmurs encouragingly. “Just like that.”

  Landon has never wanted to drop the knife more and forget all about Kitchen Wars. He knows to some extent his future career is riding on how well this gamble pays off. According to Ian, he just needs to stay on the show as long as he can. He doesn’t even need to win. But to stay, he’s going to need to do things like chop vegetables correctly.

  The part of him that wants nothing but Quentin, which is pretty nuts because he’s just met Quentin, wars with the part of him that wants a real career again. Wants to sing and for people to listen.

  Then Quentin’s head dips closer and out of nowhere, as their knife slices cleanly and perfectly through a carrot, Quentin’s lips brush the nape of Landon’s neck. “Perfect,” Quentin says so softly that Landon can barely hear the words over the roaring in his ears.

  And suddenly it becomes very clear. Landon wants both. He wants both, not yet equally, but enough to know that he needs to focus on this right now and pray the rest falls into place.

  There’s a rhythm in Quentin’s movements, Landon realizes quickly as soon as he focuses on the strokes of the knife. They sync up quite nicely with Quentin’s breathing, which has somehow become Landon’s breathing pattern as well. Big surprise.

  It’s relatively easy to keep moving the knife to that same rhythm, with the same rolling motion that Quentin so painstakingly tried to ingrain in him hours earlier.

  Landon chops carrot after carrot, and then they move on to potatoes, which aren’t nearly as fun as carrots, but even though it is a little boring, Landon focuses anyway. Landon can see in the slow, warm smile Quentin has on his face that he’s relieved that Landon has managed to figure out not only how to chop a carrot, but how to balance this.

  Who is he kidding? Landon is glad.

  When they pack up the knives, preparing the space for the rest of the contestants to stop by, Quentin leans in, those plump pink lips distractingly close to Lan
don’s. “Thank you,” Quentin says.

  “For what?”

  Quentin shrugs. “I know today sucked. But thanks for sticking with it anyway. Just . . .” Quentin hesitates, and Landon can practically see the wheels in his head turning, as he tries to figure out what and how much he should say, “this competition means a lot to me. The potential of my own bakery.”

  Landon feels guilt wash over him. He forgets sometimes how self-focused the world surrounding him can be, and how he can be just as susceptible as the next thoughtless celebrity.

  “I want you to have that,” Landon says. “I really do. I know that seems crazy. We just met . . .” He doesn’t want to say how strange it is to have a crush on someone you don’t even know, but it’s the truth.

  Fuck it, Landon thinks, he knows anyway.

  “Honestly, I wasn’t expecting to like you this much,” Quentin admits in a rush before Landon can even get the words out.

  Huh. Well it’s good they’re on the same page. “Me either,” Landon confides and loves how the smile blooms on Quentin’s face, his cheeks growing pinker. “I got a bit carried away with it. I’m sorry. But I’m good now.”

  Quentin’s cheeks grow a deeper pink; it’s insanely endearing. “I did too,” Quentin confesses. “I just hid it better. I don’t want to get too distracted by it. But it is rather distracting.” His eyes rove up and down Landon’s form. “Very distracting, if I’m being honest.”

  “We’ll just have to focus better,” Landon declares. “Because you need your bakery and well, I need a career.”

  Quentin looks offended. “You have a career! You’re Landon Patton!” Quentin is maybe the most loyal human on this planet. Landon didn’t think he could be even more endeared; he was wrong.

  “Some career advice,” Landon pontificates dramatically because this particular part of his confession is a bitter pill to swallow and it’s hard to say bluntly, especially to someone like Quentin. “Don’t come out of the closet before all the pretty young girls fall out of love with you. It’s not good for business.”

  Landon should have known better. The sympathy—or maybe it’s empathy, Landon isn’t quite sure, only that it’s currently tearing a hole in his heart—in Quentin’s eyes is devastating. “I didn’t realize,” he says slowly.

  Landon can only shrug. “It is what it is,” he explains. “So basically, I need this too. Probably just as much as you do.”

  The commiserating smile they share warms Landon up from the inside out. “Then we’ll just have to win,” Quentin declares, which is reckless, because Landon hasn’t even checked out the competition yet.

  A loud, obnoxious whistle pierces his ears and he glances up in surprise.

  There’s a short blond man in the doorway, slender, with a cheeky smile. “Maxwell, what the hell is this?” the man asks in a thick Irish accent. “I leave you alone for two whole days and you’re charming everyone.”

  Landon stiffens. Is Quentin like this with everyone? Who is this guy?

  “Rory!” Quentin exclaims, and Landon realizes that the Irishman is Quentin’s friend Rory. The butchering expert, or so Quentin had explained.

  “He’s so brilliant,” Quentin had said with a proud smile.

  “I certainly hope he’s not too brilliant,” Landon had muttered, only to have Quentin nudge him with a shoulder.

  “Be nice,” Quentin had said.

  Landon reminds himself of the same thing now. Rory is Quentin’s friend and Landon needs all the help he can get to make sure he doesn’t end up with nothing—no career and no Quentin.

  Then Rory looks past Quentin and starts laughing so hard he nearly falls over. Landon doesn’t quite understand. Does he have something in his hair? On his face? Oh god. Here he was, thinking that the last hour was maybe one of the hottest of his life, all while he’s had something disgusting on him that Quentin could barely tolerate. Landon is going to have to move. To Antarctica.

  “You’re Landon Patton,” Rory barely manages to get out between gasps. Landon doesn’t understand; his name typically doesn’t cause this sort of reaction.

  “That’s me?”

  Quentin is glaring at Rory now, no longer quite so overjoyed to see his friend.

  “Oh my god,” Rory gasps out between giggles, “you don’t know.”

  But Landon never gets to find out what he doesn’t know, because suddenly there’s a girl at the door behind Rory. She’s slim but muscular, with long blond hair and a sweet face. Landon recognizes her but for the life of him, he can’t place who she is and where he’s seen her.

  “And who’s this, Rory?” Quentin asks, and Landon thinks maybe he’s trying to change the subject, but then the reason why the girl looks so familiar becomes apparent.

  “This is Kimber Holloway,” Rory hisses, like she’s not right in front of him.

  Oh. Oh. Landon has to compete against a world class swimmer who owns handfuls of Olympic gold medals? That’s just great. “Big fan,” Quentin tells her with a smile and they shake hands and she turns to Landon, a bashful smile spreading over her delicate features.

  “Not a little intimidated or anything,” she says. “Landon Patton. Wow. You are so pretty in person.”

  Landon blushes. He's spent enough time looking in the mirror and at footage of himself that he knows it's not true, but the compliment still feels sweet.

  Quentin speaks up. “He really is, isn’t he?”

  Before Landon can register Quentin’s cheeky smile—there’s more people filing in the door, and for a minute or two there’s chaos as everyone meets and greets. But more importantly, sizes up their competition.

  Landon hangs behind a bit, with Quentin next to him, and wishes he’d spent last night studying the contestant packets instead of daydreaming about Quentin and their future wedding and kids and white picket-fenced home.

  Quentin leans over every few moments, murmuring into Landon’s ear who each of the chefs are, and what their strengths and weaknesses are.

  Landon tries to catalog and observe.

  There’s Rory, of course. He’s a butcher originally from Dublin.

  Quentin points out Reed Ryan, from Chicago. He owns the world-famous foodie destination, Garnet. Quentin exclaims, perhaps a bit too enthusiastically into Landon’s ear, that Reed is famous for his laser sharp focus when he’s cooking. He’s paired with Diego Flores, who has become rather famous adapting comic books to movie scripts. He’s worked on the last few Marvel movies, and is rumored to be moving over to DC for their new Suicide Squad film.

  There’s a bit of reverence in Quentin’s voice as he talks about Blair Paulson, who’s apparently the pastry chef for one of the Michelin-starred restaurants in London. She looks scarily serious and like she couldn’t crack a smile if her life depended on it. Landon knows her partner, Alice Hitchens, a modern dancer who spent several seasons on So You Think You Can Dance? Another reality show veteran, Landon mentally notes.

  There’s Jeff Austin, who Landon wouldn’t really call a chef, necessarily, because he hosts an exposé-type program that identifies and ridicules bad restaurants. Landon feels sorry for his partner, Jessa, a rather famous child actress. It’s not a surprise she’s here; she probably needs the attention as much as Landon does. Unfortunately, being paired with Jeff is pretty shitty luck.

  Quentin, who seems to have studied the information packet far more than Landon, hasn’t met Ezra Gillingham, a rather prominent mixologist in LA, and Landon hasn’t met his partner either, Vanessa Neill, a celebrity makeup artist.

  Landon has eaten in Paul Flannery’s restaurants tons of times when he was growing up in the Midwest, and finds the food adequate enough, but he knows that Paul is hardly there cooking in every one of them each night. He looks like he’s far more comfortable in an office than a kitchen. Landon senses blood in the water and files that bit of info away to use later. His partner, Carson Brooks, is also someone Landon knows—a late-night TV host who Landon has visited more than once—and Landon can’t help but
feel a little bad that someone he knows and likes is paired with someone who might not get very far in the competition.

  Then Landon remembers that he’s here for his own career and for Quentin’s bakery. That means sticking around and being glad that he knows Carson can’t cook either and that he won’t be able to save Paul Flannery’s ass.

  “Do you know him?” Landon nudges Quentin subtly, towards the giant man standing in the middle of the room with fashion designer Nora Hsu.

  Quentin frowns. “I think that’s Oliver Glines. He runs a bed and breakfast near Nashville. Like major tourist destination, booked for years in advance type of thing.”

  “Sounds boring,” Landon sniffs. “If I’m going to go on vacation, I want somewhere sunny and warm where I can lie on the beach and tan for hours. With a never-ending parade of frosty drinks.”

  Landon would have to be blind to miss Quentin’s very fond look. He suddenly wonders what everyone thinks of them—the semi-washed up, very gay pop star and the baker who doesn’t have a bakery. He wonders if everyone is already counting them out.

  “I really like those little colorful umbrellas,” Quentin confesses in a whisper and Landon can’t help but giggle helplessly. Why is Quentin so damn cute?

  “Can we help you, Mr. Patton?” a voice in front of the room asks and Landon’s head snaps up. It’s Alexis Leavy, the Kitchen Wars host, and she doesn’t look very pleased that Landon was giggling with Quentin instead of paying attention. It’s like grade school and he’s being reprimanded again for pulling Sally’s pigtails.

  Whoops. If he cares at all about his career or about getting Quentin a bakery, he’s gonna have to lock down his focus and pay better attention.

  “Sorry,” Landon answers with a lopsided smile. “We’re all good.”

  Alexis gives a sharp, serious nod in acknowledgement and continues her explanation of the rules. Alexis is culinary royalty. Her parents both owned famous restaurants in New York, and she writes very successful cookbooks, as well as hosting shows on The Food Network. She also has a way of looking at you that cuts you down to size. Landon makes a mental note to never end up on her bad side.