by Beth Bolden
But he sure as hell isn’t going to look Quentin in the eye while they talk about it. He buries further into the pillow and ignores Quentin’s quiet chuckle. “I like it,” Landon finally says. “Don’t you like it?”
“I do like it. I like that it’s something we share. That we can both take control. And that we don’t always have to do it.” Quentin’s voice is soft and though he doesn’t say a word about Landon’s hiding his face, Landon still feels like he’s being coaxed out of his hiding place.
He finally glances up when he feels like his flush is finally fading. “It’s fucking hot,” Landon admits.
Quentin chuckles louder now. His eyes are soft and hot and knowing all at the same time. Landon loves him more in this moment than he has ever before. “Maybe if we go further, we should talk about what we like and what we don’t.”
Landon squirms. He absolutely doesn’t want to do that. Besides, he isn’t even sure what the answer to that question is. Before Quentin, he sure as hell never trusted a partner enough to even want to explore this side of him.
“Or we could address it as things come up,” Quentin offers, like he knows without being told that Landon would rather hide under the blankets forever than discuss it. “How about we just agree on a word we can both use when it becomes too much?”
That’s easy enough. Landon can do that. “Pancake,” he says decisively and Quentin makes a soft sound of agreement.
They’re quiet for a few moments longer before Quentin finally murmurs into Landon’s skin, “We’re so good together. Better every day, even. The Dream Team.”
Landon falls asleep and stays that way, until 6 a.m. when he wakes up to Quentin’s screech of annoyance and frustration when he discovers his sock is full of Landon’s come.
Landon can’t help but smile into his pillow; they really are the Dream Team.
“Are you sure you’re ready?” Ian asks for about the millionth time in the last hour.
Landon, who’s cuddled up next to Quentin on their couch in the green room, looks up and sighs in exasperation. “Are you trying to make us nervous?” he demands of their manager.
Quentin laughs next to him.
“No,” Ian counters defensively.
“I know,” Landon says, “that you’re not used to not being needed at a time like this. You’ve probably never had two clients in something together before. Isn’t there some sort of press release you can go write or something?”
Except Landon knows there are a few press releases that have already been written, waiting for when the shows start to air. One of them talks about them winning. One of them is them being gracious losers. And a third, which is still the source of some conflict, is publicly confirming Landon and Quentin’s relationship.
Not that the world really believes otherwise. Everybody knows. Every interview they give now feels like an unspoken confirmation, though every host tries to unobtrusively ask for one. Ian has threatened both Landon and Quentin with every bad thing he can think of to keep it under wraps until what he calls, “the right time.”
Landon was worried at first that “the right time” was going to be never, but Ian set him straight quickly, outlining how a lot of their post-Kitchen Wars promotion is better with them publicly together. But Landon is still antsy during interviews. The past never really leaves you; it just becomes easier to deal with.
Ian is always endearingly annoyed afterwards, but it’s worth it for the way Quentin laughs at some of Landon’s snarkier responses.
“Fine,” Ian grumbles. “I’ll go wait somewhere else.”
They’re finally alone. “Are you ready?” Quentin asks, even though he’s asked a version of this question about half a dozen times in the last two days.
“I’m fine,” Landon says, and to his own surprise, it’s true. He really wants to win, but also he knows it’s not strictly necessary. And that fact has added considerably to his rather calm attitude.
“You know, you’re probably going to have to cook,” Quentin says gently.
He’s been working up to this one too, like Landon isn’t perfectly aware that part of the show’s point was to teach him how to cook. If he and Quentin weren’t practically living together and Landon hadn’t absorbed some of his newfound knowledge by osmosis, no doubt he wouldn’t have learned a thing. But he has, and though he’s not sure how to use all of it, surely some of it will come in handy today.
“I know,” Landon says.
“Keep it simple,” Quentin suggests. “Don’t worry about fancy. Whatever you have to make, we’ll keep it as simple as we can.”
If Landon felt even a hair more confident in his cooking skills, he’d be offended, but the truth is, simple is probably all he’s capable of.
Ten minutes later, after a final hair and makeup check, they head to the filming kitchen.
As filming begins and Alexis walks in, Landon is totally fine. Not nervous at all. If he has to reach out for Quentin’s hand as Alexis introduces the theme of the week, then that’s completely understandable.
“For today’s challenge,” Alexis continues, “we have a culmination of everything you’ve learned on the last weeks of Kitchen Wars. Landon and Kimber will be doing all the cooking. Quentin and Rory are allowed to talk them through their dish, to help and to assist, only. No touching of any food or equipment in this kitchen during the next thirty minutes.”
Landon knew it was coming but it still feels like a blow. He glances over at Kimber and to his relief, she looks a little pale as well. At least he’s not absolutely terrified alone. Quentin grips his hand a little harder, a quick squeeze that says everything he can’t say out loud—“you’re fine,” “you’re good,” “you’re going to be brilliant,” and, “I’m going to be right here with you the whole way.”
“Your theme this week is personal inspiration. Anything goes. You’d better be able to tie it back to your life, somehow. Before your sixty second shopping time, I believe it’s only fair to allow you a minute to consult with your chef,” Alexis says, pretending like she’s generous when in reality it’s still only sixty seconds.
Landon turns to Quentin. “Grilled cheese,” Quentin says before Landon even asks him. “With a roasted tomato soup. Get bread, cheese, butter, tomatoes, onion, garlic, cream, basil. Very simple, but with strong, memorable flavors.”
Normally, Landon trusts Quentin completely when it comes to cooking. After all, that’s what Quentin does. But this dish sounds so simple, when he’s sure that Rory and Kimber will attempt something more complex. Landon opens his mouth to argue, but Quentin presses his finger to Landon’s lips before he can even start to argue. “Yes,” Quentin continues, “Rory and Kimber will try something harder. But your execution will set you apart.”
It should be weird. Landon hadn’t even voiced his concern, and here Quentin is, answering it like Landon said it out loud. But maybe that’s what else sets them apart—they are absolutely on the same wavelength.
Even if they had more to discuss, they don’t have the time. Alexis announces it’s time to shop and this time it’s Landon who grabs the basket and races off to the pantry. He still remembers where a good portion of the ingredients he needs are kept—that too makes it lucky, that one of the two times he was in here, he was making a very similar dish. Maybe Quentin has thought this through.
Landon moves through the pantry like a whirlwind, desperately trying to remember every ingredient that Quentin rattled off, and picking up additional besides, because it can’t hurt to have more options, especially with the auction coming up.
He scoots past the glass pantry doors with a half a second to spare and a full basket which he plops down on their station. Quentin glances through it, a thoughtful expression on his face.
“Now for our final two auction items. First,” Alexis says, “a true challenge for our celebrity—whoever wins this auction can doom their opponent by removing all knives and utensils from their station and forcing them to make do with this!” Alexis whips a Leat
herman tool from behind her back. She spends the next thirty seconds, going through some of the available items besides the tiny knife, but Landon has already made up his mind. Kimber is going to have to deal with this. They have a lot of money—quite a bit more than Rory and Kimber, in fact—and there is no reason to save it. This is it. So he bids fast and high, Rory and Kimber sending them glares of pure annoyance as Landon jacks the price up.
He finally wins the auction at $11,000. It’s ridiculous, but Landon wants to win more than they need the money.
“Next item up for auction,” Alexis continues, “is the power to remove a single item from your competitor’s basket. I would definitely take your time choosing the best thing to remove, should you win this, because that could easily be enough to sink them.”
Landon’s heart is what sinks. If Rory and Kimber win this, and they likely will, as they currently have more money than Landon and Quentin, they could take their bread. Or their cheese. Either vital ingredient is gone and Landon and Quentin will have to design a new plan from scratch.
The bidding on this item goes even higher.
Once they reach ten thousand dollars and a determinedly stubborn look settles onto Kimber’s face, Landon decides he can’t avoid it but he also won’t let her have it easy either.
She wins it at $13,600.
Kimber and Rory hold a brief, smug consultation, and Kimber saunters over to confiscate their bread. Landon makes a face and doesn’t even care if the camera catches it. They’re going to have to rethink their entire dish now. He almost wishes he’d gotten stuck with the utility tool.
Alexis kicks off their thirty-minute cooking window and Landon’s heart clenches as he begins to unload their basket. Can they even make something from what he grabbed absently from the shelves? Quentin has a serious look on his face as Landon places the items onto their prep station.
“Well,” Quentin muses, “it’s not ideal.”
That’s an understatement, Landon thinks, and his heart sinks even further.
“I think we still make a soup,” Quentin suggests after another long minute contemplating the lineup of remaining ingredients. “Some sort of Italian minestrone, maybe, with a parmesan frico to add texture. You’ve got vegetables and herbs, and you even grabbed this pasta. We won’t have beans, which are pretty integral, but we can have good flavor.”
It sounds so much like settling that Landon wants to throw something, but he’s a professional. This is all designed as a game, but it’s so much more. Landon knows it doesn’t really matter if they win or lose, as long as they continue to look good doing it.
It’s still hard to face the possibility they’ve lost before they even start cooking.
“If I’d known they could take a major ingredient, I wouldn’t have suggested a dish that relied so heavily on one item,” Quentin says mournfully as Landon carefully chops up an onion and some cloves of garlic.
“How could you possibly know?” Landon asks. “You don’t have Alexis’ sadistic imagination.”
“I heard that!” Alexis calls out from her position up front, but she’s smiling. Sadistically, maybe, but she is smiling.
“Speaking of sadistic,” Quentin says, his voice dropping down until Landon can barely hear it. “I know we’re frustrated, but they’re not much better off.” He shoots a pointed glance over at Rory and Kimber’s station, where she is clearly struggling with the limitations of the utility knife.
“Everything is so damn tiny,” Rory exclaims in frustration, as Kimber tries and fails to cut through a potato.
Following Quentin’s basic instructions, Landon gets the pot on the stove, heats olive oil and some butter—“We have it,” Quentin says with a shrug, “we might as well use it!”—and starts to sauté the onions and garlic. He’s also turned on the oven, and they’re still going to roast the tomatoes to try to extract the most flavor they can from them. He slides the sheet pan in the oven, and then they go through their available ingredients again. Landon can tell that Quentin’s trying not to mourn what they don’t have, but it’s hard. There are so many gaps, because this dish wasn’t what he’d shopped for.
“I’m just afraid it’s going to be lacking sophistication,” Quentin says as Landon chops herbs for the broth.
“Don’t you always tell me simple food with great flavor is better than complex food with subpar flavor?” Landon points out.
“True,” Quentin admits.
“Then let’s make great flavor,” Landon says, digging deep to find some optimism. He could glance over to Rory and Kimber’s station, but it doesn’t much matter. Landon has begun to feel this is almost a personal crusade, completely separate from whatever Rory and Kimber are doing. If he can make a delicious soup out of these random ingredients, then he can at least hold his head high during the judging.
Quentin helps Landon build the soup one flavor at a time, adding chopped carrots and celery to the onions and garlic, covering it with chicken broth, and letting it simmer and steep with the fresh herbs they add next. Landon grates a mound of parmesan, and then sticks the rind into the stock, hoping to add what Quentin calls a “lovely, nutty flavor.”
Landon bakes the grated parmesan in lovely, mounded piles, until it turns melted and pliant, and Landon risks burned fingers to mold it into fun shapes at Quentin’s insistence.
When the tomatoes are done, Landon puts them through a food mill, bitching the whole way about how difficult it is. But the lovely mound of tomato pulp left is worth it, he thinks. And also the camera, which just caught them in a very cute and very snarky conversation over Landon’s new least favorite kitchen appliance.
The tomatoes go into the pot along with the ditalini pasta. Quentin suggests Landon add cream, more fresh herbs and some finely minced spinach leaves. Then all there is to do is check the seasoning, scoop into a beautiful shallow white bowl, and top it with a final chiffonade of basil and the most acrobatic of the parmesan fricos.
It’s a beautiful dish, actually, steaming and fragrant, and Landon feels confident for a single moment. Then he glances over to where Rory and Kimber are standing behind their dish, and she’s prepared a whole steak with an equally ambitious acrobatic mound of thin fried potatoes. It looks like a whole meal, whereas their soup looks like a measly lunch. They don’t even have any meat.
The judges’ encouraging smiles when they walk into the kitchen with Alexis can’t sweeten Landon’s spirits. He feels like he’s let Quentin down, even when Quentin reaches over and intertwines their fingers together, giving him three brief, reassuring squeezes.
Landon knows what they mean: I love you.
And they do help, they do—but Landon wanted to win this so badly.
The judges approach Kimber and Rory’s station first. Landon’s heart is in his throat as they cut into their steaks, examining the doneness and tenderness, and deconstructing the elaborate cloud of fried potatoes. Landon can’t help but wish that he’d sunk them with the second sabotage—not the first, because the first seems to have not affected Kimber at all in the end, and they truly would have been done if they’d lost their beautiful cuts of meat.
“First off, congratulations on making it this far,” Zach says, with a smile on his face. “Second, I feel like I speak for all the judges when I say your flavors on your steak are spot on, but I wish the peppercorn crust had been a little more evenly ground up. I have some big chunks on mine, and it is a bit disconcerting. Some big bites of pepper.”
“The fries are well-seasoned, but the cuts aren’t that great when you look closer,” Jasper points out. “All in all, a good dish, with some small flaws when examined more closely.”
“And I would’ve liked a sauce,” Simone adds. “It’s all a little . . . dry, honestly. But Zach is right, decent execution.”
If Landon’s heart was in his throat listening to Rory and Kimber’s critique, it’s nothing compared to how he feels when the judges approach and it’s his dish they’re tasting.
“Delicious,” Zach
declares, and a little bit of the breath that Landon was holding so close loosens. “Simple, but delicious. There are so many layers of flavor here that it’s hard to say it’s just a soup.”
“But it is just a soup,” Simone says. Landon can barely hold back the glare. Quentin’s fingers are on his again and they’re holding tight and fast. “Albeit a tasty one.”
“I do like that you attempted to add some texture with the frico,” Jasper says. “Unfortunately, no matter how tasty, it is just still only soup.”
The judges retire to the green room to debate. Rory and Kimber turn their direction, and it nearly kills Landon but they all exchange friendly handshakes. Rory and Quentin even share a brief hug. He can tell Quentin is trying to brush it off as not mattering, but Landon can see the tension in his shoulders as the judges return to the kitchen.
Of course Alexis makes a big dramatic speech. All three judges speak again, giving similar critiques. But it doesn’t matter because he knows what’s going to happen. He should have seen it coming, but he was too crazy in love to notice. The producers haven’t been prepping Quentin and him for the winner’s edit. They’ve been prepping them for second place.
“And our runners up today, in a very respectable second place, beating out many quality pairs for the second spot in our final, are Quentin Maxwell and Landon Patton.”
Landon halfway expected it, even strongly suspected as they cooked today and stood silent through the judges’ comments. It still hits him like a brick, the knowledge that they couldn’t pull it off. Quentin’s arms are around him in an instant, and they’re gripping each other so tightly. He can hear, in some far-off distant part of reality, Rory and Kimber celebrating and the judges congratulating them. He doesn’t care. He just wants to hold on to Quentin forever and never let him go.
But he can’t. He has to be a professional. He finally lets go as Alexis expresses her condolences for their loss. She does honestly look disappointed, but frankly this episode is no longer about them. After all they didn’t win. So they’re escorted perfunctorily back to their green room.