Robin’s jaw hit the floor and Tabitha smiled. “Not exactly grandfatherly.”
“Holy. Fuck,” Robin whispered as Logan greeted a couple of people and headed to the front of the class.
Blond hair slicked back highlighted his surfer guy-worthy tan and ocean blue eyes that Tabitha was quite sure made many a pair of panties wet. He resembled most of Robin’s hot wife dates. She hadn’t realized it until Robin’s tongue dangled about a foot out of her mouth.
Her attention was quite glued to Logan and Tabitha tried not to laugh.
“Good morning, everybody. Sorry I was a few minutes late. Had to rescue a dog on the highway.”
“See,” Robin whispered and Logan glanced toward them then continued on with what the class was going to be about.
“Shh,” Tabitha hushed her.
“Is he always in that coat?”
“Yes,” Tabitha whispered and shushed her again.
“Hot. It’s so white I think I need to put my sunglasses on. Ever seen him out of it?”
“No.”
Logan glanced at them once more and smiled at Tabitha, then went back to pointing at something on the sideboard.
“If he got something on it I wonder if he’d take it off, ‘cause, damn, I want to see what’s under that coat.”
“Hmmhmm.” Logan cleared his throat. “Is there something you’d like to share with the rest of the class?” He asked it staring right at Robin, and Tabitha half wanted to answer for her.
“Do you have a defibrillator in the classroom?”
“Uhh…no,” he answered, probably trying to figure out what her question had to do with the class.
Tabitha sure wondered. Until Robin answered.
“Then nothing to share. Pretty sure the hearts in here wouldn’t survive it.” Robin smiled. Talk about a knockout when she turned on the charm.
Logan chuckled and turned back to the board.
Robin faced her and opened her mouth but Tabitha cut her off. “Nothing else until he’s done talking. No…thing.”
“Such a good girl,” Robin whispered, but then she finally settled down.
Logan told them about what they were going to make in class. “Spaghetti and meatballs is on the menu for today, and a side dish suggested by Mrs. Angelica during the last course.”
“What’s the side dish?” someone asked from the other side of the room.
“Roasted rutabaga.”
Tabitha burst out laughing and covered her mouth.
Lots of people turned toward her and she stared at the table to avoid them all.
Robin leaned over. “What’s funny?”
“That’s my safe word.”
Robin snickered and tried to laugh silently. Her shoulders shook, which made Tabitha laugh again. “Epic,” she mouthed.
Thankfully, they made it through the rest of the instruction without incident.
On the way up to the front of the class to gather their ingredients, Robin brushed Tabitha’s backside and she gasped.
Robin jerked her hand away. “Dude. Sorry. Didn’t mean to scare you that bad.”
Tabitha glanced around, embarrassed, then smiled. “I’m just a little tender at the moment.”
Robin’s white teeth made an appearance. “Do tell,” she prompted as they walked back to their table.
“Bite marks. Amazing. Totally what I needed to find some equilibrium again.”
“You’re so dirty.”
“Hello, kettle.”
“I completely agree. But I am so jealous. Have I told you how horny I am?” she asked as she stretched her neck and back. “Because I am. A lot.”
“I do remember something about that.”
Tabitha arranged their haul as Robin surveyed everything. Her horny cooking partner picked up a rutabaga then set it back down as if it might explode. “So, do we each make everything, or each of us takes a dish, or do we mud wrestle for it?”
“We work together.”
“Thank the lord,” Robin praised. “Or whatever I made was just going to have to be tossed. Food and I only get along one way.”
“Which is?” A male voice asked the question and they both looked up as Logan approached their table. “I’m Logan.” He offered his hand along with a congenial smile.
“Robin.” She shook his hand and Tabitha was pretty sure she shivered when she let go. “I eat it. That’s it,” Robin answered. “I can’t cook. At all. Ask Tabitha. I can burn salad.”
Logan raised an eyebrow and glanced at Tabitha.
“Yeah. That one is true. She put it in the oven. It wasn’t pretty.”
“In my defense…I truly can’t cook.”
“Wow. I’ve actually never heard of someone burning salad. That’s impressive.”
Robin rolled her eyes and tried to open a package of hamburger meat. She cut through the cellophane, the meat, the Styrofoam, and somehow got her knife stuck in the cutting board. “Not really that impressive.” She shook her head. “I’ve done way worse. So, your claim that you can teach anyone to cook… Not actually feasible for some of us.”
“Sure it is.”
“Oh, ye of little faith at my ineptitude when it comes to cooking. Are you married?” Robin blurted out.
Tabitha didn’t even try to hide her smile. She knew Robin was just making small talk to get to the kinky questions she really wanted answers to.
He held up his left hand. “Happily for nine years.”
“And another one bites the dust,” Robin sighed with a shake of her head.
Loud and snarky, she most definitely was. One thing she wasn’t was a homewrecker. Tabitha was certain that was one of her and Roland’s rules.
Robin yanked the knife out of the board and clipped the edge of their salt shaker on the way out. It fell over. Onto the meat.
Tabitha snickered as Logan righted the salt. He picked up the package of meat and stared at it. “That’s quite a first, too. I do so like a challenge.” He glanced at Robin’s apron and cracked a smile as he walked away. “Nice apron.”
“Just keepin’ it real,” was Robin’s answer.
When he was far enough away she whispered to Tabitha, “Talk about pretty to look at.”
“Yes, he is.”
“Why didn’t you tell me he was that yummy?”
“Hotness shouldn’t matter when he’s a great cook, and you need all the help you can get.”
Robin pointed to her chest and added a fake pouty lip. “That hurts right here.”
Tabitha smiled. “And I knew he was married, so it didn’t matter. Plus, would it have helped the seven-thirty pick up? If I’d have known that I would have made you a pamphlet with his picture on it.”
“Oh, hell, no. Nothing can make up for that.” She glanced up, to where Logan had been. “So, did we lose our meat? Are we only going to make your safe word side dish now?”
Tabitha closed her eyes. “Oh, my God, I was so not ready for that side dish.”
“Here you go, ladies.” Logan walked up with a new package of meat, or it could have been their old meat washed off. It was already open and on a plate. And he handed it to Tabitha.
“Don’t trust me with your meat?” Robin asked with a smirk.
“I don’t even trust you with tossing my salad now,” he joked right back.
“Good call,” Tabitha agreed with a laugh.
“And I have something special for you to use during class while you’re cutting up veggies.”
“What is it? I hope you invented something equivalent to the bumper guards when you bowl, ‘cause that’s probably the only thing that’s going to help me.”
“Something like that.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a glove. A metal glove. Made out of chain mail. “Which hand do you hold the knife with?”
“My right,” Robin answered. “Sort of.”
“Hold out your left hand then.”
She did and he slipped the glove over her hand.
“This is so you don’t cut your fingers when you’re cu
bing the rutabaga.” He clicked a latch around her wrist to hold it in place.
“This is awesome. I feel like Michael Jackson.” She waved her hand around and turned in a circle. "Does this really work?”
“We’ll know by the end of class if you still have all of your digits.”
“Haven’t you tried it out before?”
“Never had anyone I thought warranted its special qualities.”
“Aww. That’s the nicest way anyone has insulted my cooking.”
“Just keepin’ it real,” he fired back with another gorgeous smile.
“You little thief, you stole my line.”
He shrugged. “What can I say? In some cultures, copying is the ultimate form of flattery.”
“And in some cultures, plagiarism is punishable by five to ten.”
Logan chuckled. “Well played.”
Robin bowed.
“I’m gonna go check around with everyone. Holler if you need me.” He wandered to the next table.
“I wonder if anything ruffles him?” Robin asked as she stared at the cool glove again.
“He’s supposedly a C.I.A. graduate. Owns a couple restaurants. Is super successful.”
“How do you know all that?”
“Michael built the restaurants a year and a half ago.”
“Very cool. Okay.” She lowered her hand and jiggled the metal glove like a bangle bracelet. “Put me in, coach. I wanna chop stuff.”
“Great attitude. I knew Logan could work some magic.”
“Hey, I’m not that bad.”
“Uhh. You put a Styrofoam container in the oven with the salad and burned both of them.”
“Oh. Right. Yowza. That was a bad dinner.”
Tabitha laughed and grabbed the rutabaga. “How about I’ll peel and then you can cut with your robo hand protection?”
“Deal.”
A few minutes later, Robin was cubing the rutabaga like a champ and was actually quiet while she concentrated on not hitting the metal. Much better catching the glove than her hand but Tabitha loved her focus. It was incredibly cute to watch.
Tabitha mixed up the seasonings in the hamburger meat and added the rest of the ingredients for the meatballs. While she made them into balls, she wanted to talk. “Guess what?”
“What?” Robin asked.
“Michael came home early last night. And surprised me.”
“No shit. He left work early. Really?”
“And we had a date. Ate outside, grilled and had wine and other stuff.”
“Oooooo.” Robin added a teasing whistle at the end. “What kind of stuff? Other than teeth marks? Lucky girl.”
“The best kind,” she whispered as she finished rolling the meat and switched to chopping tomatoes and mushrooms for the sauce.
“And did you have a chance to talk to him about…things?”
Tabitha wrinkled her nose. “I didn’t want to ruin the night. Couldn’t fathom messing up what could be the start of everything slipping back into place.”
“Things slip out of place. People have to work to put them back together. Is that the only reason you didn’t want to bring things up?”
“No. I just don’t want to rock the boat. Nope. That’s a lie. Actually, I just don’t want to deal with it at all. I’d rather bury my head in the sand, thank you very much.”
Robin nodded. “I get that, but there’s a problem. It’s gonna keep eating at you. I know it.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because you’re a girl and we let things get to us. It’ll keep cropping up until you talk to him. And…”
“What?” She paused in her getting the sauce ready to cook so she could stare at her best friend for her sage advice.
“I just made that rutabaga my bitch.”
Tabitha laughed, and so did a few other people around them.
“Did I hear you still have all your fingers?” Logan asked as he walked around from behind them.
“Totally.” Robin waggled her fingers.
“Now all you need is a little bit of olive oil.” He supervised her drizzling it on. “And some salt and pepper. Not as much as you put on the meat. A little less than that. Say a pinch or so will do.”
“Party pooper.” Sprinkling on the salt and pepper, Robin stared at the rutabaga and beamed. “I totally made that.”
“And the pieces look great. Good size and all pretty uniform. You could be a prep chef in the making.”
“Seriously.”
“Absolutely. They prep all the food. They’re wicked important.”
“When do they have to arrive?”
“If there’s a breakfast service normally five or five-thirty.”
“In the morning?”
Logan smiled. “That is normally when breakfast is served.”
“I wouldn’t hold your breath then. This is probably the only time you’ll see me this early in the morning. As in ever.”
“You never know. Cooking can get in your blood.”
“And so can staph. It’s why they make antibiotics.”
Logan shook his head and wandered away.
“You ready to cook it now?” Tabitha asked.
“Oh, lord. Me and the oven might actually be mortal enemies.”
“Nope. You’ll be just fine. One for all and all for—”
“The fire extinguisher!”
* * * *
A couple hours later, Logan walked them out at the end of class in the dirtiest chef jacket Tabitha had ever seen him in.
“Hope you enjoyed the class,” he told both of them.
“I sure did,” Robin praised as she jiggled their to-go containers. “And, uhh, sorry about the jacket. That ladle just kind of got away from me.”
“That’s actually happened to me before. The second time it got away from you was a bit of a surprise, though.” His eyes went wide and Tabitha wondered what he was really thinking.
Tabitha laughed and patted him on the back. “Thanks for being such a good instructor. I knew if anyone could help her it was you.”
“I loved putting your motto to the test,” Robin admitted. “It was actually fun. And thanks for letting me keep the glove. I promise to put it to good use.”
“The next course starts in a few weeks. You should think about bringing your husband and joining.”
“Hey, Logan,” someone called behind them.
He glanced back for a second and faced them again with a mischievous grin. “Duty calls.”
Then he was gone again to talk to someone else from the class.
As they pushed through the doors to outside, Tabitha asked, “What do you think? Would you come back?”
“I think I actually would. Even if I have to get up before it’s legal in the state of North Carolina.”
“That’s not actually a thing.”
“Oh, it sure will be when I bring it up to the next neighborhood association meeting. There will be petitions and signs. T-shirts, even.” Robin’s phone dinged in her purse. “Ooh, ooh, ooh, that’s Roland. Can you hold the food for a second?”
“Of course.”
“Hopefully he’s on his way home. Hopefully by the time we get…there…”
“What is it?” Tabitha asked, already knowing what it was about.
“It says, ‘nice apron’. But I didn’t send him a picture of myself in it while we were in there. How does he know—?”
“I believe the man you’re looking for is right over…” Tabitha turned to the right, where Roland had texted her that morning that he’d be. “There.” She pointed and Robin bounced up and down.
Her best friend took off across the parking lot. Thankfully, she checked both ways when she needed to. She leaped on her husband as soon as she was close enough.
Tabitha smiled and followed at a slower pace.
Robin’s husband was a looker, just like her. With his red hair and green eyes, they made a striking couple. His parents were full-blooded Scottish, but no one could tell it when he spo
ke. Unless his nickname for Robin slipped out.
‘Lass.’
Siiiigggghhhh.
Roland lowered Robin to the ground as Tabitha approached.
“Hey, Roland. Fancy meeting you here.”
“You knew!” Robin accused and hugged her husband again.
“Guilty.”
“I texted her this morning, lass, and told her I’d meet you here. Didn’t want to wait for you to get home. I missed you too bad.”
“Missed you so bad. Oh, my God, and I had to get up at seven o’clock and I cooked spaghetti and meatballs and rutabaga.”
“I have the proof right here.” Tabitha held up the containers and handed them to Roland.
To his credit, he took them, but he did hold them a ways away from his body.
“No, no. It’s actually edible. We’ll have to make pasta for dinner tonight because I might have ruined ours. But the sauce and the side dish are totally edible. We tried them.”
“And you didn’t die yet?”
Robin opened her mouth and huffed out a breath at him. “Nope, but if I’m going down you’re coming with me.” She pulled his face closer to hers and kissed him soundly.
“They’re actually both awesome and she did great,” Tabitha offered as she dug for her keys. “I’m gonna get out of here. I have things to do at home to get ready for tonight.”
“Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do,” Robin told her.
“Well, that leaves a very open playing field.”
“Exactly.”
Tabitha leaned forward and kissed Robin’s cheek, since she knew she wasn’t going to separate from Roland willingly for the next few…days. “Thanks for coming with me, and think about what Logan said. I think you really would like the whole class. You, too, Roland.” She stepped a few spaces back toward her car.
“I’ll think about it. Have fun tonight.”
“I will,” she called over her shoulder and blew Robin a kiss.
It didn’t take her long to get into her vehicle and pull out of her parking spot.
She laughed hysterically as she passed behind Roland’s SUV, and she stopped to take a picture.
Roland’s head could be seen through the back window.
Robin’s? Nowhere to be found.
Tabitha took a picture and texted it to Michael with the caption of ‘Roland’s home’.
A string of laughing emojis came back.
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