Through the Lens

by K. K. Allen

  When Gretta showed up, she was always great about checking on all the students throughout class. If they needed refills on their beverages, then she was right there. If they had questions for me and I was too busy to get to them right away, she would take notes and deliver them to me. And she did her best to cheer on my students as they worked hard through class. I can see why Maggie wouldn’t be comfortable with some of the above, seeing that it’s her first day, so I quickly conjure up something else to help her at least look busy.

  “Hey, Maggie,” I call out while everyone’s distracted with my latest set of instructions.

  Her eyes snap up, her posture straightens, and her eyes widen. “Yeah?”

  That’s all she says. Not “How can I help you?” or “Hey, Desmond.” But “Yeah?” Like I just bothered her by calling out her name.

  I stifle a laugh and catch the amused expression on Faye’s face at the exchange.

  “Can you help me out with something?”

  Maggie narrows her eyes as she slowly slides off her stool and walks the perimeter of the room to get to me. It doesn’t faze me that she’s taking her precious time. But as she’s walking, it’s easy to latch on to the fact that the woman knows how to strut on a runway. She’s a natural, commanding the room with her confidence and her laid-back hip swing. With effortless bouncing hair and a crossover leg technique that I have a newfound appreciation for, I can’t help but wonder what brought her here. Why would a woman with such a unique talent come to live with her sister in Bellevue only to end up unhappy and alone in Seattle?

  I’ve already promised myself that I won’t dig deeper into Maggie’s past while we’re at work. She gets so heated when I ask her questions, if not because I’m subconsciously being an insensitive ass, then because something about the wrong subject triggers memories of her father. If Maggie and I have any hope of playing nice together, then I’ll need to try to steer clear of certain subjects. Outside of work, I can’t make the same promises.

  She’s nearing my cooking station when she peers down at the pan of gravy I’m stirring and narrows her eyes at it. “I’m here to help.” Then she points at the pan. “But not with that.”

  I chuckle and move to the side so she can take my spot. Then I hand her the spoon. “I just need you to stir it slowly while I make some rounds and check on everyone.”

  “Nope.” She pops her lips and gives me a fake smile. “Not here to cook, remember?”

  Annoyance builds quickly in my chest. “I’m not asking you to cook,” I say, keeping my voice low. “I’m not even asking you to pluck the feathers off a turkey. Just stir the damn gravy like this.” I stick the spoon in my left hand and start to stir while taking her hand in my right one. She doesn’t resist my touch, so I bring her hand up and wrap it around mine so she’s stirring with me.

  When she continues to stir without complaint, I ease myself backward to give her space so she can move closer to the stove. She slides in front of me, causing me to tense up when her ass glides against the front of my jeans. Clearly, I miscalculated the space between where she would stand and the stove.

  She doesn’t seem to notice, so I pull away slightly to give my entirely too eager cock some distance. It’s been months since I last felt the depths of a woman in that way. Surely the mere presence of a woman is making him react, not the fact that the woman is Maggie.

  I look down to find the sauce already thickening nicely. “That’s it,” I say to her. “Slow and steady wins the race.”

  I’m still trying to forget about my unintentional dry spell when Maggie turns to look at me over her shoulder then bats her lashes down and back up like she’s checking me out. Or maybe that’s just my imagination because when the slits of her lids lock on mine, her eyes are screaming murder.

  “Think you can give me some space there, Chef? It’s getting a little hard to stir my gravy, if you know what I mean.” She winks, and I feel my face catch fire with her words.

  Shit. Now I know what she was looking for with her quick glance down. She saw it. The strain against my jeans was clearly all for her.

  “Can I trust you to keep it at that pace?”

  She nods without turning around again. “Of course, boss. I won’t stop until you say the word.”

  I smirk, unable to help the flirtation that wants to combat her every breath. “I prefer it when you call me Chef.”

  With a pop of her hip she nudges me away. I chuckle and turn around to see Faye’s gaze locked on us both. Then she catches my stare and raises her brows in some secret question I wish I could ignore. Something is on her mind, and I’m sure I’ll be hearing about it later. Why do I feel like that something has to do with my hot new assistant?

  I just shake my head to tell Faye that whatever she’s thinking is wrong, but when Faye looks back at Maggie with a deep look of concentration on her face, I start to worry. Maggie clearly lacks professionalism, which doesn’t bode well for landing a huge opportunity like the one Faye wants to pitch to her producers. Maybe Faye is turned off by the fact that I could hire someone so desperately challenged in the kitchen. Feelings of fear, anger, and doubt swirl through me. I swear, if Maggie messes this opportunity up for me…

  Pushing away the internal battle in my head, I make my rounds to chat with the students before coming back to check on Maggie at the main stove. She hasn’t altered her movements a bit, which earns a sigh of relief. I turn the heat down and point at the stove.

  “Have you ever basted a turkey?”

  She shakes her head and folds her arms across her chest. “No, and I have no desire to learn how.”

  “That’s too bad because I’m going to teach you.”

  “What? No. I don’t know what you’re about to ask me to do, but that sounds like it’s crossing the line.”

  I slip on an oven mitt, open the door, slide out the rack a couple inches. Then I pull out the turkey and set it on the island. After shutting the door, I turn to her with a serious face. I’ve gone easy on her today, but I don’t want her to lose sight of why she’s here. “There’s no line. The only arrangement we made was that you would get a break on rent in exchange for taking Gretta’s place as my assistant. Gretta never argued with anything I asked her to do.”

  Maggie laughs. “Really? So then where is she now?”

  I glare. “Are we going to have this argument every time I ask you to help me? I don’t want to bicker with you in the middle of class.”

  “Fine,” she groans. “Just tell me what to do.”

  If only Maggie knew that training her is just as hard for me as it is for her. Here I am trying to do everyone a favor, yet every time I’m with her, I feel like I’m the bad guy.

  “Okay, everyone,” I call out as I look up to face the class. “Your turkeys should be at just the right point to slip them out of the oven and baste them. If you haven’t done this before, I’m going to let Maggie demonstrate. Fun fact, she’s never done this before either.” I grin at the students, who find humor in this fact. “This should be fun to watch.”

  Maggie shoots me an ice-cold stare before taking the baster in her hand like she wants to stab me with it.

  “First, you’ll want to suck up that liquid at the bottom of the pan with the bulb. Just squeeze the top to close off the air, plunge it into the pan, and let go. Let’s see how Maggie does it.”

  Something pointy hits my nostril, and the next thing I know, it feels like something is sucking air from inside my nose. “What the…” I jump back to find Maggie doubled over. The entire class erupts with laughter along with her. She did not just try to stick that bulb up my nose. The bulb is still in her hands as she tries to contain her laughter while tears stream from her eyes.

  “Did you just try to stick that in my nose?”

  Another burst of laughter comes from the classroom and Maggie, until it’s all too infectious to not join in. When my own amusement dies, I rip the bulb from her hand and toss it in the trash. After grabbing a fresh one from the drawer, I st
and behind Maggie and place the bulb in her hand.

  “Let’s try this again, shall we?” Then I look down and lean into Maggie’s ear. “Since you’re incapable of doing this yourself, I’m forced to help you.” I take her right hand with mine and wrap it around the bulb, then I place my hand around hers and look back up at the class. “Now fill up the syringe and release the liquid over your turkey. You’ll want to coat it generously and evenly.”

  When Maggie still doesn’t move, I push her hand down until the suction opening dips into the liquid mixture of chicken stock and fresh seasoning.

  “Just like that. Don’t be shy with how much you use.”

  As I’m pushing Maggie’s hand toward the liquid again, she turns her head toward me and squeezes her eyes closed.

  I chuckle at her expression. “What are you doing?”

  Maggie peels an eye open to watch me just as she releases her grip on the bulb. “I can’t stand that slurping sound.”

  “I hate to break this to you, but looking away won’t help your problem. Maybe you should start bringing earmuffs to work.”

  She narrows her eyes again. “And maybe you should bring a better personality.”

  This time, laughter comes from the one person I didn’t expect. Faye has her head tossed back, and she’s laughing way too hard.

  Ugh. Arguing with Maggie is a huge waste of time. I snatch the baster from her hands and shoo her to the side. She doesn’t go far as she watches me cover the turkey in hot liquid.

  “When you’re done,” I say loudly to the class, “go ahead and slip it back into the oven for another ten minutes. You just want to keep the moisture in, but we want to be careful so we don’t overcook it. No one wants to eat dry turkey.”

  I continue to talk through the side-dish recipes while ignoring Maggie’s persistent glares. I don’t ask her to do another thing until it comes time to slice the turkey.

  “Slicing turkey is an art. You want the best cuts without shredding your poor meat to smithereens, so pay attention.”

  I come up behind Maggie, who stiffens a little while I chuckle. I wrap my hand around hers to demonstrate to the class both the good and bad ways to hold their knives.

  “Relax,” I tell her so only she can hear. “You don’t need such a strong grip. Let the knife do the work, not you.”

  “I can’t relax when you’re on top of me like that.”

  “Do you want me to move?” I ask before biting my lip. “Can you do this on your own?”

  She looks up at the students, who are waiting for my instructions, and sighs. “Just do what you need to do. I’ll disinfect myself later.”

  I’m chuckling again when my gaze lifts to Faye, whose eyes are still trained on us. At this point, I don’t know what thoughts are floating through her mind, but I’m not sure if I want to find out after class.

  My arms are completely around Maggie’s body now. I grip her hand that is holding the knife and use my other hand to steady the pan. I demonstrate to the class and Maggie how to properly cut through the meat and gently lay it on a serving dish.

  While the class starts to taste-test their dishes, I plate a dish using the food I prepared and set it on the island to snap a few pictures.

  “What are you doing?” Maggie asks as I adjust the plate and add pieces of garnish to frame the food.

  “Taking photos for the website.”

  Her eyes float around the room like she’s just made a connection. “Did you take all of these photos?”

  “I did. But some of them are kind of old now. It’s probably time to replace them.”

  In large frames around the room are lifestyle photos of my food and kitchen, but some were taken years ago.

  “They’re beautiful.” Maggie’s eyes are locked on the one to the left of the kitchen. It’s probably my favorite of the bunch if I had to pick. Everything about the photo is my idea of perfection: depth of focus, lighting, focal point, and ingredients.

  I remember taking the photo in one shot. It was just a lucky moment. All the stars aligned—the setting, the aperture, and the balance were perfect. I don’t consider baking my specialty, but I’m still good at it, and this photo is of one of my favorite desserts. It’s a fresh berry strudel, a puff pastry folded over and filled with a fresh cream-and-berry mix. The dish itself looks mouthwatering, which it is, but the element of the photo that catches everyone’s eye is the powdered sugar falling from the handheld sifter above it. Isolating small elements like the sugar and flour is one of the more difficult photography challenges I’ve ever given myself, but with the perfect shutter speed and aperture combined to control the amount of light reaching the camera, the photo turned out better than I ever could have planned.

  “Thank you,” I tell her while continuing to snap more photos of the dish from today’s class. “Can you start handing out the to-go containers?” I nod behind me toward the back counter where the plastic boxes sit.

  I put my camera away and clap my hands. “I hope you learned a thing or two today. Enjoy those dinners tonight. Maggie is walking around with your to-go containers. Feel free to use as many as you need, and I’ll see you all back here next Saturday.”

  “Thank you, Desmond,” answer a few of my students.

  I smile and start to clean up my main station, knowing Faye will require my attention as soon as class empties out. I’d almost forgotten there was a camera man with her until I see him packing away his video equipment.

  I walk over to Faye. “Do you still want to talk logistics?” I nod my head toward the table we chatted at the last time she was here. “We can chat here if you don’t have your heart set on going to the bar.”

  She stands from the island and pulls her purse around her shoulders. “I think I’d rather meet downstairs. Come when you’re done.” Her eyes dart to Maggie and then back to me. “Bring the little minx too.” Then she struts out of class before the first student leaves.

  Bring the little minx too. Faye’s statement initially confuses me, and then that confusion morphs into worry. I replay the way Faye was staring at Maggie and me while we worked together in the kitchen, and I’m not sure I want to know what she was cooking up in that brain of hers. I intend to find out, but there’s no way Maggie is coming with me.

  “Hey, Maggie,” I call out when the last student leaves. “Finish wiping down the stations, and then you can lock up.” I toss her a key to the front door.

  She watches as I walk past her. “Where are you going?”

  “Business meeting. Don’t wait up.” I shut the door behind me without another glance or word.

  13

  Perfect Pitch

  Desmond

  “So what’s the deal with your new assistant? Maggie, right?”

  I’m barely sitting before Faye asks the cringeworthy question. I’m not sure how to answer her at first, especially since so much is on the line. The last thing I need is for Faye to get the wrong idea about Maggie and then change her mind about me and the show. I’m determined to make this happen.

  “There’s no deal. Maggie’s temporary and completely impossible to train.”

  “She’s a feisty one, that girl. I like her.”

  Surely she’s fucking with me. “You like Maggie? Why?”

  Faye chuckles. “You two are hilarious together. The energy in that kitchen was so hot today. Tell me you felt that—the chemistry.”

  I squint to get a better look at the woman who has offered herself to me more times than I can count. When she stopped by the kitchen last month, I managed to see her to the door after dishing her up some leftovers from my lobster ravioli class. She’d wanted to stay. But I made a commitment to my dreams and I wasn’t about to sacrifice them by continuing to dabble in the pleasure of it all.

  Now it’s my turn to chuckle because Faye must already be drunk. “That wasn’t chemistry you witnessed. That was Maggie and I expressing our intense dislike for one another.”

  Faye bites her bottom lip and shakes her head. “Not
buying it. And before you lie to me again, I minored in psychology. I know a bullshitter when I see one.”

  I grab hold of the beer the bartender just slid in front of me and take a swig, slamming my lids together as I do. If I could only drown out the noise that has come into my life ever since Maggie Stevens appeared in it. I can’t seem to get rid of her, whether I’m physically near her or not.

  I set down my beer and level my gaze at Faye. “Like I said, Maggie is a friend of a friend. She needed a job, and I needed someone to fill in while I find someone more permanent. Trust me when I tell you she’s temporary. As soon as she gets back on her feet, she’ll be out of there, and I’ll have someone more experienced.”

  Faye doesn’t seem to be listening to what I’m saying. She looks to be on another train of thought completely. “Where did she come from? How do you know her?” Faye has a faraway look in her eyes that makes me squint to make sure I’m not losing my mind.

  “Why?”

  “Something about her just seems familiar.”

  “Familiar how?”

  Faye shrugs. “I swear I’ve seen her before, but I can’t place it.”

  “She’s from Texas. We grew up in the same town, but I didn’t know her then. Her dad was my football coach, and now her sister is dating Zach.”

  Faye’s face twists as she tries to connect all the dots. “Sounds a bit—”

  “Complicated?” I answer for her. “It is, and it isn’t. But why are you so curious about her?”

  Faye shakes her head like she’s trying to clear her thoughts. “Remember that hook I was looking for? Well, I think I figured it out. It’s something we haven’t talked about yet, and I can’t let go of it. What I saw up there today truly inspired me.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “What if we bring on a cohost? Someone who you could exchange conversation with, kind of like how you and Maggie were today? You mentioned how you didn’t want to talk directly to a camera. This solves that problem. Plus, it’s funny, catchy, sexy—perfect for the demo we’re aiming to please.”