Chapter 7: Wes
THEN
The penthouse smells like garlic. This time it's his.
Berger is at the stove with his sleeves pushed to his elbows, working a pan of shrimp with more confidence than three weeks of watching me cook should have given him. He found the recipe on his phone twenty minutes ago. He didn't ask if he could use the kitchen. He just started, opening cabinets he's memorized, reaching for the olive oil on the shelf where I keep it, pushing the burner knob left first because he knows it sticks.
"Your heat is too low," I say from the counter.
"My heat is fine."
"Your heat is a six."
"My heat is an eight and the shrimp will prove it." He tilts the pan and adjusts the flame a quarter-turn without looking at the knob.
"You adjusted."
"I refined. Refinement is not the same as correction."
"It is when the garlic was about to burn."
"The garlic was nowhere near burning. The garlic was at the edge of caramelization, which is exactly where it should be." He glances at me over his shoulder. "You taught me that."
I did teach him that. Last week, standing behind him at this stove, reaching past his shoulder to move the pan off the hot spot. My hand on the handle next to his. I have been teaching him things in this kitchen and every lesson puts us closer together and I have not stopped giving them.
"Another minute," I say.
"Thirty seconds." He pulls the pan off the heat. The shrimp are curled and pink and the garlic is golden. He plates two servings, reaches into the drawer where I keep the good forks, and carries both to the table.
We eat. He gives the shrimp a seven-six. I give it a seven-eight.
"Seven-eight is generous," he says.
"The garlic was right."
"You said the garlic was about to burn."
"It was about to burn. Then it didn't. The recovery is worth two-tenths."
"You are a very difficult man to cook for. Micromanaging me in the kitchen."
"You're the one who started cooking without asking."
"I didn't need to ask. I live here." He says it fast, part of the rhythm, and then catches it half a second later. He doesn't take it back, just moves past it the way he moves past everything, with forward motion. "If I had a bigger pan, the sear would have been consistent."
"You're blaming my equipment."
"I'm identifying a variable. There's a difference."
The T-shirt he's wearing is mine. He pulled it from the laundry this morning without saying anything about it. The cotton sits loose on his shoulders where it would be tight on mine. He is sitting at my table in my clothes arguing about pan sizes, and I have been saying the same sentence to myself every morning since his door started opening before my alarm. He is twenty-two and he plays on my team. The sentence used to land heavy, but not as much this week.
He opens the spreadsheet on his phone and types the entry. "Seven-six, seven-eight, averaged seven-seven. Notes?"
"Berger cooked. First attempt. Garlic controversial."
"Garlic was not controversial. Garlic was perfect." He types without looking up. The grin is there, quick and certain, the one he runs when the bit is working and he knows his audience is with him. "I'm putting 'garlic: excellent' in the notes."
He sets his phone down and finishes his plate. "Have you been to the place on Brickell yet? The one with the croquetas."
