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Levi
The day of the engagement party, Levi was grateful for the trial run it provided when he was in the middle of making frantic notes about ways they would need to seriously streamline service the day of the wedding to make their kitchen, built to serve a twenty-five-room inn, feed a massive party. He was walking servers through how he needed them to schedule running trays back and forth between the food booths on the lawn when the bride flagged him down. He immediately put on his Interacting With Guests persona, a whole character he’d built that he could slip into so he didn’t have to leave his soft or his pointy edges visible to the public.
“Chef Matthews! I’m so thrilled you ended up being available for this. The menu is beyond anything I could have imagined. You’re a genius.” She threw her arms around him, and he tried not to tense. Why did strangers always want to hug him?
“Hannah is a genius. I’m a guy who can cook.” He extricated himself and mentally smoothed out his wrinkles, since it would be rude to actually brush himself off. “I’m gratified that you asked me to be a part of your big day. Or big days, rather.”
“Yeah, politicians’ kids don’t really get to do small low-key weddings. Part of the package. I personally wanted aFlight of the Fordhamwedding, but the gov said veto.” She rolled her eyes, but her tone when she talked about her dad was loving.
“Wait, you’re FlightCrew?!” Levi asked, distracted from his fake public persona. “Who do you ship?”
Flight of the Fordhamwas a cult favorite space opera. Now in its thirteenth season,Fordhamhad a massive, devoted, intense group of fans. Many of those fans watched in large part to follow the relationship arc of Captain Singh and his first mate, Jax Jordan. Unlike many of its brethren shows,Flight of the Fordhamhad not merely teased the possibility of a gay love story between its leads but had actually delivered. The characters had fallen in love, gotten married, and neither of them had died. As a result, their fans would follow them to the ends of the earth, and those fans included Levi.
Levi was not embarrassed to be as rabid a member of the FlightCrew as anyone on the internet, or to have read more hours of CapJax fanfic than he could track. There was nothing to be embarrassed about because fandom was awesome, and AO3 had gotten him through some dark times in the past few years.
He just didn’t usually talk about it with guests. Or anyone.
“Obviously CapJax. I’m not a monster.” Delilah laughed.
He leaned in and whispered, “Please email me your favorite fic links as soon as we’re out of this party.”
“Oh my gosh, we have to do a FordhamWing salute for my Stories. It will be legendary.” She pulled out her phone, and he dutifully posed with her.
“You know,” Delilah said after, “you come off very suave and grouchy on TV, but you’re kind of a ball of geeky anxious energy wrapped up in scarves and eyeliner in real life.”
“You noticed that, did you?” He smiled. “I’m genuinely very grouchy, but suave, never.”
“Like recognizes like, my friend,” she said. He suddenly felt much better about this event. It was so much easier to cook food for people you didn’t hate.
“I need to get back in the kitchen to make sure everything is rolling out on schedule,” he said, shaking her hand, “but you should try the scallion pancake tacos with pickled carrots and cilantro oil. You’re going to be very into them.”
“I am going to do that right now,” she promised, and he pumped his fist a little. He was used to planning menus based on hypothetical customers that were eaten by people he rarely spoke to. Executing large-scale service for events was stressful, but really getting to know the client, building a menu around their tastes, was fulfilling.
He suspected that when she was satisfied everything was rolling smoothly outside, Hannah would be by the kitchen to check on him. She had probably scheduled her party rounds to within the half minute, to make sure she circulated to every server, touched base with both the bride’s and groom’sparents, and got several candid shots of everyone for social media (they had a photographer working, but Levi knew Hannah wouldn’t trust them to get everything exactly the way she wanted it).
As sure as the tides, out swept a round of German-inspired cocktails and in swept his wife. She was wearing a yellow sundress with tiny blue roses, a crown of pink roses in her hair. She looked like a very sexy cupcake, all round stomach and soft arms. He wanted to unwrap her and lick her.
“It’s too cold out there for that dress,” he groused at her, because he was annoyed that she was so cute.
She nodded at him emphatically. “Whatever asshole let these people talk me into planning an outdoor event on the first of May is fired.”
“You’re firing yourself?” he asked, handing her an extra scallion pancake, because he knew she hadn’t stopped to eat in several hours. She shoved it in her mouth and reached out her hand for something else. He handed her a mushroom tart.
“These are actually great,” she said, as if she hadn’t haggled with him over the recipes for hours and tried every test batch. “How are things going in here? Any unforeseen problems?”
“I mean, there are always unforeseen problems, but nothing I can’t take care of. It turns out I am trained to run a kitchen,” he reminded her. “I’m keeping a list of things we can tweak to run better next time, so when we debrief, we’ll already have it.”
“So hot, so smart,” she said, distracted by looking down at the next thing on her list. “Why hasn’t some nice Jewish girl swept you up and married you?”
“She has,” he said pointedly.
“I walked into that one,” she admitted. “Can Nafil take lead for a bit in about twenty minutes?”
When Levi had finally called him, Nafil had jumped at the opportunity to work together again. He’d called Levi every curse word Levi had ever heard for going off the grid, but he’d shown up this morning ready to seamlessly integrate into the kitchen. Levi trusted Nafil with his life, and also his knives, which was kind of the same thing.
“Nafil can take lead in any kitchen in the world, but I can’t leave mine right now. You wanted me to run this event. I need to run it my way.” He barked an order at a passing server.
“And I am the event coordinator, and I need you to circulate amongst the guests, who are asking about you.Australia’s Next Star Chefis going viral and people are very interested in you,” Hannah said.
