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“No—no, you haven’t upset me. It’s perfect. I just thought…” She hesitated.
“You thought what, honey?”
“After all the awkwardness, I thought maybe we weren’t as good friends anymore. It’s been sort of strained between us.”
Ya think?He’d noticed but he was trying to power through. Making it work if it killed him.
“Jules, we’re going to have our good days and our bad days but I’m never going to stop being your friend. You’re my best girl.”
He pulled away but she held on tight, whispering, “Not done here.”
He chuckled against her temple and let the moment take him somewhere wonderful.
She peeked up and his breath trapped in his lungs at those ethereal green eyes beseeching him. “So, Teach, could I ask a favor while you’re feeling all educational?”
“Anything,” he breathed, and he meant it. He would give her anything, do anything to make her happy.
Withdrawing from his embrace, she lolled against the counter, her finger tracing a line along the stainless steel edge. “I was going to ask Derry for some tips but he ran out of here.”
His body tensed again at the mention of Derry’s name. “What kind of tips?” She picked up an onion from a wire basket on the counter and threw it in the air, catching it easily as it fell. “I wanted to learn how to chop vegetables more quickly. Slice ’n dice.”
Panic threaded up from his gut, but he forced it back down his rapidly tightening throat.
It’s only an onion,cretino. “I could probably do that.”
Eighteen
For an awkward moment, she thought she’d made a mistake. Tad looked put out to say the least, but then he reached for something deep inside and his expression smoothed.
“Okay, let’s get started,” he said with not a trace of his former hesitation. “First, we need the right music.” He punched up a song on the iPod in the corner and the melodic strains of “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” flooded the kitchen. Tad’s favorite band was the Beatles, about the only thing he had in common with her brother.
“So today,” he said, “we’re going to learn not only how to chop an onion but how to do it without turning into a blubbery mess.”
“Cute,” she said, nodding at the iPod as the significance of his song choice dawned on her. “But not possible. I’ve heard all the tricks. Refrigeration, using a fan, onion goggles. Nothing works.”
He looked smug. “I’ve got the no fail way.”
“Get someone else to do it?”
“Other than that. Here, watch.”
With a quick slice, he peeled the onionskin away before she had a chance to see how he did it. Bet he was as quick shucking the clothes of one of his dates.
Holding the shiny white ball aloft, he said, “You leave the root and shoot on. The root is where the tear-making enzymes are located so as long as you don’t cut it off and make it bleed, there should be no tears. Capische?”
She nodded.
“Now for the knife. You need to be comfortable holding it, letting the weight do the work. Be one with the knife. We slice it in half”—he halved the onion through the root— “and then we arrange our fingers like so.” On the onion’s curve, he rested his fingers spaced in a triangle, the middle one in front, the other two behind. He ran his knife along the first knuckle of his middle finger. “Use this knuckle to guide the knife along the onion’s flesh.”
Flesh.There was something very erotic about that word, or perhaps the lips that formed it. Yes, definitely the lips that formed it. Her body tingled in memory of how marvelous it felt to be held in his arms.
Like a good chef who was respectful of dangerous equipment, Tad kept his eye on the knife as he started to slice through, getting as close to the root as possible without cutting into it and releasing those testy enzymes. Her gaze ping-ponged between his focused concentration and his quick-moving hands. Lips, hands, so versatile and skilled. Good thing she wasn’t holding a knife because she probably would have lost several fingers by now in her distracted state.
Turning the onion, he placed two careful horizontal slices through the flesh, then pivoted again and gripped it before launching into the dicing part. So smooth and easy, the knife edged up along his quick-moving knuckle like it was part of his arm. She had never seen anyone so gifted, not even Jack.
“Use the weight of the blade,” he murmured, almost to himself. “Then we chop around the root and voila, a diced onion…senza più lacrime.” Finally, he looked up at her, and for the briefest second he looked surprised to see her. He had gone away for a moment.
“Senza…?”
