Dishing Up Love

Usually on the show, Curtis rides shotgun in the person’s car. There’s a cute little getting-to-know-you type scene before they get to their house and start cooking. I guess I’ve thrown a wrench in that plan.

The cameraman speaks up. “Why don’t you walk home with her? I can follow with the camera while everyone else meets us at her place with the cars. That way we still get the footage between the store and the participant’s home,” he suggests.

“Good thinking, Carlos,” the director says, and as I’m giving them my address, a tiny woman wearing a headset attaches a small microphone inside the neck of my tee and then does the same thing to Curtis. Martin and the rest of the crew minus Carlos head to the parking lot, one of them pushing the shopping cart full of our groceries.

I point over my shoulder with a small smile. “It’s just right up here.”

When we hit the sidewalk, Curtis takes hold of my arm and tugs me toward the building so that he’s the one walking next to the street. When I look up at him, he doesn’t seem to realize what he’s done, and I find it ridiculously charming that the chivalrous act was just part of his nature. Say what you will about girl power, feminism, et cetera. I, for one, always thought it was a shame I missed out on the era of gentlemen.

I don’t realize I’ve let out a small chuckle until I feel his eyes on me and he asks, “What’s so funny?” with a little smile on his kissable lips.

“Nothing, really. You’re just… not what I expected you’d be like in real life,” I admit.

“Oh yeah? What did you think I was like?” he questions curiously.

We stop at an intersection and push the button to cross the street. “No offense, but you come off kind of cocky on the show.”

He lifts a brow. “And I don’t in person?”

“Well, sort of. You’re more playful than cocky. And I wouldn’t have thought you to be the kind of guy to take the time and conscious effort to make sure you’re the one walking closest to the street instead of me,” I confess.

He smiles broadly. “My yaya would love to hear you say that.”

“Your yaya?” I prompt.

“My grandmother raised me,” he replies quietly, and oh how I’d love to dig deeper into that, but now doesn’t seem like an appropriate time, with the camera rolling and all.

“She taught you well then,” I say instead, grinning up into his gorgeous blue eyes, and they twinkle back in the setting sun’s light.

“I even open doors and pull out chairs,” he adds, playfully puffing out his chest, and I giggle.

“The opening doors thing is nice, but I never understood the chair thing. Like, when is the lady supposed to sit? Does she sit down after he pulls it out and he has to like, shimmy her forward until her legs are under the table, or like, is it perfectly timed to where he pushes it under her butt just as she’s sitting down? You’d think that could be quite the gamble if the timing was off.” I pooch out my lips in contemplation.

He laughs loudly. “How about I show you once we cook this meal?”

I nod once. “Deal.”

We cross the street, and the sidewalk narrows, his muscular bicep bumping into me as he avoids the many posts along the way. “Sorry.” He reaches out and steadies me. “The balconies of all the buildings are gorgeous, but the sidewalks aren’t quite wide enough to share with guys like me,” he says, looking up at the cover above us.

“Galleries,” I correct absently, hopping over a crack in the cement.

“What?”

I meet his curious face. “A balcony doesn’t have these posts or columns and doesn’t stick out as far from the building. A gallery sticks out about as far as the sidewalk and has these to support them,” I explain, pointing to the iron poles that go from the ground up to the second story.

“Learning has occurred,” he repeats my earlier words with a crooked grin. “What else you got?”

I bite my lip, thinking of some fun facts to tell him about the area. “Well, back in the day, people could tell how wealthy you were by the number of posts you had holding up your gallery.” At his lifted brow, I continue, “They charged a tax for every post you had, since the sidewalk was owned by the city. So if you had enough dough to pay for a shi— crapload of poles, then you obviously had lots of money to blow.” Carlos is so stealthy behind us I totally forgot he was there until my potty mouth almost showed her ugly head.

“Hm! You’re full of cool information. I seriously wanted to take one of those ghost tours while I was here, but I might just ask you to be my tour guide instead,” he says, nudging me gently with his arm, and the contact instantly hardens my nipples to a painful degree. I’d been trying my best to ignore the physical reactions my body was having to his accidental bumps, but this purposeful one cuts through my defenses.