“I’d love an omelet. Thanks, Monk,” Ava answered.
“DAMN, YOU’RE A GOOD COOK,” Razor said, rubbing his belly when he finished eating.
“Chef.”
“Oh, sorry. Maybe we should start calling you that instead.”
“Chef Monk is fine with me.”
“So, Monk. Are you single?” asked Ava.
“Excuse me?”
“You know…not married, not dating anyone.”
Monk looked at Razor and then back at Ava.
“Yeah. Single.”
“Are you gonna ask him anything else, or just leave him hangin’?” Razor asked.
“I wasn’t sure I should.”
“My sister has the hots for you, Monk. Beware, though. She comes with two of the sweetest little girls on the face of the earth.”
Monk nodded, but didn’t say anything. A minute later, he stood and went into the kitchen.
“Hey, you cooked; I’ll clean up,” Razor shouted over to him when he started rinsing the dishes.
“I got it,” he answered. “Your sister. Was she the one here earlier?”
“Yep.”
“She’s pretty.”
“My mom’s gotta be champing at the bit to have us over for dinner. We’ll get Saylor to bring the girls, and we’ll bring Monk along with us.”
“Saylor? That’s her name?”
Razor nodded.
“Cool name,” said Monk before he turned back to the dishes.
“I can help,” Ava offered, joining him near the sink.
“I like doing dishes. It relaxes me.”
“You should invite your sister back over now,” Ava said to Razor. “A man who cooks the way Monk does who also likes doing dishes? She should grab him before someone else does.”
MONK DIDN’T SEE where Razor and Ava went when they left the room, and he didn’t care. He was happy to be alone. He wasn’t lying when he said doing dishes relaxed him. Cooking did too, as long as it wasn’t a job, like it had been when he went undercover as a chef.
That mission had been to take down a Boston crime syndicate, and it had taken almost a year for his team to gather the evidence to do it. Monk had worked as a private chef for the ringleader. He lost count of how many times he’d wanted to poison the bastard while the investigation was taking place.
Eventually, they nailed him, he turned state’s evidence, and they took down a whole helluva lot more of the bad guys.
After he finished the dishes and cleaned up the rest of the kitchen, Monk poured himself a glass of the cognac he found in one of the kitchen cupboards. He went outside, watched the sun go down over the Pacific Ocean, and thought about Razor’s pretty sister.
“AVA and I are going for a run,” Razor told Monk the next morning.