We Have Till Monday

“Loud is the default setting in my family,” I admitted. “Gideon, my brother-in-law, thought we fought a lot before Nicky explained to him that we just don’t know how to use our indoor voices.”

King smiled briefly, then tilted his head at me. “Your brother’s also gay?”

“Aye.” I pointed to what he was doing, prepping the vegetables and whatever. “Can I help? Nicky puts me on salad duty when he cooks.”

“Has he no faith in you?”

“None,” I laughed. “You’d be an idiot to trust me with anything of significance.”

Fuck me. The way his eyes changed made it clear that he was up for the challenge.

“Come here, then,” he ordered. “Let me see what I have to work with.”

That wasn’t wise. People were actually going to eat this food in a few hours, and I was more likely to pay attention to his hands and how he sounded when he combined his Southern drawl with that low, commanding voice.

I joined him at his side, and he shifted the cutting board and knife closer to me. He explained that the easiest job came first. A bunch of tomatoes cut in halves that he would throw on the grill later. Even I could manage that.

He found another cutting board for himself and said he’d get started on the onions. They were to be cut in wedges so he could stick them on the skewers with the meat.

I didn’t fuck up with any of the six tomatoes. Go me.

I didn’t screw up with the mushrooms either, because all I had to do was cut off the stem or whatever it was called. The mushrooms would go on the kabobs too.

Next, King placed four big yellow bell peppers and a new beer in front of me.

“The last vegetable for the kabobs,” he said. “You want them cut into bigger chunks. Beer’s for drinkin’.”

I stared at him, waiting for further instructions.

Nothing?

I didn’t fucking know how he defined chunks.

He merely nodded at the board in a silent get to it.

All right. It was his loss.

I did what Nicky had taught me when I made salad at home; I cut around the core and—

“See, that’s a perfect waste of bell pepper,” King noted.

“That’s what you get for not telling me how to do it,” I argued.

He smiled and took over. “I want to see your mistakes before you learn from them.”

“You wanna get a laugh, that’s what you want.”

He chuckled warmly. “Hush, boy. Watch me.”

Boy.

I swallowed hard and felt my stomach clench. I hadn’t been called boy outside my family since I was in my twenties.

“You’ll see tutorials online by people who shouldn’t be allowed to make tutorials,” he told me, grabbing one of the bell peppers. “You need a single cut, nothing more. This? This goes.” He tore off the stem, then sliced the pepper in two halves. “You remove the core like this.” With his hands. “Then you can scrape out the pith with your fingers. My mama used a grapefruit spoon.”

“Pith? That’s the white edges inside?” I was hooked on watching him. His long, experienced fingers disappeared into the peppers and dug out those edges.

“Correct. And there you go. Nothing goes to waste.”

I couldn’t wait to tell my brother he’d been doing this all wrong.

“I already have so much to teach Nicky when I go home.”

King flashed me a grin and handed me the knife. “Each half can be cut into four chunks.”

Finally, good instructions.

“Thanks, Chef.” I took a long sip from my beer, no longer tired, and I was in a great mood. Fuck, this trip was already feeling like a success. And I liked King. He was friendly and funny. I felt like I could banter with him. “I’m a little disappointed I didn’t get my Ghost moment, though.”

I shouldn’t have said that while he was in the middle of drinking. He coughed and quickly turned to the sink where he spat out a mouthful of beer, and then he croaked out a sexy laugh.

“Whatta waste of beer,” I muttered, highly pleased with myself.

“Can New York produce anythin’ other than brats?” King wiped his mouth on a towel and sighed good-naturedly. “Y’all come out lookin’ like bad boys who’re all cocky and rough around the edges, but when push comes to shove, you’re just sweet little shit-stirrers.”

Was he placing me in the same category as Camden? I’d guessed he was from the East Coast already, but he’d lost a lot of his accent. And either way…uh, no. I wasn’t that kind of Little.

“There’s a lot to unpack there.” I went back to my task of cutting up the bell peppers. “I’m not cocky. Rough around the edges—maybe. Shit-stirrer? No. But I am sweeter than sugar.” I side-eyed King and caught his little smile. “I take it Camden’s from New York originally?”

“Indeed, he is.” He nodded. “It’s only an issue when we watch baseball and football. The poor boy wouldn’t know a good team if it smacked him upside the head.”