I scrolled through the videos. There were dozens of them. In the thumbnails, he was always shirtless, always cooking something different. I opened one but didn’t turn on the sound, just scrolled through the comments.
“OMG he’s so hawt!!!”
“Who cares about the recipe, I’m here for the view!”
“I’d let him cook for me ANY DAY!”
“I wish he’d be a pantsless chef too!!”
A few people commented on the actual recipe or asked questions about technique. But most of the commenters were thirsting after him.
My stomach twisted. All these women fawning over him. Saying explicit things about what they’d like to do with him—or what they’d like him to do to them. And I’d had no idea.
I kept scrolling, trying to process this, when I realized it had gone quiet, and I looked up.
Asher was standing five feet away, watching me. He’d stopped recording, and there was something a little sad in his expression. “I guess I don’t have to worry about Kai revealing my secret anymore.”
I stared at him, trying to gather my racing thoughts. “Why? Why do you make these videos?” I couldn’t think of any reason that made sense. Well, except for one.
I didn’t think he was going to answer me, but after a long pause, he said, “It’s a long story.”
“Can you tell me?”
He thought for a moment, then nodded. “Some of it.” He led me out to the dining room. We chose a round table and sat down, leaving one chair between us so we could see each other better.
I couldn’t think of where to begin. “How long have you been doing this?” I finally asked.
“A couple of years.”
“Your followers…” I gestured at my phone, still open to the comment section. All those women. All those compliments. All those adoring women who sounded like they wanted to climb through the screen and throw themselves at him.
“It’ll probably cross over a million next month.”
“They’re, um, pretty vocal about singing your praises. The women, anyway.”
He shrugged. “Goes with the territory of being an online influencer.”
“I just don’t understand why you do it.”
But maybe I did. Maybe he loved the praise. Loved being the object of their desire. My eyes kept drifting to his chest, his abs. The overhead lights cast shadows across his taut, tan skin.
Finally, I gestured to his bare torso. “Could you put on a shirt? I can’t think when you look like that.”
Wordlessly, he went back into the kitchen. When he came out, he was buttoning up his white chef’s jacket. Hard to believe he’d done all that without a singlesmirk or sarcastic comment.
“Better?” he asked.
I looked at him for a moment, then shook my head, a rueful smile settling on my lips. “No. You still look hot.” No sense denying that—he knew it, and apparently, so did a million other people.
He chuckled a little at the irritation in my voice. But his brief smile didn’t reach his eyes.
Then he leaned back in his chair. “I started at the end of my first year at Langley. I was frustrated with how traditional the cooking classes were. How the professors thought there was only one way to do things—like if you didn’t study in Paris, you’d never be a real chef.”
He ran a hand through his hair, making it stick up. “So I started making cooking demonstrations. My goal was to make it accessible. So ordinary people could follow the steps and learn to make something decent. But I wasn’t getting any views. I was spending more money on ingredients and camera equipment and lights than I was making back.”
“What changed?”
“I was on a video call with Kai and Landon, talking about it. Landon said that even though this wasn’t his area of expertise, it seemed like a lot of influencers had some kind of gimmick. Something that made them different, and made people want to watch.”
