“Yes,” I said with a sharp nod. “I went to the grocery store and got everything we need. I also picked the recipe. It’scoq au vin—chicken braised with wine and vegetables. And we’re doing a chocolate soufflé for dessert.”
A very short description of events that had taken me most of the day. I had agonized over every detail. It needed to be perfect. Doctor De La Cruz deserved nothing less.
Eli snorted. “Sounds great.” He gave me a skeptical look. “Do you know what you’re doing in the kitchen? Aren’t soufflés kind of hard to make?”
I winked at him, then turned to lead the way into my kitchen. It was smaller than I was used to and hopelessly pedestrian, but it would suffice. Over my shoulder I said, “Don’t be silly, Doctor. I’m good at everything I do.”
* * *
Two hours later, I was forced to admit that I wasn’t, in fact, good at everything I did.
It turned out I wasn’t a very good cook. And neither was Eli. Neither of us had a single clue what we were doing.
“I’m not sure it’s supposed to look like that,” I admitted. The soufflé on the table stared back at us accusingly. It had a giant crater in the center. Where it had sunken in was visiblyunderdone, but the edges were darker than they probably ought to have been.
“I think we did it wrong,” Eli confirmed. There was a smear of flour across his cheek. “I don’t think we did thecoq au vinright, either.”
“No,” I agreed, wincing. “It’s entirely possible we didn’t cook any of this correctly.”
The chicken was rubbery, the vegetables had turned to mush, and the sauce tasted like salty water.
I sighed. Well, I wouldn’t be impressing Eli with my culinary skills anytime soon.
“We could still try to eat it?” Eli said hesitantly, eyeing the monstrosity of a dinner we’d whipped up together. He sounded doubtful. “Maybe it won’t be so bad?”
“Definitely not. I invited you over to cook a meal together, not poison you.” I shook my head. “How on earth do people make a living doing this? Cooking is actually rather hard.”
“If it helps, I was at least fifty percent of this disaster,” Eli said with a little laugh. “I’m not exactly what you’d call a good cook, either. I never get a chance to try.” He snorted, glancing down at the table and shaking his head regretfully. “Though maybe that’s for the best.”
“I’m sorry, Doctor,” I said. “I wanted us to make a nice meal together.”
“I mean, we kind of did. Or, well, we made a meal together. And we’ll do it better next time.”
I looked up from the crime scene on the kitchen table and met his eyes. They were sparkling with amusement, and there was a soft smile on his lips.
“Next time?” I asked, feeling a flash of surprise. “You’d like to repeat this crime against humanity?”
“Sure. We might have gotten it wrong, but it was fun cooking with you.” Then Eli grinned at me, his eyes crinkling at the edges. “But for tonight, let’s order a pizza.”
And so we did.
We ordered a pizza and, while we waited for it to arrive, we disposed of the evidence. Eli solemnly told me no one would ever need to know what we’d done. “After all,” he said, dumping the soufflé into the trash, “no body, no crime.”
My kind of human.
We ate together, and I wasn’t quite sure what we talked about, because we talked about everything and nothing. We teased each other about the monstrosity of a meal we’d created. We discussed his work. I peppered him with more questions. It was… nice. Oddly domestic, but not in a bad way.
After dinner, Eli’s eyes widened with surprise when I turned on the movie.
“Evil Under the Sun?”
I nodded.
“It’s an Agatha Christie movie,” Eli said slowly. “From the nineteen-seventies.”
“Yes,” I said, patting the couch next to me. “I’ve never seen it, though I rather like Agatha Christie.”
“Me too,” Eli said warily, coming to sit down beside me.
