“You literally said, ‘Mayo is a miracle of cooperation and stubbornness. Like any good relationship.’”
I pause. “Okay, yeah, I did say that.”
She grins.
I rub my neck, suddenly weirdly shy. “I just want it to feel… honest. You know? Like it’s about more than just technique. The best food I’ve ever made wasn’t about the exact grams or temps. It was because someone I cared about was gonna eat it. That’s the part I don’t wanna lose.”
Annie’s hands still on the keyboard. “Then don’t.”
I glance over. Her expression’s open, serious in a way that pulls at my insides.
“You know,” she says, “I’ve read a lot of cookbooks as research after getting this project. And I’ve never once read one that made me feel like I understood the person writing it. But this one? This is gonna be a book about love. About food. And how they’re the same thing. With a little porn sprinkled in.”
“There is definitely porn sprinkled in,” I say, shaking my head. “It’s an offshoot of my porn channel, Annie.”
“I know,” she says. “But it’s also about chemistry. Literal and figurative. You and food. You and people. You and—” she stops herself and clears her throat. “Anyway. I just want to get it right.”
“You will,” I say, because I know this to be true. “I mean it. All the poetic shit you been sayin’ this whole trip, that’s what I want our cookbook to be.”
She hums. Then finally, “Yours.”
“What?”
“It’s your cookbook.”
I furiously shake my head. “Hell nah. It’s ours. Our cookbook. And your name’s gonna be on it and everything. Annie ‘The Best Writer Ever’ Li.”
“That’s not how contracts work, Nico.”
“Contracts are meant to be broken.”
“Again, not how contracts work, Nico.”
Fuck that. I start messing around with the digital screen on the dashboard, scrolling through contacts, while Annie mutters, “The two of us have got to be Hawk’s worst fucking nightmare.” I find who I’m looking for and pressCall.
“Hey, big guy.” My agent Kate’s voice echoes through the speakers of the car.
Annie’s little body tenses next to me. “Big guy,” she murmurs.
I slant a look at her and radiate joy. My Annie Li is jealous, and it sends driving pulses of pleasure through my veins. It makes me feel… wanted.
“It’s not like that,” I whisper, and she settles immediately.
“Kate, is it in the contract with Hawk Publishing that the ghostwriter of the cookbook’s gotta stay anonymous?”
A pause. “What?”
“Can I add the ghostwriter’s real name as the author of the book?”
Another pause. “Why?”
“Because I want her to be.” I glance over at Annie, who is uncharacteristically quiet. “Because she deserves to be.” I squeeze her knee.
“I don’t know, Nico. I’d have to look through the contract.”
“Could you do that for me, honey?”
Annie’s body tenses again, but Kate’s mumbling something that sounds suspiciously like “the confidence of cis-het white men,” and Annie smothers a grin.
