“I’ll look, Nico. Is that it?”
“Yeah. Let me know, Kate. Later.”
“Later.”
Turns out Annie is even more beautiful surrounded by shellfish carcasses. Like some sort of devastatingly beautiful Disney villain of sea crustaceans. It’s a marvel to watch her deftly navigate the peeling of crawfish, even more so when she sucks the juice out of their heads like it’s a sacred maritime ritual passed down from Poseidon himself.
“What?” she frowns, a single rogue antenna caught on her wrist.
“You’re so hot,” I tell her.
She rolls her eyes but the tips of her lips twitch. She plucks a potato from the tray, blows on it, then pops it in her mouth with a satisfied hum. “Tell me about the science of a low country boil,” she says, licking Old Bay from her thumb.
My brain short circuits remembering the feeling of her mouth wrapped around my dick. Hot, warm, silky heaven. I wonder what her pussy will feel like. Probably?—
“—Nico.”
I blink. “Yes.”
She squints. “You have no idea what I just asked.”
“Yesto anything and everything you ever ask of me for the rest of our lives,” I blurt out, and did I just fuckin’ go there? What in the actual fuck is happening to me? Jesus fuckin’ Christ.
Annie has that scared baby rabbit look in her eyes again.
Oh god, you fuckin’ ridiculous asshole.
“Sorry,” I half-shout, waving my hands around like a lunatic.Dial it down you fuckin’ weirdo.“That was weird. I didn’t mean?—”
“Obviously not,” she says, eyes still huge, shaking her head up and down, then side to side in a daze.
“Right, obviously not,” I echo. “I meant like, for the cookbook. The duration of the cookbook. Professionally.”
She nods harder. “Of course.”
“Of course.” Not of course. For the rest of our lives. I meant it. I’d let her name our kids after shellfish if she asked.What?!I clear my throat. I do it again. “What did you ask me?”
Annie blinks at me. “I…” she trails off. “I don’t remember.”
“Science of low country boil!” I declare.
Vigorous head nodding from both of us.
“Okay, okay,” I recover, scooting closer and grabbing a crawfish for her like it’s a peace offering. “First off, low country boil is with shrimp, so this technically isn’t low country boil. This is just a crawfish boil.”
She shakes herself out of it, eyes still locked on mine, but now I can see the gears in her adorable noggin turning. “Okay.”
“First rule of a good boil? The water should be seasoned. Like, aggressively seasoned. Salt, cayenne, paprika, garlic, bay, Old Bay, lemon—you want that pot to punch you in the face with flavor before you even drop anything in it.”
“Punch me in the face,” she deadpans, “got it.”
“The water isn’t just cooking things—it’s infusing them. The food doesn’t have long in there, so you need that seasoning to go hard from the jump. The starches and proteins will absorb flavor as they go, like little sponges of spicy, steamy goodness.”
“Okay.”
“Now—potatoes first. Because they take the longest to cook and absorb flavor.”
She pops a potato in her mouth like she’s testing my claims. She nods slowly.
