I laugh in confusion as his scrunched face looks down at his stomach. “You drama queen. I’m literally half your weight.”
“Are you kidding me?” My quizzical laugh turns into 100 percent pure-grain confusion at the question until he turns to me and I look down at his apron, a round red blotch smeared just above his waist.
I relax my shoulders. “I’m sure your dry cleaner can handle a bit of tomato paste.”
“Hastings...” he says quietly through gritted teeth so as to not draw any more attention to us, but harshly enough to getmyattention. He meets my confused stare with glassy eyes. He flicks down to my hand, still holding the freshly sharpened kitchen knife. “You... fucking... stabbed me.”
Pure adrenaline smashes me in the face like a glass of ice water.
“Oh my God, oh my God,oh my God!” My voice projects through the room significantly louder than his hushed tone as the knife clatters onto the countertop. My volume immediately grabs the attention of Chef Giada, who hop-steps over to us.
“It’s OK, folks!” she announces to the worried facesaround the room. “I’m first-aid trained, and this isn’t the first time a cooking lesson has resulted in a knife wound! You should see my cousin Marta: three years running a restaurant and no fingertips left!” She laughs breezily, pulling Bancroft’s jumper up and checking the bloodied area around his abdomen. “Phew, we’re OK. Just a scratch, not too deep, no need for stitches.” Despite her cheery tone, the relief on Giada’s face is palpable. She smiles warmly at Bancroft, who eases his shoulders back down to earth.
Standing awkwardly at the workstation while the rest of the class watches my victim being patched up, I try not to look as Chef Giada wipes down the red line with a sterilizing salve. When Bancroft returns back to our station, I whisper a semi-sincere apology.
“So, are we even now?” he replies, inspecting the slash hole my knife cut in his apron. “Or are you getting ready to finish your revenge plot?”
“Revenge for what? I’m trying to remember when you lacerated me last?”
He lands both hands on the island, long arms stretched straight and gives me another of his “are you fucking kidding me” looks. “You blamed me foryoutwistingyourankle.”
“I did not!” I feign outrage, crossing my arms and trying to stop the corners of my lips from turning upward.
“You did. I heard you in the Uber muttering something along the lines of ‘I wouldn’t have been walking that way if you weren’t being such a “Wankcroft.”’”He raises a playful eyebrow at me. “I prefer Eric, by the way. Wankcroft is my father’s name.”
I try and fail to contain a smile, but after a few seconds he bends his chin down to meet me, eyes shining. “So... can wepleasebe even now?”
I contemplate for a few seconds.
“That seems fair.”
We stare at each other, both thinking of the next thing to say when Chef Giada approaches us. I thank the Italian food gods for her interruption because it’s clear from even just a few seconds that I have no idea how to actually have a civil conversation with my fake date.
“Now, I don’t want to be harsh... but you two are going to have to catch up.” She looks to the counter at the fresh non-blood-covered knife replacing my weapon of choice and slides it across the shiny surface to Bancroft. “This time, you chop.”
“Yes, Chef. I think that’s for the best.” He flashes her a winning smile.
We work fast and in sync to catch up with the rest of the class and I’m surprised at how smoothly things are going. Bancroft slicing the onions without shedding a single tear and me grating almost an entire wedge of parmesan cheese until my arm feels like a deflated tire. We’re even doing better than some of the others—a couple introduced as Derek and Angela have been arguing about what constitutes “al dente” pasta for a solid thirty minutes. Derek is sure he is correct, owing to his one-eighth part Italian ancestry. Bancroft tries to ignorethem and meticulously measures out double cream into a measuring jug. I try not to think about how different things might have been if we were on the same team; how we could have worked to lift each other up rather than spending our days attempting to tear the other down.
“So, how come you don’t cook?” I ask into the saucepan, where the mixture of garlic, white onions, chili flakes and tomato paste is slowly bubbling away. “You’re clearly not bad at it.”
He takes a few seconds to respond, wiping a drizzle of cream off the side of the jug with his finger. “I never really thought about it. My family didn’t cook or really eat together when I was growing up. We’d either order in because my parents were too busy or it would be some dinner with potential clients that liked the ‘family unit’ aspect of their business.”
As a giant bottle of vodka gets passed around to our workstation for deglazing the sticky concoction in our pans, Bancroft squats down to grab a couple of glasses from under our counter and pours a measure in each. “To deal with Derek and Angela.”
I giggle and crouch down beneath the cheese-sprinkled counter, meeting him out of sight of the rest of the bustling class. We clink and down our glasses.
Grimacing at the sting, I ask, “Did the vodka we used to drink in the office taste as bad as this?” The warming sensation as the alcohol sinks into my stomach makes me shiver.
He coughs out a laugh. “I’m pretty sure that wasn’t bottom-shelf reserved-for-cooking vodka.”
He reaches his hand out to wipe a line of vodka that missed my mouth but hesitates, clearing his throat instead.
“You have a little—” He gestures to my chin and I use the back of my hand to wipe the alcohol before it drips onto my dress.
We study each other for a second, all sounds of metal clanging and knife hitting wood evaporating into the air. He takes the bottle from my hand, featherlight fingers grazing across mine as he says in a low voice, “It’s burning.”
I swallow, briefly glancing down as he wets his bottom lip. “The... vodka?”