No answer was forthcoming. An automated voice mail kicked in, but Lenny hung up, since Nero rarely checked his messages. If he saw the missed calls from Pippa’s, he’d likely come downstairs—except he wasn’t in the building today. He’d gone to Vauxhall with Tom to meet his new kitchen team.
Excitement and panic warred in Lenny. The Vauxhall project had come to life in the past week, but with Cass’s deadline for menu options looming, the prospect of a new start there seemed far away. What the fuck am I going to cook?
Lenny picked up the list he’d made of available ingredients. None jumped out at him, especially without the option of bunging something on the grill and hoping for the best. Ha. Maybe you are a carnivore after all. Lenny shuddered. Fuck that. He’d spent weeks grilling all kinds of meat to a perfect medium-rare and filleting more fish than he’d ever heard of, but the temptation to eat them just wasn’t there—
The office phone rang. Lenny eyed it, assuming Steph would pick it up in the bar, but it rang and rang until he couldn’t take its noise a second longer. He snatched the receiver. “Hello, Pippa’s?”
“You almost sound like Steph.”
Warmth flooded through Lenny as Nero’s gravelly voice reached his ears. “I sound like a girl?”
“No, you sound like you give a shit.”
Lenny snorted. “Won’t matter if I give a shit if you don’t help me.”
“Why?” Nero’s tone sharpened. “What’s the matter?”
“The gas is fucked. We’re running a limited menu, and Cass asked me to come up with the veggie dish.”
Nero laughed. “That all? Thought you was gonna say something was proper fucked up.”
“It is proper fucked up,” Lenny grumbled, though he knew all too well what Nero had likely been imagining. “There’s nothing in the fridge but beetroot and rabbit.”
“Ah, now, that ain’t true. There’s a whole case of summer squash, and a load of pea shoots.”
“I literally have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Fuck’s sake. What kind of veggie are you?”
Lenny glanced at the clock. Shit. He didn’t have time to pry sense out of Nero. “You know what kind of veggie I am—one that lives on chips and ice cream when you’re not around to feed me.”
“I’m always around.”
“Not here now, are you?” Silence. Lenny tapped his fingers on the desk, for the millionth time that morning, feeling Nero’s absence like a missing limb. “What would you cook?”
More silence, then Nero sighed. “I’m not gonna tell you what to cook. You’ve been in the kitchen long enough to know how to put together a dish with whatever we have, and if you don’t . . . well, I’m wasting my fucking time, ain’t I?”
Nero hung up. Lenny stared at the phone and wondered if he’d imagined the weary disappointment in Nero’s voice, or the anxious resolve that notion ignited in his bones. Nero seemed to expect bad shit to happen, and the only time it apparently surprised him was when Lenny fucked up something simple in the kitchen. “Come on, mate. You know this, don’t you?”
Did he?
Lenny thought back over the many long days he’d spent shadowing Nero in the kitchen, pictured the methodical way Nero worked through the fridges and dry stores, using every ingredient available so nothing went to waste. For a man who claimed he couldn’t make decisions, he was pretty fucking efficient. “Start with your star element and work through the dish from there.” Lenny still wasn’t altogether sure what that meant, but the fridge seemed as good a place to figure it out as any.
He slipped back into the kitchen, dodging Cass’s questioning glance. In the fridge, he claimed the summer squash—which looked like something from a Ladybird book—a bunch of sage, some lemons, and a healthy amount of butter. From the dry store, he took pine nuts and scoured the shelves for pasta. Among the regular stuff, he was surprised to find a case of corn pappardelle. Result. Lenny was far from a professional chef, but gluten-free pasta was one thing he knew how to handle.
He added it to his box of tricks and returned to his bench. Cass appeared at his shoulder and peered curiously at the ingredients he’d laid out.
“So that’s why Nero ordered this crap. Thought he’d gone fucking mad.”
Lenny clanged a giant pot onto the counter. “No one’s using that hob, right?”
“Right. I’ll get it for you.” Cass vanished briefly, returning with a portable electric hob that seemed more suited to a Delia Smith TV show. “Did you ask Nero to order this?”
“What?” Lenny glanced up to meet Cass’s quizzical stare. “What’s Nero got to do with pasta?”
Cass shrugged, the beginnings of a knowing smirk twisting his lips. “He’s done every order here for the past two months, and as long as I’ve known him, he’s thought this gluten-free shite was bollocks.”
“So?”
