She gives him all the time he needs.
And bless him, hetries.
His mouth opens just to close again. His brain is running Windows XP and he desperately needs his thoughts to load, but no words come to mind. There’s just so much to go over, he doesn’t know where to start.
“Let’s try an easy question first,” she offers.
“Yeah, okay. I think I can do that.”
“How was the drive?”
He makes a sound, a half-sigh, half-laugh. “It was fine. Good. Traffic was nice and light.”
“And how are your parents?”
“They’re well. My mother’s very excited to meet you.”
Eden smiles. “I’m excited to meet her, too.” And then, very softly, “Why don’t you use your real name?”
He chews on the inside of his cheek. It’s time to rip off the Band Aid. “It was Sebastian’s idea,” he starts off slowly. “To make me more… palatable.”
“Palatable?” Her expression draws tight. “I’m not going to like where this is going, am I.” It’s a statement, not a question.
“Look, I don’t think I can get through this while sugar-coating things.”
“I don’t expect you to.” Eden takes his hand, gives his fingers a squeeze. “I’m listening. I’m here.”
“I’m used to people taking one look at me and already having made assumptions. Sometimes they’re good, and some are… not so great. There’s no way to escape it. They see me at surface level first, and everything else comes second. They see my name on a resumé, in an article… and it’s more of the same.”
“That’s not fair,” she grumbles.
“Believe me, I know. But that’s how the world works.”
“So Sebastian made you change your name to fit in?”
“In a way, yes. ‘It’s easier to pronounce,’ he said, or some other bullshit line.”
“It’s literally one syllable versus four,” she says with a scoff. “That’s so fucking dumb.”
He shrugs a shoulder, weariness clear in his eyes. “Yeah, well… I was impressionable back then. All I wanted was to fit in, to belong. You have to understand, Eden, I wanted to be a chef so badly. It’s all I’ve ever wanted to do. Food, cooking… It brought me so much…joy.”
Eden gives his fingers an encouraging squeeze. She knows all too well.
“I was willing to do anything if it meant I could stay in Paris. Cook and train at one of Sebastian’s restaurants. Not everyone in the haute cuisine scene is closed-minded, but there are a handful of very loud and influential individuals who’d prefer a certain level of… purity.”
Eden glowers. “You mean…”
“Yeah. It’s as bad as it sounds.”
“Well, I say they can shove it up their racist assholes.”
“I agree with you there.” His face grows sullen. “I felt like Sebastian was giving me a fresh start. It gave me the opportunity to reinvent myself. The chance to be good enough, to bemore.”
“But youaregood enough,” Eden insists.
“I can see that now, but at the time, I didn’t believe it. I was young and eager to impress. I wanted to prove to the world that everything they could do, I could do better. There was no shortage of nasty comments, but I did it, Eden. I came out on top and showed them all wrong.”
She offers him a small, sympathetic smile. “You said… you said you didn’t like everything the name represents. What did you mean by that?”
