If you don’t whip the egg whites enough, they won’t peak. If you add too much sugar, the whole thing becomes unbearably sweet. Producing the caramel is—in Alexander’s opinion—a test of his patience because you need to get the temperature just right, add the right amount of butter, and kill the heat before you’ve got a burnt mess on your hands and ruin a perfectly good pot.
He wipes the sweat from his brow before picking the plate up. It’s a good idea for the head chef to meet with a critic face-to-face, at least once, as a show of hospitality. Alexander hates this sort of thing, but what else can he do?
He picks up his plate and starts toward the kitchen doors, but Peter stops him before he manages two steps.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa, chef. Hold up a minute.”
“What?”
Peter unties Alexander’s dirty apron and replaces it with a fresh one. “Don’t want him to think you’re a slob, do we?”
Rina pops over with a mildly damp cloth and wipes at a small patch of his chef jacket where there’s a bit of sugar powder. “Can’t give Palton any more ammunition than he needs, right?”
Freddie comes up from behind and massages Alexander’s shoulders. “You’ve got this, mate. Totally, totally got this.”
A few weeks ago, Alexander would have told them all to piss right the hell off. He hates it when people are up in his personal space. It’s uncomfortable and awkward and he feels like he can’t breathe when crowded. And the fact that they’re touching him so casually? Fuck no.
Definite no. Alexander hates being touched.
But he isn’t as angry as he thought he’d be. Much to his surprise, he actually finds a small sense of comfort. Because these people are his... friends.
Yes, his friends.
They’re not Sebastian.
They don’t want anything from him. They just want to help. And Eden?
She’s the cherry on top.
Eden approaches and very casually brushes her fingers through his hair to flatten it out a bit.
Everyone else is so preoccupied with primping him that they don’t notice. It’s almost intimate, her fingers gingerly grazing past his temple. Only he knows how her fingers feel scraping across his scalp. Only he knows what the look in her eye means. Eden doesn’t even have to speak. He can tell what she’s thinking off her smile alone.
Make us proud, chef.
He nods once, a silent conversation passing between them.
I won’t let you down.
Alexander takes one more deep breath before stepping through the kitchen doors, dessert in hand.
Palton looks perfectly harmless at a distance. In passing, Alexander could easily mistake him with any number of generic-looking old men. His hair is white, his brow crinkled, and his fashion sense appears to have frozen in the ‘20’s.
The 1920’s, that is.
Who the fuck wears a cravat in this day and age?
Up close, though, it’s a different story. Alexander thinks the AC in the back section of the restaurant must be busted or something because he swears the air drops several degrees the closer he gets to the table. Palton quickly goes from a harmless old geezer eating alone to something far more sinister. In reality, he’s every chef’s nightmare.
A food critic.
Apompousfood critic.
Ugh, the worst.
Palton looks up and smiles. It’s not a friendly smile. If anything, it’s predatory—intended to lull his prey in until it’s too little, too late.
“Ah, you must be Sebastian’s boy,” Palton says. The scratchy quality of his voice makes Alexander’s skin crawl. “I’ve heard so much about you. And from my fellow colleagues, of course. There’s not a critic out there with a complaint about your food.”
