Kenzo waggles the knife. “Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.”
Jaxon shakes his head like a wet dog. “What are you even saying?”
Kenzo doesn’t know. The truth is, he has no strong feelings about chili, but he is developing some pretty strong ones about Jaxon. The ironic thing—and the one he won’t admit—is that he read the Lightspeed Saga. And he loved it, unabashedly, from the worldbuilding, to the complicated leads, to what he took to be a nuanced portrait of class struggles. When Jaxon first introduced himself, Kenzo was excited, even a little nervous.
And then the guy kept talking, and Kenzo’s enthusiasm collapsed a little more with every subsequent word that came out of Jaxon’s mouth.
Because those books might be amazing, but the author is an ass.
So yes, he’s a fan.
But he’ll die before he admits as much to JaxonfuckingKnight.
He turns his attention back to the chili, savoring the moment when the scent wafting from the pot begins to smell less like a collection of random ingredients and more like a meal. It’s a good metaphor for writing. Cooking and craft have a great deal in common.
Malcolm sidles over to Priscilla and asks her what it’s like, writingromance, with a notable emphasis on the word, condescension buried like a barb.
“I’ve heard it’s rather... formulaic?” he says. Kenzo tenses, but Priscilla seems unfazed.
“All genres have a formula,” she says, stirring the pot. “Mediocre writers simply follow it. Great ones, like Arthur Fletch, know how to bend it.”
“Ah,” says Malcolm smugly, “but why bend the mold when you can break it?”
“Because,” says Priscilla, nesting her pink glasses in her hair so they don’t fog, “the readers need something to follow. If you break the mold entirely, you lose their trust. And their interest. And then it doesn’t matter how clever you are. You’re only impressing yourself.”
“Hear, hear,” Sienna murmurs, before taking a very large swig of wine.
“Indeed...” Malcolm manages a brittle smile, and Kenzo can almost hear the man’s ego cracking like ice as Priscilla returns her glasses to her face.
Malcolm turns to his wife. “More wine?”
He goes to refill her glass, adds a weak splash before discovering the bottle’s spent.
“Uh-oh,” she says dryly, “not pulling your weight, are you?”
The two halves of Penn Stonely consider each other, the air thick with things unsaid, and Kenzo thinks, once again, how glad he is that he and Sam broke it off before things got like this. Before the charm of being with another writer, of merging life and love and work, could wear off.
Across the room, Millie is bombarding Cate with questions about how she got her start when Cate stumbles, and the bowls balanced in her arms go crashing to the floor.
Porcelain shatters against stone, a sound so loud and sudden that everyone else jumps, conversations broken off midword as Cate crouches over the mess, collecting the broken shards.
“Sorry, sorry,” she murmurs, half to the room and half to the crockery.
But the crash has altered something in the room, or maybe Malcolm and Sienna’s tension has simply spilled over like a pot. Kenzo clocks the stiffness in Jaxon’s jaw, the furrow in Priscilla’s brow, the nervous way Millie shifts her weight from foot to foot.
No one isquiteas relaxed as they’ve been letting on.
Millie helps Cate pick up the pieces, patting her shoulder in a big-sister way, and Kenzo drifts over to Sienna, who’s clutching her still empty glass so tight that it might crack.
“Just so we’re on the same page,” he says, “I was joking earlier. About killing you.”
She brushes the dark hair out of her eyes. “Yeah,” she says. “I kind of figured.”
“Just wanted to clear that up,” he says. “Sometimes people don’t get my jokes. Not that it was a joke per se. It’s just what you say, isn’t it?I’d tell you but I’d have to kill you.Anyway, just to reiterate: I have precisely zero murderous intent toward you.”
“Well,that’sa relief.”
He tips his head toward Jaxon, who’s trying to stealthily sneak cumin into the chili. “I can’t make any promises about him, though.”
