Julian meanders awkwardly around my place, looking at my pictures pinned to the walls and the collection of old records on the bookshelf. Archer steps up behind me, reaching over my head for the wineglasses hanging from under the cabinet.
“Smells good, Chef,” he murmurs before gently kissing the side of my head. Butterflies swarm in my stomach, making me nearly forget how to put an oven mitt on.
“Thanks. It’s slow-braised lamb in a spiced yogurt sauce with spongy dhokla as an appetizer. It’s a family recipe.”
His hands rest on my hips as he watches me work, towering over me from behind. My head feels fuzzy from his proximity, my thighs clenching like my body would gladly betray all my hard work just to feel his touch.
“Sounds delicious,” he says with a growl.
As he backs away to pop the cork out of the bottle, I try to rally the last few working brain cells in my head to get the rest of this dinner done and stop thinking about how good he smells or how amazing tonight could be.
Archer pours the wine while Julian picks a record, placing it on the turntable. A moment later, Nina Simone croons throughthe speakers, and suddenly everything feels so sexy and so verynot me. What if I can’t pull this off? Not the meal. There’s no doubt I can cook a delicious dinner. But what if I can’t somehow convince these guys that I’m as sexy and sophisticated as they want?
Not that either of them have conveyed to me that that’s what they want.
Hell, I’m in my head again.
Archer leans against the wall, watching me with a smirk as I finish the sauce. “I could stare at you like this all day,” he says, making my cheeks pull into a bashful smile.
Without responding, I slice the dhokla into perfect yellow squares and scatter grated coconut and fresh coriander on top before placing it on the table. Then I grab the kachumber salad from the fridge. A moment later, I feel Julian’s eyes on me.
“Where did you learn to cook?” he asks, brushing his finger across the spice-dusted table.
“Mostly my biji, my grandmother, at first. But then I started to experiment with things. I didn’t want to make traditional meals. I wanted to create somethingnew.” I let out a giggle, remembering all the terrible things I put together in her kitchen. “My family used to let me test new recipes on them, and ninety percent of the time, they were terrible. But they never told me so. They ate every bite with a smile.”
Glancing over my shoulder, I catch Archer grinning as he watches me work. Even with a banged-up face, he’s still heartbreakingly handsome. The kind of handsome that people put in action movies. Julian is more of a…cologne commercial handsome.
A few minutes later, when the sauce is done, I turn off the heat and drizzle it over the meat before wiping off the counter-slash-table.
Archer and Julian sit on either side, watching with awe as I set the dish in the middle. Removing my apron, I toss it on the hook on the wall and quickly fix my hair.
“Bon appétit,” I say before taking my place in the third chair around the table.
Then, just like that, it feels like a date. Here I am, in my apartment, with a meal I just cooked, on a date with two people at the same time.
Some deceptive voice deep within my mind keeps trying to tell me that this should feel unnatural, but it doesn’t.
“It looks beautiful,” Julian says before reaching over and brushing something from my cheek.
Archer holds up his glass of wine, and behind the bumps and bruises, he’s smiling softly with a look that resembles gratitude. “To our second date.”
It doesn’t even feel remotely weird as I hold up my wineglass.
Julian interjects before holding up his. “So the elevator didn’t count? Because then it would be our third.”
“No, the elevator doesn’t count,” Archer argues. “That was our meet-cute. The restaurant was our first date, and now this is our second.”
With my elbow resting on the table, I hold my chin in my hand and stare at them both with the kind of lovesick look I’ve only seen in movies. “To whatever date this is,” I say, holding up my wine.
After we all take a sip of wine and start plating up, the first bites are met with low hums and quiet moans of approval. I don’t need to look up to know their eyes have fluttered shut. Instead, I lean back and soak it in, the warmth of their praise settling over me like sunlight. Even I have to admit, I nailed it tonight.
The lamb practically melts at the touch of a fork, rich with cardamom, cumin, and a whisper of cinnamon that clings to the back of my tongue. The spiced yogurt is thick and tangy, seeping into every tender shred. And the dhokla is just the right kind of sour to cut through the richness. Nothing burned. Nothing broke. Nothing buckled under the pressure.
It’s balanced. Bold. Beautiful.
It’s perfect.
Before the meal is done, we finish the wine, getting lost in easy conversation.
