She picked up the knife and fumbled with it a moment. “Like this?”
He reached over and adjusted her fingers so they gripped the blade more appropriately, her fingers cool under his touch. “There you go.”
She sliced another onion, the pieces becoming more uniform as she worked.
“I think you’ve got it.” He looked around the room. Everyone was making good progress. “Not a fan of matching outfits?”
“What?” She turned to him, knife out again.
“Have you got it in for me?”
Her eyes widened and she set the knife down. “Sorry. Again.”
He gestured to the other women. “You aren’t wearing your T-shirt.”
Did her face just get pinker? How much darker could it get?
“Oh. I, um, I’m not with the group. I just arrived at the same time.” She ducked her head and made a big show of carefully cutting a carrot.
“I don’t mean this as a come-on, but do I know you from somewhere? You look familiar.” The idea nagged at him.
“I’m new to Chicago.” She started working on the celery. “I’m not from here.”
Not really an answer.
“Neither am I. I’ve bounced around a lot.” It was too bad none of those places ever felt like home. Chicago didn’t either, but it fit the bill for now. “New York, Saratoga Springs, Austin, Seattle before that.”
At the mention of Seattle, she paled so quickly he reached for her elbow. Couldn’t have her passing out in the middle of class.
“Are you okay?”
She tugged her arm back. “I’m fine.”
He let his gaze roam over her face. “Okay. Promise me you’ll let me know if you aren’t feeling well.”
“Could you help me over here?” One of the bridesmaids waved a hand in the air. “I think my pieces are too big.”
While showing the woman how to chop uniform piece sizes on onions, he kept one eye on the rest of the group. The kid, RJ, had moved so he was sharing a workstation with the non-bachelorette.
“First time here?” Lea asked him.
“I’m a dishwasher at The Lion’s Lair, but I want to go to culinary school at Kendall Culinary.” RJ set down his knife and adjusted his apron. “In the meantime, I’m learning all I can. You?”
“First time. This is quite a bit different than my day job.”
“What do you do?”
The bride, Julia, called Zach over and he almost missed Lea’s answer.
“…newspaper.”
He helped Julia for a few minutes. Something nagged at the back of his mind like a mosquito you could hear but not see.
Wait a minute.
It came to him in a rush. Harper. Seattle. Newspaper.
The woman who had tanked his debut restaurant in Seattle had been a newspaper food critic with the last name Harper.
