Even better, he pulls into a parking spot, and I realize we’ve arrived without me looking out the window once since we left the freeway. Through the windshield, a sign reads Roberta’s Kitchen.
Saved by the meal.
“So, what’s on the menu?” I ask, forcing a laugh and pointing to the sign like I’m not currently losing a war against my own body.
The place is small, tucked into a strip mall, and nothing like what I imagined Ash choosing for our first date. I’d prepared for something expensive enough to make me feel underdressed before we even reached the door.
“Hope you weren’t expecting to just sit and eat. That would have been soboring,” he says in a horrible Russian accent. “We get to make our own menu.”
He pauses to read my face, then fills in the details before I can panic properly.
“It’s a cooking class.” He shrugs. “If that’s… okay.”
“This is not what I expected,” I say, feeling the air charge between us when he turns off the car. “So. You can cook?”
“I’m afraid that’s the bad news that comes with this date. I’m a terrible cook. I just thought it might be fun.”
Ash isn’t showing off. It isn’t a bougie restaurant. He isn’t even good at this.
Boy, did I misjudge the night. And him. And maybe how much I’d enjoy both.
I lean in to kiss him, but this time he laughs and leans back against the driver’s-side door, leaving me to tell the charged air between us instead, “It’s perfect.”
CHAPTER 22
ASH
Flour is everywhere,dusting the butcher-block island and my sleeves, with a faint white handprint stamped across the front of Kael’s black shirt that I absolutely did not put there on purpose.
Three couples stand at three individual workstations inside Roberta’s Kitchen, a narrow Oakland storefront that smells like garlic and warm dough. Copper pans hang above a long prep counter. Glass jars of dried peppers and ingredients I don’t recognize line the shelves. Somewhere behind us, sauce simmers with a low, steadyblurp-blurb-blurpthat makes my stomach growl.
Kael notices and grins.
The grin alone is enough to confirm I made the right call.
If I ever get the chance to know Jamal better, I owe him a thank-you. His question told me exactly what Kael was afraid of, and it confirmed what I already suspected: the fancy dinner reservation was wrong.
In my head, Rich Table makes a good impression. But watching Kael light up when he met Roberta, compliment the framed menu from her first pop-up, and immediately askwhether the basil on the counter was Genovese or Thai made it obvious I chose better.
I got to surprise him, and I got to surprise myself. As it turns out, calling myself a terrible cook oversold my ability as much as my one line about the workout tracker undersold that masterpiece. I am catastrophically bad at this. Which seems to delight Kael.
That’s why the night already feels like a win. I’m starting to understand how much I like making him happy.
“Now,” Roberta says to the six of us in front of her, “use the flat edge of your bench scraper to gather all that loose, stray flour back into the center of your well.”
She carries the calm authority of someone who has watched a thousand adults ruin what she’s trying to teach us but still believes, against all evidence, we can be saved.
“You want to do this one?” Kael whispers, handing me what must be the bench scraper.
“Uh. Okay. Just… right into the well.”
He uses his fingers to hollow out a deep hole in the middle, creating a thick wall of flour around the edges before pointing at it and bumping my shoulder.
“I thought this class was for beginners,” I whisper back, stealing a glance at the couple next to us to make sure I dump the excess flour the right way.
“We’re basically making spaghetti.”
“Tagliatelle’s nothing like spaghetti,” Roberta says, sending Kael’s blush up like a flare I’m too busy admiring to save him from. “Spaghetti is long and thin. No eggs. Completely different sauce.”
