9. Emma
CHAPTER NINE
EMMA
“I can’t believe we’re here.” I glance around the nearly-five-star restaurant that serves pancakes, pancakes, and more pancakes. They have a variety of items on their menu—even hamburgers with pancakes as buns—but every item includes pancakes in some way, in some variety.
It’s basically a restaurant made of my love language.
And Aaron got us a chef’s table.
He stands at my side, his hands loosely in his pockets, and I lace my arm through his. “Do you see the ceiling?” I can’t look away from it, and Aaron moves his head to look.
“Wow,” he says. “It’s like the Sistine Chapel, but with a pancake God.”
I smile and can’t stop. “Do you see the blueberry pancakes?” I whisper, like we really are in the Vatican City, in the Sistine Chapel, and need to show reverence.
“Aaron,” a man says, and I look at him. “You’ve got the chef’s table tonight.” He’s got dark red hair, a smattering of freckles across his nose and cheeks, and the hugest smile ever. He and Aaron laugh as they shake hands and bump shoulders, and then Aaron returns to my side.
He slides his fingers between mine as he says, “This is my girlfriend, Emma. She’s a pancake-lover.”
“Ah, a soul-sister.” He grins at me and says, “I’m Jeremy. You guys follow me. I know Ron has your appetizer pancakes ready to go.”
“Appetizer pancakes?” I repeat as Jeremy leads us over to a red carpet—yes, a legit red carpet—that goes past all the tables in the main dining room. I feel like someone has put a heavy crown of jewels on my head, and I have to hold it extra-high under all that weight.
Jeremy says a few quiet words to servers and someone who has to be a manager, and then he pushes open a swinging door and indicates we should enter the kitchen first. Aaron switches his hand from mine to the small of my back, guiding me inside first, where there are two tables set up for guests.
Neither of them have people, and I stall far enough inside the kitchen that Aaron and Jeremy can enter behind me. The salty scent of bacon mixes with the sweet scent of maple syrup, and I watch with giddy excitement parading through my stomach as a chef only a few yards from me pours a pale yellow batter with shreds of cheddar cheese and bright green chives onto a hot griddle.
“He’s making the chicken and cornmeal pancakes.” I bounce on the balls of my feet. “I’ve always wanted to try those.”
“This way,” Jeremy says, and I have to tear my eyes from the cooking stations to go with him and Aaron to our table against the far wall. The view here is magnificent, as it sits up on a platform I have to climb three steps in Claudia’s ankle boots to reach.
I freeze behind my chair, my eyes glued to the flower arrangement in the center of the table. “Is that my…?” I reach out and pick up the pretty succulent garden. “You’re Succulent,” I read from the side of the aluminum tray.
I turn toward Aaron. “You bought You’re Succulent?”
He leans down, and I think he’s going to kiss me here on this platform where all the chefs at Stack Shack can see. Instead, he puts his mouth right at my ear, his breath tickling my lobe as he whispers, “Well, you are succulent.”
Then he straightens and pulls out my chair for me. I sit, still marveling over the succulents being here, and I put them right in front of me as Aaron takes the spot beside me .
Now we can both see the action in the kitchen. We’ve been sitting at the table for four for maybe ten seconds when a waitress and a waiter arrive with orange juice, sparkling cider, and water.
“Can I have a mimosa?” I ask, and one is brought in mere moments.
The moment the drink staff leaves, the chef who’d been pouring the cornmeal pancakes picks up two plates and heads our way.
“I’m so excited, I can barely breathe.” I grab onto Aaron’s arm with both of my hands, and he chuckles. “Did you pick a menu?”
“You don’t pick a menu for the chef’s table,” he says.
“This is our Corn Cheddar Chive Stackwich,” the chef says. “It’s yellow cornmeal pancake based, with sharp cheddar cheese and fresh chives, with crispy fried chicken nuggets, a dollop of whipped honey butter, and a hot honey drizzle.”
He puts one tea-sized plate in front of me, then one in front of Aaron. I’ve never seen anything so beautiful in my whole life, with that three-inch cheesy-cornmeal pancake on the bottom, a delectable piece of chicken dripping with hot honey, and then another pancake and another piece of chicken.
There’s no toothpick or anything holding it together, and yet, it’s stacked precisely right and hasn’t moved.
Aaron nudges me with his elbow. “Are we eating or…? ”
“I need to document every bite of this culinary journey,” I say. So I pull out my phone and snap a picture of the best appetizer I’ve ever had the chance to meet.
Then Aaron says, “Look here, sweetheart,” and I turn toward him. He’s holding up his camera, and I make a face that says, Can you believe this chicken stackwich? and he laughs as he taps to take the picture.
Once that’s done, I pick up my knife and fork, holding one in each hand, like I’m about to tuck into a truly exceptional meal. Because I am.
I move the top pancake to the side and slice the bottom one with its accompanying chicken nugget in half. I swipe it all through the hot honey, make sure I have plenty of honey butter, and put the whole bite in my mouth.
I cannot control the sounds my body makes after that. There’s some moaning, I know that, what with that savory pancake with the mealy texture. It goes great with the creamy honey butter and the crispy chicken.
Everything that should be hot is, with the honey butter and the honey actually cold in temperature. I’m not a super-fan of spicy things, but with the chicken and the cornmeal pancake, the hotness of the honey is appreciated and actually a bit subtle.
“This is amazing,” I breathe out as I fork up my second bite.
“I’ve never been here before,” Aaron says. “Now I’m wondering why.” He puts his second pancake in his mouth, whole, and I grin at him.
“You’ve got a little something in your beard,” I say.
He doesn’t even reach for his napkin, so I pick up mine. He turns toward me and juts his chin out, and I giggle as I wipe the hot honey that’s drizzled into the wrong spot from his beard. He finishes his bite and says, “Thanks, honey .”
I shake my head, though every cell in my body is warm. That has to be because of the spicy honey, and not because touching Aaron’s face so intimately has me fired up.
“Is the spice okay for you?” he asks.
“Yeah,” I say just before putting my final bite of the chicken and cornmeal pancake in my mouth.
“Now this is good spicy stuff,” he says.
“Mm.” Yes, it is.
The moment I swallow and set my knife and fork on the plate, two people appear, one taking Aaron’s plate and one taking mine. I reach for my mimosa as I say, “Tell me something about you I might not know.”
He sits still for a minute, and then he picks up his napkin from his lap and resettles it as he shifts in his seat. “I play the saxophone.”
“You do?”
“You don’t have to screech it out like that.” He smiles at me, and then we both look out into the kitchen. “I love jazz music. I sometimes put it on while I’m working around the house.”
“You didn’t last night.”
“That’s because I was talking to you.”
“I thought you were into eighties music.”
He cuts me a look out of the corner of his eye. “A person can like more than one genre of music.”
“I didn’t even know they were called genres,” I say. “Who do you think is making our next course?”
All the chefs in the kitchen have jobs to do, and they’re doing them. Griddles line three of the counters, with other stations behind them, like the fryers and condiment containers.
“Will you play the saxophone for me?”
“Absolutely not.”
I turn toward him again. “No? Why not?”
“I’m no good.”
“So you’re bad.”
He looks at me, his dark eyes searching mine. I give a micro-shrug. “You seem like you want to be the bad boy.”
Aaron scoffs. “Being a bad boy and being bad at playing the saxophone are two entirely different things.”
“Yeah, someone who plays a woodwind can’t be bad.” I laugh again, and he shakes his head.
“Tell me something about you I don’t know.”
So many things come to mind, and while I want to tease and flirt with Aaron, I also want things to be real. We’ve been friends for several months now, and he knows a few of the major things about me.
But he doesn’t know a single thing about my family.
I immediately reject the idea of telling him, and instead, I say, “I have a toaster in my bedroom, so I can have pancakes even when I don’t want to deal with my roommates.”
“You guys seem close,” Aaron says, a hint of coolness in his voice. “There are times when you don’t want to deal with them?”
“Sure,” I say casually. “I love them, of course, but of course. Don’t you ever just want to be alone?”
“Everything I do is alone,” Aaron says, and I can’t get a read on how he feels about that. Usually he’s such an open book, but the Doberman is better at concealing what he’s thinking and feeling.
I bump him with my shoulder. “Lucky you.”
“Your next course is a sampler of three of our most popular main dish pancakes,” a woman says. She’s brought two more chefs with her, and I turn my attention to them as she places an enormous plate in front of us with a trio of pancakes.
“The Loaded Baked Potato Pancake,” she says. “Savory potato pancakes topped with melty cheddar cheese, broccoli crowns, crispy bacon crumbles, and a homemade ranch dressing.”
And not just one, but a stack of three latkes with all the deliciousness layered between them. My mouth waters just looking at it.
“This one is a Sausage Breakfast Pancake Taco,” a man says, pointing to the one closest to me. “Our savory herbed pancake with sausage, scrambled eggs, avocado, and a fennel crema.”
“And the last one is our Spicy Mediterranean Roll-Up,” the third chef says. “Buckwheat pancakes filled with a fire-roasted hummus, roasted veggies, feta cheese, and a drizzle of tahini sauce, rolled up. You just pick it up with your hand and eat it.”
They nod at us, all smiles, and turn to go back to their stations. There are two of each type of pancake on the platter in front of us, and I drink them all in.
More pictures, from loads of angles, and then Aaron says, “What are you starting with?”
“I don’t know.”
“Dare you to try the Spicy Mediterranean Roll-Up.” He wears a smug smile too, and I exhale out my breath in a puff of air.
“You think you’ll get to eat mine if I don’t like it,” I say. “But I’ll just take your potato awesomeness.”
He bursts out laughing. “Potato awesomeness?”
“I forgot the name of it.” Grinning, I pick up the Spicy Mediterranean Roll-Up and turn toward Aaron. “All right, Mister Stansfield,” I say in a flirty voice. “Open up. You’re going to try this one first and tell me if my delicate taste buds can handle it.”
His eyes blaze with desire as he opens his mouth, and I feed him the first bite of the Roll-Up. “Mm, yes,” he says around the mouthful of food. “It’s good, but I’m not sure you’ll like it.”
“No?” I look at the beautiful food. “Is it really that spicy?”
“Fire-roasted isn’t tame.” He nods to me. “Go on. Taste it.” His expression blazes with the unvocalized dare. Again.
Committing, because I’ve never turned down a dare when it’s been issued twice, I put the other half of the Roll-Up in my mouth.
And fire explodes across my tongue.