Chapter 14 Wes
THEN
The pork is in the oven and Berger is standing in my kitchen holding a lime.
"This lime is a six," he says. He turns it over in his hand. "The skin is thick. Thick skin means less juice. Less juice means the marinade suffers. The marinade suffers, the whole meal shifts."
"Put the lime down and cut the onions."
He sets the lime on the counter with a deliberateness that implies he is not done with it. He picks up the knife and starts on the onions, and his cuts are better than they were three months ago when he first stood at this counter and burned the garlic and told me the garlic was defective.
"They already like you," I say.
"They don't know me."
"They've been hearing about you for months. Kevin asks about you."
"Kevin asks about me because Kevin is polite."
"Kevin is not polite. Kevin is nosy. There's a difference." I check the pork. "Grant asked about you two weeks ago."
"Grant asked about me?"
"He asked how the kid was settling in."
"The kid." He looks at me. "He calls me the kid."
"They all call you the kid."
"I am twenty-two years old. I am a professional athlete. I am an actual adult."
"You are still the kid."
He points the knife at me. "I am not the kid. I am Luca Berger. I have a name and a position and opinions."
"You can introduce yourself however you want. They're still going to call you the kid."
He goes back to the cutting board. I cross the kitchen to check the rice. My hand passes the small of his back on the way. He leans into it for half a second and then straightens.
"What should I know about them?" he asks. "That I don't already know."
"Austin will bring wine nobody asked for. Grant will sit on the couch and do nothing and be proud of it. Kevin will ask you real questions and actually listen to the answers."
"And if I say something stupid?"
"Austin says something stupid every fifteen minutes. You're covered."
The buzzer goes at six-forty. I hear Kevin's key in the lock before I reach the door, because Kevin has never waited for me to open the door.
Austin is behind him with two bottles of red and a grin. Grant is behind Austin, carrying nothing.
"It smells good in here," Kevin says. He sets his keys on the counter, the same spot he always puts them. His eyes move past me to the kitchen, where Berger is standing with the knife still in his hand and the onions in the bowl and his back a little straighter than it was thirty seconds ago.
"Hey." Berger sets the knife down and wipes his hand on the towel. "I'm Luca." He crosses the kitchen and extends his hand to Kevin.
"Kevin." Kevin grips his hand and holds it a beat longer than a stranger would. "I've heard a lot about you."
"All terrible things, I bet."
"Mostly food opinions. Wes says you have a spreadsheet."
"I have several spreadsheets. The restaurant one is the flagship."
"He has a flagship spreadsheet," Austin says from behind Kevin, already opening the wine. "I love this kid already."
"I'm Luca."
"Austin." He grabs a glass from the counter and looks at Berger. "Red?"
"Please."
Grant comes through last. He shakes Berger's hand without a word, nods once, and moves to the couch. His shoes are off before he sits down. His foot goes up on the coffee table near the camera I left there this morning.
"That's Grant," I say. "He doesn't do introductions."
"I do introductions," Grant says. "I did one. It was efficient."
Berger looks at me, and something in his face loosens.
We eat at the table. The pork is good. Berger gives it an eight-one and then revises to an eight-two after the second bite, citing the bark, which he says has improved since September.
"You rate his cooking?" Kevin asks.
"Everything gets rated. It's the system."
"What system?"
"The food spreadsheet," Berger says. "Restaurants, home meals, takeout on a separate index. Weighted scoring. Ambiance is fifteen percent."
"How do you rate ambiance of a home meal?" Kevin asks.
"Ambiance of a home meal is the lighting, the table, the company. This meal is getting a nine for company alone."
"He's smooth," Austin says to me.
"He's putting on an act," I say. "Give him ten minutes."
"I am not. I am being generous with the ambiance score because Kevin brought energy and Austin brought wine and Grant is sitting there like a king and the whole room benefits from the composition."
"I like being called a king," Grant says, as he reaches for the serving plate. "The pork is good, Wes."
"Thanks."
"Don't tell him that," Berger says, grinning. "He already knows. If you validate him, he'll stop trying."
The food debate folds into Austin's boat, which folds into a rating Austin did not ask for, and the evening moves the way evenings with Kevin and Austin and Grant always move: one conversation bleeding into the next, Berger scoring things that do not require scores, the table giving him shit for scoring them, and the whole thing turning on the axis of people who have known each other long enough that the bit is the friendship and the friendship is the bit.
"Tell the deposition story," Grant says to Kevin. "The insurance guy."
"You've heard the deposition story."
"Luca hasn't heard the deposition story."
Kevin tells it. The insurance guy. The sweating lawyer. The whisper that changed the room. Berger leans forward on his elbows while Kevin talks. When Kevin gets to the part about the whisper, Berger's eyes narrow.
"What do you think he said?" Berger asks.
"I will never know. I have theories. They keep me up at night."
"Rank them."
Kevin laughs. "Rank my theories?"
"One to ten. Best guess to worst guess. Weighted by plausibility."
"He's going to make you build a spreadsheet," I say.
"I already want to," Kevin says.
We clear the plates. Berger carries the serving dish to the kitchen and I follow him with the glasses.
He sets the dish by the sink and I put my hand on the small of his back as I reach past him for the faucet.
My fingers press against his shirt, flat and steady, and I leave them there for a beat longer than the reach requires.
Across the room, I feel someone watching. I catch Kevin's eyes over Berger's shoulder. Kevin looks at my hand and then at my face and then away, and says something to Grant about the wine.
"I'll dry," Berger says. I hand him the first plate.
Kevin appears next to me at the counter after the dishes are done and Berger is in the living room talking to Austin. He picks up the towel and folds it, which he does not need to do.
"Wes," he says. "I haven't seen you smile like this in a long time."
I don't say anything. His voice is so low the words barely leave the space between us.
"It's good," Kevin says. He puts the towel down. He squeezes my shoulder once and walks toward the living room.
Austin is asleep on the couch by nine-thirty. Grant puts his foot on the coffee table and reads something on his phone. Kevin and Berger are at the table with the laptop open, and Berger is showing him the spreadsheet, walking him through the columns, explaining the weighted formula.
"The bread basket gets ten percent," Berger says. "It's the restaurant's handshake."
"That's high for bread."
"That's exactly what Wes said. And he was wrong then and you're wrong now."
"I was not wrong about the bread," I say from the kitchen.
"You were wrong about the bread. The bread has been vindicated by data."
Kevin looks at me over the laptop screen. He does not say anything else.
They leave by ten. Kevin takes leftover pork in a container. Austin blinks awake on the couch and asks if he missed anything. Grant steers him toward the door.
"Luca," Grant says at the door. Not the kid. "Good to meet you."
"Good to meet you, Grant."
Grant grips my shoulder at the threshold. The same grip from August, brief and firm. His eyes hold mine for a second.
I lock the door. The apartment settles. Berger is at the sink finishing the last glass, the water running, his sleeves pushed to his elbows.
"They're nice," he says. "Kevin is going to text me about the spreadsheet. I can tell."
"He will. He’s like that."
Berger dries the glass and sets it in the rack and turns off the water. He leans against the counter and looks at me.
"Thank you," he says. "For tonight."
"You don't need to thank me."
"I know I don't need to. I want to."
I cross the kitchen. His back is against the counter and I stand in front of him and put my hands on his hips. His hands come up to my forearms.
"They loved you," I say.
"They don't know me yet."
"They know enough. And they know I like you."
He tilts his head and looks at me. His hands are warm on my forearms and his face is the one I only see here.
I haven't seen you smile like this in a long time.
Kevin is right. He hasn’t. Nobody has. The man standing in my kitchen drying glasses is the reason, and my friends know it now, and the world has not ended.
?