Chapter 14
Chapter Fourteen
Zach really needed to get his head in the game.
Last night’s date with Ava had been amazing. The walk, the cooking, and the mind-blowing kiss.
Even Ava’s tic of writing everything in that notebook of hers seemed cute today. It was hard to remember the depth of her previous mistake, considering how much closer they had become. Maybe Uncle Bryan was on to something after all.
He thought he’d given up on women after his fiancée’s cheating, but Ava had made him rethink, well, a lot of things, actually. Maybe some people would pull through for him. Maybe some people would be there for him and care about him.
Right now, he was the one who had to pull through.
They were an hour into the main course portion of the contest, and he couldn’t concentrate.
And he needed to concentrate if they had even a prayer of winning this contest. The Silver Platter couldn’t operate without the money the winnings would bring in.
An acrid smell reached him. Someone in this tent was burning their onions.
“Zach!” Ava’s shout brought him back to the pavilion tent where their cooking station stood between two of the other teams.
Oh. On the stove in front of him, the pan smoked. A charred mess clung to the bottom. “My bad.” He scraped the burnt onions into the trash before grabbing a clean pan and starting over.
“It’s a good thing I chopped extra with the knife skills you taught me.” Ava pointed toward a bowl of onions ready for the skillet. He tossed them in the pan before setting it on the burner.
Zach’s gaze lingered on Ava as she chopped carrots, the rhythmic motion mesmerizing.
A sharp sting jolted him back—heat seared his palm.
Shoot. He yanked his hand away, barely catching the pan before it clattered to the ground.
When had he let his hand drift so close to the burner?
With Ava in the kitchen, it was hard to focus—the swish of her high ponytail, her deft fingers chopping the vegetables, and her humming were all competing for attention. He kept making rookie mistakes.
Right. Get back on track. After setting the onions aside to cool, he checked his recipe card. “Time to work on the dough.” Mixing up a rough pastry dough wouldn’t take too much concentration. He could practically do it in his sleep. Some days on the job he almost had.
“I’ll just move these things out of the way.” Ava cleared a spot on the workspace that faced the aisle. Just beyond the white folding table, the crowd milled about, watching the contestants as they worked.
The judges had come past earlier too. Paul Hawkeye and Anne Green were joined by Martha Kelley for this round of the competition.
Was it his imagination, or had Paul been cooler toward him than he had in the past?
His smile had definitely been more coldly polite than the warmth he’d shown earlier.
He must have made that call to Chef Louie after all.
Fine. He still could win over Anne Green. She’d liked his appetizer yesterday. She’d probably appreciate the Michigan staple they were making today.
If he could land a job in her kitchen, he could get out from under Chef Louie’s thumb and finally have the freedom to do some real cooking.
Maybe he could even convince Ava to move to the West Coast. But being so far from his family would be difficult now that they were finding their way back to each other.
No time for those problems now.
Zach grabbed flour, salt, lard, and butter, then moved up next to Ava. She was jotting some things down in a notebook but put it aside as he joined her.
“What do you want me to do?” Ava looked at the task list.
“If you could start the roux for the sauce, I’ll get this dough working.”
“The roux—are you sure?” Ava’s eyes clouded. “I only just learned how to do that. I don’t know—”
He put his hand on her arm. “You’ll be fine. I watched you demonstrate it several times in class to our students. I’m confident you can do it.”
She put on a smile, but it wavered. “Okay.”
“Seriously, you’ll be fine. Here.” He scooped out the amount of flour she would need for the roux and dumped it into a clean bowl. “Remember, it’s one part butter to one part flour.”
She frowned and turned away. Her whispered words floated to him. “One part to one part.”
His mouth turned up on one side. Pretty soon her humming started up again, and he began to hum along. His shoulders relaxed. The day was smoothing out like the dough he was mixing.
“Sweet Caroline,” Ava belted out.
“Bah, bah, bah,” he sang along. He was locked in now. Back in the sync they had discovered during the cooking class.
Ava sang the next line in the popular song.
He glanced behind him. Ava was swaying to the music as she whisked the roux.
Someone in the crowd sang out the next part of the song.
Twenty or thirty people formed a half circle around their space. A singsong murmur rippled through the crowd as they picked up the next lyrics. Suddenly his parents were in front of him among the crowd.
“Hands, touching hands…” Those weren’t the next lyrics, but okay.
“Reaching out…” He tapped his foot in time, keeping his eyes on the dough he was kneading in time to the music, not daring to look at his mom and dad. From this viewpoint, however, a small glance upward revealed his parents holding hands.
What?
Maybe it was just in response to the song. That must be it. Not an indication of anything else. A quick glance to either side showed many people holding hands and swaying.
Shoot, he’d lost track of how many turns he’d given the bread dough. Between his attraction to Ava and now his parents’ complicated relationship…
The crowd shouted the nonsense line.
“So good! So good!” His dad sang out.
After a few more Sweet Carolines and other mangled lyrics, the song drifted into confusion. The crowd laughed and began to disperse. He did another hand check on his parents. They still had their fingers laced together as they walked away.
A low rumble passed through his belly. His good mood evaporated. Was he happy for them? How could his dad forgive his mom for cheating on him?
He punched the dough a few more times. It felt overkneaded but hopefully would soften as it rested. He put it in a bowl to rest until the filling ingredients were finished.
The five-minute distraction Ava had started with that sing-along could derail their whole day.
His phone chimed with a text. What was Chef Louie doing texting him?
Louie
I heard you were looking for a new job from Chef Paul. If you’re so unhappy about being here, you don’t have to come back. You’re done.
His heart fell to somewhere just above the grass trodden flat under his feet. Sure, he didn’t like his job, but at least it was work. Now what?
“Zach, something is wrong with this.” Ava’s voice cut through his thoughts. “The roux isn’t coming together like it did in class. It’s all gloppy.”
“Does someone have paprika?” the contestant from two tables over called. “I can’t find any paprika.”
Ava turned from the stove and snatched their container of paprika from their small pantry area.
“Got it!” She hustled past him, leaving a waft of her floral shampoo in the air.
He felt a tug in his gut. If he had known that kissing her would leave him this distracted, he would never have done it.
Or maybe he would have at least had the good sense to wait until after this extremely important day was over.
Even more important now that he’d lost the one stable thing in his life. Focus in, Zach.
He looked into the pan on the stove.
“Ava! What is this?” But she was already gone.
He stirred the glue-like roux in the pan before glancing at his watch.
Drat. Not enough time to make a new one.
Here’s hoping it would be fixed as he added the beef broth.
Pouring in the broth and stirring as though creating a storm on the lake, he couldn’t quite get all the lumps out. Maybe he could strain them.
Ava came bursting back into their area. “Saved the day!”
Her cavalier attitude stuck a hot poker through him.
They weren’t putting out their best work and she didn’t even care.
Never mind landing a job with Anne Green.
There were people who needed the prize money.
Kids like RJ Edwards would never be able to afford schooling if the Silver Platter went under.
He huffed out a breath. “What happened to this roux?”
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I had it going and it seemed fine, but then I had to jot down an idea about what I wanted to write for my newspaper column. I turned away for only a second, I swear. And then it got all lumpy. I’m so sorry.”
“You should have been concentrating on this. You know how important it is. But. Whatever,” he said. “I’ll fix it or at least I’ll give it my best try. Find something we can strain it into. There should be a mesh strainer somewhere in the pan section.”
Behind him, Ava rattled the pans. “Got it.” She held out a colander.
“That’s not a mesh strainer.” But what was he going to do? Run to the store and buy one? He had to make do with what they had in front of them. Hopefully, it would be good enough.
Because this day was turning into a disaster.
Cooking with Zach during a competition was nothing like cooking with Zach for fun.
He had been on edge all day. Truly, she had too. That kiss last night had set every nerve on fire.
She didn’t know what to say or do around him anymore. It felt like she was sixteen with her first real crush all over again.
They’d finally felt in sync with the singing, but that ended abruptly, and she didn’t know why.
Yeah, she probably should have waited to write those things down for her article, but she really didn’t want to forget them. Once things settled down after this round of the contest, she could explain to Zach. He would understand, she was sure of it.
She handed Zach the colander she’d found sandwiched between a skillet and a stock pot.