Chapter 8 Harlan
EIGHT
HARLAN
FEbrUARY
“And this is my hot tub.” I lifted the lid to reveal a rainbow display of lights flashing through the gently bubbling water.
Emma whistled. “Must be nice.”
“Yeah, well, get beat up for a living, and you might need in-home relief too.”
Emma agreed with a tip of her head, subtly stretching her shoulder blades. She’d started our first lesson with a big dose of attitude, but as I showed her my living space, she’d gotten quieter. She dusted her fingers across the top of the water and gazed at it longingly.
“D’you . . . wanna get in?”
She snapped to attention. “What? No.”
“We can,” I said. “Maybe after we eat?”
She shook her head and stepped back from the tub. “No, no. I just zoned out for a second. I don’t need to get in your hot tub.”
I squinted at her. “It sounds like that’s exactly what you need.”
She gestured to her clothes. “I’m not really dressed for it.”
A dirty image of the woman in front of me flashed in my mind’s eye. The soft flesh of her hips, how her tits would fill my hands.
Now I was the one zoning out. And being wildly mentally inappropriate with the woman I’d hired to teach me how to cook.
She glanced at her watch. “We really should get to cooking.”
I put my hands up. “You’re right. You’re right. Let’s cook.”
A bead of sweat rolled down my temple.
“Faster.”
“Yes, Chef,” I mumbled.
“Loosen your grip.”
My shoulders drooped and I turned to look at my drill sergeant of an instructor, letting the knife flop onto the cutting board. “How the hell does looser make it better?”
She watched me while a placid smile graced her lips. Smoke curled in the air between us and she jutted her chin at the stove. “Don’t forget your steak.”
“Shit!” I turned back to the stove, grabbing a spoon to drizzle the butter over the steak. Only the butter was part of what was burning. “Fuck fuck fuck.”
Chef was so close to me that her breast grazed my arm. This did not do my previous filthy thoughts any favors, only serving to distract me further.
“Get it out of the pan.”
“Right.” I picked up the tongs and attempted to pry the expensive cut of meat off the pan. It split, and what was supposed to be the crusted edge stuck to the pan. “I promise I know how to cook a steak.”
I fully expected her to rib me. If I’d just waited for her instructions, I probably wouldn’t have burned the steak. Instead, her voice was gentle and low.
“Clear your head. What needs to happen next?”
I swallowed hard and that bead of sweat from my temple made its way down my neck.
“I’ll help.” Emma’s deliciously soft breast pressed into my arm again as she leaned over me and turned off the burner. Her hand squeezed my bicep. “In and out.”
I didn’t have to ask what she meant, because my body obeyed with a breath snorted in and pushed out through my lips.
“In and out,” she said again.
“I just did!” I snapped.
“You really don’t like taking direction,” she observed.
“I can take direction, I just don’t like fucking up!” I flipped the pan handle into the middle of the stove and tossed the tongs at the other burner. “And you’re judging me!”
Emma studied me. “Only because you’re throwing a tantrum.”
“I am not!” I met her eyes to find them amused, a knowing smirk on her lips. And yet, she didn’t give me any more shit.
“What do you do when a goal gets past you? What goes through your head?”
My jaw tightened and I sucked on the roof of my mouth.
My lips were pinched so tightly that I thought I might break a tooth.
“What does my game have to do with my cooking? Do you think there’s something wrong with my game too?
Going to hire a new chef to learn for me because I’m apparently incapable? ”
Emma’s brow knit. “What?”
My hands balled into fists. “Everybody expects me to fuck up. They pay me less, they bring in Cordero like I’m a cuck who needs someone to fill in. Because they decided I suck, even though my stats are insane.”
Her hand landed on my forearm and I softened. Emma’s voice was quiet. “Everybody makes mistakes cooking. And you’re an amazing goalie.” Her hand squeezed my arm once, twice. “Close your eyes. Clear your head. In and out.”
I closed my eyes and together, we breathed. I focused on the sound of her breath, the feeling of her hand on my arm.
“You got this,” she said. “The game and cooking.”
With a long exhale, I opened to find her big brown eyes softly watching me. She patted my forearm twice before stepping away from me. “Excuse me.”
She took the pan from the stove and I turned to the cutting board behind me. Metal scraped on metal as Emma tried to pry the steak from the pan. “I’ll get it later,” I grumbled.
With a plasticky swish, the steak thunked to the bottom of my trash can. “Sucks that Eric Cordero’s fucking your girlfriend though,” she said, like the cuck comment was the biggest revelation to come out what had just happened.
I finally cracked, curling forward as I laughed. I met her eyes to find her smiling at me and fuck, her eyes were pretty. “Don’t have one of those anymore, Chef. But if I did, I couldn’t even be mad if he fucked her. That guy is a legend.”
Emma cackled and warmth tingled through me. She appeared at my side with a glass container and lid in her hand. She pointed to the broccolini I’d been chopping. “Put those in here.”
“What? Why?”
“Because,” she said carefully, “you’re going to cook those some other time. For now, you’re taking me out to dinner.”
I must have looked alarmed. Was she asking me out? And why did my heart beat faster? “Okay?”
She smirked again. “It’s part of the lesson.”
“Right, of course.”
She leaned a hip against the counter and crossed her arms, gaze sweeping over me. “You get frazzled easily. We’re going to have to work on that.”
I picked up the cutting board and scraped the chopped broccolini into the container. “I don’t like being bad at things. I like control.”
She nodded, surveying my immaculately kept home. “I know.”
I dropped the cutting board into the sink. “Am I a control freak if I ask to drive?”
Emma delivered a saccharine smile. “Yes, but I’ll let you anyway.”
The ribbing had returned. I could pay her back for all her teasing. “I’ll choose what we drive.”