43. Rian
Rian
I came home early, my head filled with half songs and tracks for the album we were recording.
I’d expected to be alone, but when I walked into the living room, Alejandro was there. The coffee table looked like a paper explosion, with lists and menus scattered everywhere.
“This is a nice surprise.” I tossed my laptop onto the armchair. “Did you get free from work early?”
“I did,” he said. He was still wearing his work clothes, so a soft T-shirt with black-and-white checkered pants. He looked yummy in them, and I didn’t bother resisting the urge. I walked straight over to his chair and climbed into his lap.
“Hi.” He grinned. “I had overtime, so the boss took pity on me and let me go.”
I looked at the coffee table. “So you came home and instead of relaxing you’re doing…menus.”
“For us,” he said. He wrapped his arm around my waist, and I breathed in the guanabana tropical green scent of my other alpha. I rubbed my face on his cheek. A couple of weeks ago, I didn’t know who he was. Now I couldn’t imagine life without him.
I kept expecting to feel weird around him. Like maybe I was stealing Ember’s alpha, or maybe Ben would get jealous, but that never manifested. Instead, the five of us just felt right, especially now that we were living together.
My old fears of being rejected resurfaced for a moment. Sure, they wanted me now, but several months of me being neurotic about…everything, and it would get old.
I squashed the thought. It was an old wound that haunted me, nothing more.
“We don’t need a four-course meal all the time,” I said, even though we mostly ate normal things. “I didn’t realize how much planning went into feeding five people.”
When it was just me and Ben, we ate a lot of takeout, or occasionally I cooked really simple meals like spaghetti, or chicken and rice.
“I like it.” He kissed my cheek. “Helps me focus.” He picked up a piece of paper, and it was a long list of snacks. “I like making long lists of things and then narrowing it down and grouping things together. Like if we have pulled pork one night, we could have carnitas another night.”
“Makes sense. I could go shopping with you?” I gestured at the grocery list. “I used to do a lot of the shopping, or we’d order groceries online.”
“I was going to go to the farmer’s market.” He rubbed his cheek against mine. “But if you’d rather stay in and rest, that’s fine. What do you owe your freedom to?”
“Someone canceled so we moved some other artists around,” I said. “Ben stayed because he’s the sound producer on both albums but I’m not needed for this part.”
“Sounds glamorous and chaotic.” Alejandro grinned. “Like being a chef.”
“Exactly.” Reluctantly I slid off his lap. We could do sexy things later. “Let’s go get food for our pack.”
The thought built a warm bubble inside me. I had a pack. We were a pack.
Alejandro drove, and I let myself relax. Pushed aside my worries about my career and failings and tried to just live in the moment.
We’d checked in with the police about who had trashed Ember and West’s nest, and so far they had no leads. It burned me, that someone out there was making my omegas feel unsafe. But until we had something more to go on, we were stuck.
In the meantime, we would hover around them. I opened the group chat and texted a message, asking if anyone had any cravings for the week, because Alejandro and I were going to the store.
Ember: be careful
“Ember is making sure we’ll be careful,” I told Alejandro since he was driving. “And also we’re out of chocolate-covered pretzels.”
“They’re already on the list,” Alejandro grinned. “But good to know.”
I asked him about work that week, their spring menu, and it was nice to hear about the world of cooking for a little while. Alejandro pulled into an open-air farmer’s market. The space held rows and rows of food, fresh honey and bread, homemade jam, and all sorts of things.
At first, we just wandered. I’d expected a search-and-destroy sort of mission, but Alejandro picked up a grapefruit, set it down, and wandered down the next aisle.
“Thinking?” I followed behind him.
“Yes, musing.” He handed me some oranges. “I like touching the produce, thinking about the dishes.”
“Sounds…creative.” I smoothed my hair back, pulling it into a low ponytail. “I guess cooking uses a lot more creativity than I realized.”
“Oh, it can be really specific and exact. But it also requires creativity.” Alejandro picked up a bunch of mangoes. “Sometimes I feel like I’m all washed up. How many more dishes can I come up with? They’ve all been done before.”
“Sounds like music.” I wrinkled my nose.
“Very much so.” Alejandro put some mangoes into the basket. “I go through periods where I just make the dishes I’m supposed to make, do the work, you know? But sometimes I think, what if I made a new dish?”
“Do you want your own restaurant someday?” The air was chilly, but it felt nice against my jacket, and there was something calming about wandering around the aisles. Alejandro was very at home, and it was like seeing another facet of him.
“I’m supposed to.” He smiled. “But no, not really.”
“What do you mean, supposed to?”
He sighed. “I’m a sous chef. Next step up is opening my own restaurant, designing a menu, and so on. And I have the experience for it. I just don’t want to.”
“There’s nothing wrong with being a sous chef forever,” I said, coming to his defense. He was amused but also making fun of himself a little bit. I didn’t like it.
“My parents were so impressed with my career. Early on, running a Michelin-starred restaurant.”
“Less impressed now?”
“They worry I’m holding myself back.” He shook his head. “They love me, but you know. They want the best for me.”
“Tell me about it.” I rolled my eyes. “My parents keep asking when I’m going to make my own music and instead of making other people rich?”
“Exactly that, mi amor.” Alejandro picked up a long green leafy fruit.
“They seem to think I have to be in charge of everything to be using my talents all the way.” He shrugged.
“I love my job, but opening a restaurant is murder and I don’t want to sacrifice this just for the sake of my own name on the door. ” He gestured between us.
“We would support you if that’s what you wanted,” I said.
“I know.” He grinned, showing a dimple. I briefly considered finding a small dark place to drag him off to. “But I don’t want to. I’ve already arranged my schedule to have more time off. I’d rather have a better work-life balance, now that I have something I’m coming home to.”
That was it. Ben and I had each other, but now it felt like we were going home to a family, not just the place we lived.
“So if you want to play guitar the rest of your life, then have at it.” Alejandro nodded at me, picking up some jicama.
“I don’t, though.” I sighed. “It was nice, the other night, making music just for the fun of it. I wish I could get there again.”
“You can,” Alejandro said. “I go through long periods of just making the same dish over and over. And then inspiration strikes, and I’m off again. It’s a tough process, and you have to be willing to make mistakes.” He gave me a look. “You’re too much of a perfectionist.”
“I know.” I rolled my eyes. Ben told me that twice a week or more. “I can’t help it.”
“You can. It’s just really hard.” He nodded at me. “I was in a perfectionism rut, and then Logan made me burn dishes on purpose.” He shuddered, a look of pure horror on his face.
“Burn dishes?”
“Yes. He’d ask me to make a steak dish and then stand there and make me watch as it burned. And then overcook the rice. And then overseason the veggies.” Alejandro shook his head. “It felt like the worse thing in the entire world. And then the bastard took a bite.”
My jaw dropped. I could relate too well. It would be like someone hearing my early trash attempts at writing songs.
“He said it wasn’t the worst dish he’d ever had, and guess what? It was fine to fail sometimes.” Alejandro added some cucumbers and then I added more mangoes, craving them for some reason.
“It does feel like the worst thing, failing.”
“But once you fail, you remember it’s going to happen; you can’t stop it.
And putting pressure on yourself to be perfect is making yourself miserable.
” Alejandro raked his hand through his hair.
“Sometimes I still burn something on purpose. I’ll get really in my head about everything being just so, like when we had our big event and the pork was on the dry side.
I was a wreck. So I cooked some eggs and burned the heck out of them and then slid them into the trash, sending a prayer to the kitchen gods.
It was amusing and reminded me not to take myself so seriously.
” He turned to me, giving me the full weight of his attention.
“So I hereby give you permission to suck.”
Heat raced through me, and I looked him over. “So long as I have permission.”
He laughed, rubbing his hand on my shoulder. “Brat. I’ll fuck you later. I mean, you have permission to go home and write the worst song you possibly can think of.”
I made a face.
He laughed. “I know, easier said than done. Make it a game. Whatever feels ‘wrong,’ lean into it. Maybe you write a moody gothic ballad. Maybe you rhyme things terribly. Maybe you try your hand at Swedish death metal.”
I blinked. “Ember told me I could start over. Have a different name if I wanted.”
“Exactly. You’re not doing it for the follow-up album, or even to write a good song. You’re just trying to have fun. Amuse yourself because this is how your brain is wired.” He gestured around us. “Just like my brain is wired to like cooking.”
“Swedish death metal?” I arched an eyebrow. “I don’t have the electric guitar chops for that.”
“Even better,” Alejandro said brightly. “You’ll really suck at it, then.”