5 | Open Your Mouth
The sound of something hitting the kitchen floor reached the second story shortly after seven.
It was followed by Wesley laughing, Leo swearing, and Kadir saying something too low for me to hear.
I closed my laptop.
The first studio session had failed before lunch, and I had spent the afternoon reviewing the four unfinished tracks as if repeated exposure might reveal a solution the band had hidden inside the files.
Track Two contained three competing guitar parts. Track Three ended after the first chorus. Track Four was mostly an atmospheric introduction followed by twenty seconds of Leo humming and someone slamming a door.
The noise downstairs sounded more productive.
I followed it toward the kitchen and found all three men gathered around the island.
Kadir stood at the stove with a wooden spoon in one hand and a dish towel over his shoulder. His sleeves had been pushed to his elbows, exposing the tattoos along his forearms as he stirred something in a wide pan. Steam rose around him and softened the edges of his face.
Wesley was kneeling on the floor beside an overturned box of pasta.
Leo sat on the counter drinking wine.
That distribution of labor felt accurate.
“What happened?”
Wesley looked up from the pasta scattered around his knees. “Gravity.”
“You dropped it,” Kadir said.
“I was testing gravity.”
Leo lifted his glass toward me. “Confirmed.”
The kitchen smelled like garlic and tomatoes.
Several vegetables had been chopped across a cutting board, though the difference in size suggested more than one person had been involved.
A loaf of bread sat open near the stove.
Music played from a speaker on the windowsill, loud enough to fill the room without forcing anyone to compete with it.
They looked comfortable.
The men had spent forty-three minutes failing to build a song together, then apparently wandered into the kitchen and organized themselves without assistance.
I moved toward the island.
“What are you making?”
“Dinner,” Kadir said.
He glanced at me, his eyes moving briefly toward my legs. The soreness had improved, but not enough to make walking entirely natural. I had spent the day avoiding wide steps and stairs whenever possible.
Nothing in his expression acknowledged the reason.
Wesley finished collecting the pasta and dumped it into the trash.
“Most of dinner survived.”
“That wasn’t dinner,” Kadir said. “That was extra.”
“It could’ve been dinner.”
Leo poured wine into a fourth glass and slid it across the counter toward me.
I looked at it.
“We’re supposed to be working.”
“We worked,” he said.
The glass stopped near my hand. I picked it up and took a drink.
The wine was better than anything people normally opened while cooking pasta. The label had stocked the lodge with the assumption that expensive alcohol might accomplish what several producers had not.
I set the glass down and looked toward the cutting board.
“You need help.”
“No,” Kadir said.
It came quickly enough to feel personal.
I moved closer. “I can chop something.”
His gaze settled on me for a moment before he handed me a red pepper and pointed toward an unused knife.
The task was simple. I had chopped vegetables before. I had also watched enough cooking shows to understand that the knife should move in a controlled rocking motion rather than straight down like I was attempting to interrogate the pepper.
My first piece was too wide.
The second was narrower.
The third shot off the cutting board and landed near Leo’s thigh.
He looked down at it, then at me.
“You’re attacking the produce now?”
“I don’t see you helping.”
Leo took another drink. “I’m maintaining morale.”
Wesley had moved beside me and was opening a bag of grated cheese. He stole a piece of pepper from my cutting board before I could stop him.
“It tastes the same in different shapes.”
“Thank you.”
“That wasn’t a compliment,” Kadir said.
He watched me complete two more pieces before placing the spoon down and coming around the island. His body moved behind mine for half a second, broad and warm, before he reached around me and took the knife from my hand.
Kadir shifted me aside with one hand at my waist. The contact was brief and practical, but his thumb pressed against my side just firmly enough to make me wonder whether he remembered the patio as clearly as I did.
He began chopping the pepper.
Each piece came out the same size.
I watched him finish half of it in the time I had spent negotiating with three pieces.
“Show-off.”
“You were going to lose a finger.”
“I had complete control.”
Wesley pushed the bag of cheese toward me. “You can handle this.”
“I’m not sprinkling cheese as my contribution.”
“You can stir.”
Kadir looked over from the cutting board. “No.”
I folded my arms.
Three men had managed to agree on something for the first time since arriving at the lodge, and unfortunately it was my uselessness.
“This could be a valuable team-building exercise.”
Leo looked around the kitchen. “For you?”
“For all of us. Shared task. Common objective. Defined roles.”
“Your role is drinking.”
Wesley retrieved the wine bottle and refilled my glass before I could object.
“There,” he said. “You’re doing great.”
I rolled my eyes and allowed them to move me toward one of the stools at the island.
My thigh appreciated the decision before my pride did. Sitting relieved the lingering pull through the muscle, and the wine softened the frustration left from the studio.
Wesley placed a small bowl of olives in front of me as if I was a child who required enrichment.
Leo remained on the counter to my right, one bare foot resting against a cabinet. Kadir returned to the stove. Wesley moved between them, carrying ingredients, wiping the counter, and eating enough cheese to make the amount remaining difficult to calculate.
I watched.
Professionally.
Kadir gave instructions without explaining why they should be followed. Wesley followed them without interpreting the request as criticism. When Leo reached toward the pan with a spoon, Kadir struck the back of his hand with the wooden one.
Leo withdrew.
Several minutes later, Kadir asked him to slice the bread.
Leo complained about the knife, the cutting board, and the limited creative possibilities of bread. He still climbed down from the counter and did it.
Wesley changed the song playing from the speaker. Leo rejected the first selection. Kadir rejected the second. The third was apparently acceptable because no one said anything.
They had an existing rhythm.
It appeared in the way Wesley opened a cabinet before Kadir finished asking for a plate. Leo moved out of the way when Kadir approached the stove without being told. Kadir caught a bottle Wesley nearly knocked from the counter and placed it somewhere safer without interrupting what he was doing.
They anticipated one another easily when no one received credit for the result.
The studio had turned every suggestion into a challenge. The kitchen allowed Kadir to lead because Leo didn’t consider dinner part of his identity. Wesley could assist without disappearing because no one expected him to solve the emotional condition of the sauce.
I took another drink.
This was useful information. It also happened to smell good and require nothing from me.
Kadir tasted the sauce, added something from a small jar, then stirred again. Wesley leaned close enough to inspect the pan and was immediately pushed back with one hand to his chest.
“What did you add?” I asked.
Kadir ignored the question and continued stirring.
“He won’t tell us,” Wesley said. “I’ve asked.”
“Because you put cinnamon in chili.”
“It needed warmth.”
“It tasted like a candle,” Leo said.
Wesley pointed at him. “You had two bowls.”
“I was high.”
Kadir scooped a small amount of sauce onto the wooden spoon.
I assumed he intended to taste it again.
Instead, he crossed toward me.
He stopped on the other side of the island and held the spoon in front of my mouth.
Steam rose between us.
I looked at the sauce, then at him.
Kadir’s expression remained serious, his eyes low and steady in the warm kitchen light.
“Am I being allowed to contribute an opinion?”
“You’ve been contributing opinions.”
Leo leaned one elbow on the counter. “Open your mouth, Dasha.”
The words were casual, although my body didn’t receive them that way.
I looked toward him. His curls had fallen around his face, and amusement sat openly in his expression. He knew exactly how the instruction sounded.
Kadir kept the spoon where it was.
Wesley had stopped eating cheese.
I could have taken the spoon. I could also have refused and spared myself the experience of three men watching me respond to a direct command in the middle of their kitchen.
But I was curious enough to forget that. So, I opened my mouth.
Kadir guided the spoon between my lips.
The sauce was warm and spicy, rich with garlic and something smoky I couldn’t identify. I closed my lips around the spoon, aware of Kadir’s hand remaining steady and his attention fixed entirely on my face.
The previous night returned through the calm patience of his expression. His fingers had moved along my inner thigh while he watched every reaction. He had known when the touching stopped being practical before I had admitted it to myself.
Wesley leaned against the island beside him.
“Swallow.”
My eyes moved toward him. His smile was softer than Leo’s, but it didn’t make the instruction innocent. The sweetness I had associated with him was beginning to feel increasingly selective.
I swallowed.
Kadir pulled the spoon slowly from my mouth.
The wood dragged lightly across my lower lip.
All three men watched.
My face heated with enough force that blaming the wine would have been optimistic.
“Well?” Kadir asked.
“It needs salt.”
His eyes narrowed slightly.
Leo laughed. Wesley covered his mouth with one hand.
Kadir returned to the stove without comment, tasted the sauce from the same spoon, and added nothing.
I reached for my wine.
“Extremely professional team-building environment.”
“You followed directions,” Leo said. “That’s interesting.”
“I’m going to throw this at you.”
“You’d waste the expensive wine?”
He had correctly identified the weakness in my threat.
Wesley stole another olive from my bowl.
I slapped his hand.
He stole two the next time.
When I reached for him, he caught my wrist and held it above the island, smiling as though I had initiated a game he had been waiting to play.
“Give them back.”
“They’re gone.”
I used my free hand to flick a drop of wine at him.
It landed on his cheek.
Wesley stared at me.
I had enough time to recognize the mistake before he moved.
His hand landed at my waist and found the narrow space beneath my ribs. I jerked sideways on the stool as his fingers pressed once.
A laugh escaped before I could stop it.
Wesley’s expression brightened.
“No.”
He did it again. I twisted away and nearly collided with Leo, who had moved closer at some point during the exchange. His hand caught my shoulder, keeping me from leaving the stool.
“Fuck you,” I told him.
Leo caught my other wrist.
I tried to pull free while Wesley tickled my side with one hand, careful enough not to knock me from the stool and persistent enough to make breathing difficult. My alleged martial-arts training didn’t include strategies for being attacked by a drummer while a singer held my wrist and laughed.
“I’m a black belt.”
“You keep saying that,” Leo said. “Prove it to us.”
I attempted to kick Wesley lightly in the shin.
The movement pulled at my sore thigh, and I stopped with a small wince.
Kadir looked over immediately.
The amusement left his face before it had fully formed.
Wesley noticed too and released me.
“I’m fine,” I said.
Kadir turned down the stove and came toward us.
I expected rescue.
Instead, he took the olive bowl from beneath my hand and moved it beyond my reach.
Wesley laughed.
“You’re all horrible.”
Kadir’s hand settled briefly at my hip, steadying me as I adjusted on the stool. His thumb pressed once into my side, near enough to the sore muscle to appear considerate.
Then he released me and returned to the stove.
Dinner was ready several minutes later.
Kadir served my plate first. Wesley gave me the larger piece of bread after Leo reached for it. Leo slid the wine bottle toward me while claiming he only wanted it farther from Wesley.
They continued caring for me in ways small enough to deny.
We ate around the island rather than moving to the table. The food was excellent, including the sauce, which didn’t need salt.
I refused to admit that.
The conversation drifted toward an early tour when the three of them had shared one motel room outside Cleveland because the promoter disappeared with half the payment.
Wesley had broken the bathroom door. Leo insisted the door had already been damaged.
Kadir had repaired it with part of a drum case before the motel manager noticed.
Each man corrected the others until the story became impossible to follow.
They laughed over details that had probably been miserable at the time. Leo interrupted Kadir without silencing him. Wesley exaggerated his own role until both men objected. Kadir spoke more than I had heard him speak in any single conversation since we arrived.
For the first time, I understood why they had remained together long enough to become successful.
They still liked one another.