40. Chapter Forty
Chapter 40
Risto
L eslie and I collapsed into bed the moment we dragged our weary bodies back to her apartment. When I woke the next morning, Leslie’s limbs splayed across the mattress like a starfish. Mouth open, she was zonked. She didn’t as much as twitch when I slipped out and closed the bedroom door.
As I splashed water on my face, my mind’s eye teemed with the animated crowds from the day before. How phenomenal to see so many people enthusiastically supporting the woman I loved! Having her vibrant and healthier made our future together seem limitless. Despite her public battle with the network, I expected her to get offers from other organizations who would smartly pounce on Leslie, given her high profile and stellar reputation for integrity.
Reed was getting pilloried on every social platform. Loud calls for his firing crammed my social feed, as did posts about boycotting his program. The boycott cries then expanded to other shows that used discriminatory weight clauses in their contracts.
Legal experts spouted from every TV news panel. Few could justify the contract language without also admitting the bias inherent in so narrowly limiting staff to slim reporters.
Then more evidence poured in. Redacted screenshots of contracts and rude emails from industry execs, casting directors, and producers ranting about a talent’s fatness or berating thin ones for gaining two ounces. Leslie’s protest ripped open a festering wound, and people were clamoring for disinfecting change.
I braced my arms on the sink, face dripping as I inspected my reflection. The roundness I’d seen my whole adult life had angled. My skin was ashy gray, like a piece of chicken cooked in a microwave. Dark circles took up residence under my eyes, displaying the relentless weariness that had settled in my bones.
I looked hellish and felt worse. But worst of all, I no longer recognized myself.
Being around proudly fat people yesterday had reinforced Ruben’s concern about my health and well-being. And his warning about Brock’s influence. My thirst to be a star blinded me to the idea that anyone would want me as I was. A chef of food so amazing that Manhattan diners drove three hours to taste it. Eager fans lit up chat forums and made Silas Greene barge into my kitchen, demanding to be served. Food that earned me a magazine cover and enthusiastic investors.
Why was I risking it all to starve myself ? Like Brock's other clients, I’d only grown more miserable by the day, until being around food had become torture. Yesterday’s lessons confirmed for me that my days of dieting were over. I’d already texted Brock with the news and had yet to hear back. His silence was deafening, but I had bigger concerns. I owed the investors the new restaurant’s menu.
Was my reinterpretation of humble Puerto Rican dishes another attempt to twist myself into someone I wasn’t? The flavors of our cuisine needed no altering to be worthy of a NYC address. Creating complex recipes that tasted like the original justified the higher price tag, but left Silas unimpressed. Somewhere along the way, the food lost its soul. Jose and Freddie rolled their eyes at the hours I spent manipulating pricey ingredients onto spare plates. Was it because I thought my regular food wasn’t good enough? Or because I felt inferior to the famous chefs on TV?
A thunderclap of truth knocked me near-senseless.
Silas was right. I’d gotten the entire NYC menu horribly wrong.
Yes, I loved my delicious intellectual puzzles. But was that what I wanted to be known for? Elite, unrecognizable Puerto Rican food? Or did I belong preparing the authentic article with love using time-tested, if slightly modified, recipes that tasted like home?
The chemist in me wanted to experiment and innovate. That’s what the investors signed up for. I’d only presented them foods two ways to show them the difference if they were unfamiliar with the original flavors. They’d fallen in love with elevated dishes while savoring traditional ones. They had the benefit of both. Shouldn’t all diners? Both sides were part of me. I was sophisticated and humble. Innovative, yet yearned for tradition, family, and friends.
I didn’t have to choose.
I had always been my own man, creating meals that sparked happiness. But all the nonsense with Brock twisted me into someone who hated food. The menu for the new restaurant would be me. All of me. The fancy culinary school me and the sweats and T-shirt me. The guy who lovingly tended pernil until the pork was marinated to maximize flavor and roasted until golden and succulent.
All of me would go into this restaurant.
And people would make reservations months in advance to get a taste.
I dried my face, grabbed my keys, and was out jogging to the market before the recipes fled out my ears, never to return. I craved the stove like air. These dishes would breathe life into my new vision. Two me’s. Two ways to enjoy the flavors of Puerto Rico. I’d call it Boricua 2.
Hours later, every pot Leslie owned bubbled on the range and meat sizzled in disposable roasting pans jammed into the oven, surrendering to their roasted selves. The oven heat first dried the cuts, then hardened, then tenderized. Taken out at the wrong time, the meal would be a disappointing disaster.
As I almost was.
But I eventually made it through, coming to understand and trust my true self. I’d been a happy, satisfied chef before, confident beyond my years or life experience. When the idea for the new restaurant surfaced, my instinct said to walk away. Instead, I’d agreed, half-assing my way toward a future I thought I should want but didn’t. Not if I were honest with myself.
With the cloud lifted and my goals clear, New York cemented itself as an inevitable part of my destiny. I craved it and the creative potential it represented. The yearning throbbed in my veins with a passion typically reserved for Leslie.
“That smells delicious.” Leslie crept close, caressing my back.
My head bobbed in time with my knife chops. “You have no idea. It’s extraordinary. Taste.”
I snatched a shrimp from the sauté pan and dropped it from my fingers into her waiting mouth.
Her eyes shut as she savored the flavor. “Mmm. That is fantastic.”
She reached for another, but I swatted her hand away. “Not yet. Everyone will be here soon.”
“You’re seriously denying me food?”
I pulsed an eyebrow. “Good point. Go ahead.”
She took a second shrimp from the pan with her bare fingers, licking them slowly and seductively while batting her long lashes.
“Oh, it’s like that, is it?”
She shrugged. “We have time.”
I glanced at the stove and saw my concoctions bubbling happily or turned off and resting.
We did have time.
Torn, all my resolve melted when Leslie slipped her black dress over her head and dropped it on the kitchen floor. Braless, her firm breasts taunted me as she backpedaled toward the bedroom wearing only a black pair of panties and a curled finger.
“Now that’s not playing fair,” I said.
“I never play fair, Chef.” She posed, arching her back against the wall while tangling her hands in her luscious curls.
That was my job. And she knew it.
“I love you, but I’m not burning dinner…”
She sashayed down the hallway, then straddled the bedroom doorway like it was me.
“Fuck it.”
I was on her in an instant, flipping her over my shoulder and taking a more than playful bite out of her ass.
“Hey!” She giggled. “Who’s not playing fair now?”
I bounced her onto the bed, tossing my apron at her and slipping off my clothes. By the time I looked up, she’d tied the black apron on but wore nothing else. Mouth deliciously pouted, her breasts exploded from behind the narrow bib slung around her neck.
My body ached to have her. I imagined slipping into her like a glove. Tight. Warm. Wanting.
I crawled to meet her on the bed, yanking her up to her knees and devouring her mouth until the call of her throat overwhelmed me. Her herbaceous scent was a meal far better than any I could manufacture.
Leslie released a deep, throaty moan. “I should wear an apron more often!”
“You should, but only in bed.”
I reached for the night table drawer, but she pushed my hand away.
How could I have forgotten?
Both clean and with birth control pills active, there was nothing to keep us apart. Our bond was unbreakable. She’d be mine forevermore. I flipped her around and entered her, deep and hard, surrendering to a torment of colliding senses. I moaned as the silky texture of her skin set me on fire. I bent flush with her back and sank my face into her curls, delighting in the sensation of being skin to skin.
“Oh, baby. You feel too good.”
I gripped her waist, Leslie’s breasts grazing my hands as we joined and released. Teasing me. Tempting me to flip her over to suckle like the drowning man I was. But I was too lost in the fiery pleasure lapping at my edges, like a siren call. I bit my lip, but the pain only inflamed me further.
Leslie withdrew, flipped over, and tossed her legs over my shoulders. I knew what she wanted, but I had other plans.
I devoured her wetness, working her most sensitive spot the way I knew she wanted.
“Oh, oooooh! Right there, right there…” she cried, grabbing my head, holding as she arched. Leslie drifted in her private cosmos before falling limp on the bed.
Sick with lust, I thrusted, our union sparking her back to life. We joined and released in a rhythm perfected over years. From loving someone more than you loved yourself. From igniting their pleasure, then fanning the flames into a white-hot inferno. From wandering together in dark places. From sunning in bright ones. From knowing what they needed to soar. Soulmates in every sense of the word.
Pleasure crested until the call was too strong to resist. I let go and broke into a billion pieces. My cry echoed off the walls, blending into hers until we were one, collapsing into a heaping mass on the mattress.
We lay panting and immobile, floating through the mists of sleep, when the stove timer sounded.
Fantastic.
Visions of ruined dishes had me alert in no time. I jumped up and quickly washed and dressed before returning to the kitchen.
The roasted meat glistened as I removed it from the oven and set it aside to rest.
The tomato sauce had reduced into what would become the thick base of my pink beans. I put the new pot on the stove, dribbled olive oil into it, and added a spoonful of sofrito. The rich mix of peppers, onions, garlic, and herbs sizzled in the pan. I stirred beans in, then ladled in tomato sauce, salt, and pepper and set it to simmer while I got the rice cooking.
Lost in my preparations, Leslie’s presence went unnoticed until her soft lips connected with my back. She’d slipped the abandoned dress back over her curves like nothing had happened. Like she hadn’t just destroyed me in bed.
“We’re both lucky I set that kitchen timer. I would’ve lost it all.” I drew her in with one arm. She tilted her head back, her wordless request for a kiss, which I granted.
Leslie moved to the cupboard and removed a stack of white clay plates with lipped edges. Arms straightening under the weight, she made her way to the dining table to set it for eight. It was a homey scene. One I’d wished for far too many times to admit to anyone out loud. Not even Leslie. But we were here. We’d made it. I’d fight like hell to keep anyone from harming the woman I loved.
But the world outside this apartment might have very different plans.