Page 29 of Pitcher Perfect

As he plated the tuna tartare, I decided to pull out the IPA with grapefruit and rose notes I’d brought. He gestured for me to grab glasses from his cupboard. There was an intimacy to moving around his kitchen, and I liked it a hell of a lot.

“How did you get into cooking?”

He pushed the two plates onto the far side of his bar-height counter, where two tall chairs sat. I placed the glasses and bottle of beer there and walked around the counter to take a seat. Once Caleb sat next to me, I realized how close we were. I didn’t mind at all. Our knees brushed as we got settled.

“I spent a lot of afternoons at a diner down the road from where I grew up. When my mom was really sick, my sister and I went there most days after school while she slept. One of the waitresses, Jenny, was a friend of my mom’s and kept an eye on us when Mom couldn’t.” Caleb paused. “She watched us even more after Mom passed.”

Instead of giving in to the urge to wrap my arms around him, I gently squeezed his knee. “I’m so sorry.”

He offered a small smile. “Thanks. It was a really hard time, but being at the diner was a great escape for me. Chuck, the cook, took me under his wing and showed me some things. He eventually let me help with the easy stuff like boiling potatoes. I didn’t think much of it until Jenny gave me a cookbook by some popular chef a few years later. That cookbook changed my life. In high school, I worked at the diner part-time as a cook and made all the book’s recipes in my free time.”

I tried to keep an open mind, but it was hard for me to imagine a chef making such a positive impact on a kid’s life when my own chef dad had actively ignored mine. While he was off cooking for celebrities and being a guest on national morning shows, I was trying not to cause Ty’s mom any trouble so she wouldn’t make me leave. Not that she ever made me feel like anything other than one of her kids, but I still worried about it every day, feeling like an interloper on borrowed time.

“My mom made me promise I’d get my bachelor’s degree since neither she nor my dad went to college. I studied business then went to culinary school after my undergrad.”

I kicked my mopey musings to the curb and focused on the man in front of me. “Seems like they both serve you well running a food truck.”

He grinned. “They do.”

I took a sip of the beer then a bite of the tuna. They went together surprisingly well.

Caleb reached out and gently dragged the pad of his thumb across the corner of my mouth. Before I could think about sucking it between my lips, it was gone. I missed his touch immediately.

“Sorry. You had something.” His voice was raspier than usual.

“Thanks.”Do I sound breathless?I might as well have busted out my notebook and started drawing hearts in a diary entry.Dear Diary, tonight Caleb wiped food off my face. Am I a klutz, or was it a move? Gosh, he’s so dreamy!

“Good beer choice. I like the light hint of something floral. Rose? The citrus goes well with the tuna and ginger flavors,” he said after a long, quiet moment.

Right. Back to work.The guys had good palates and were an important part of our beer-development process, but I could tell Caleb was on another level. I wanted to eat our way through Portland and listen to his verdict on everything.

“I like it, too, but IPA would be tough for the competition. It’s a crowded market, and I think it would be tricky to stand out.”

Caleb nodded thoughtfully as he chewed. He took another sip. “That makes sense.”

I poured the pale ale while Caleb finished preparing the pasta. We worked through the tasting menu, swapping stories, teasing each other, getting along. Something in my gut pushed me toward Caleb like I had jumped from a plane and Caleb was the landing pad. My interest in him was too much, too soon, too scary. We barely knew each other, but the amount Iwantedto know him scared me.

Though I hadn’t had much beer, since we were only tasting, I felt tipsy. No, giddy. I accidentally knocked my knee against his again. He didn’t move his, and neither did I. I realized my foot was on the bar of his chair instead of my own, and his foot was on mine. If we were in a bar, it would look like we were on a date. If not for our continued thread of conversation about the food and beer and debating our options for the competition, it would’ve felt like one.

It scared me how blurred the line already had become with us. We were barely into the competition preparation. Then again, once we decided on the beer and food recipes, and after I got the brewing process started, there wouldn’t be a need for us to spend time together for the weeks while science did its thing in the tank.

“What’s that frown for?”

“Huh? Oh, nothing. Just thinking about how I want more of this beer, but I’m driving.”

Caleb’s gaze dropped to my lips. “If you want to drink, you can hang until you sober up. Or crash here.” He shrugged, but it seemed anything but casual. “No rush.”

Crashing at Caleb’s was tempting,so tempting, but dangerous. Even as my brain yelled at me to go home, I found myself glancing at his lips before holding his eye contact. He leaned forward, or I did—it didn’t matter—until our lips brushed. The slight contact was like two magnets getting within range, pulling us together. As he pulled me toward him, I stumbled off the stool and stood between his legs, clutching his firm thighs for balance.

He cupped the back of my neck and angled my head exactly how he wanted it, which was,mmm, very nice. I lost myself to the sensations overloading my system. I slid my fingers up his thighs until I could hook them in his pockets. I must’ve tugged because he rose and walked me back to his couch, his lips never breaking contact, his hands never leaving my body.

I spun him so he fell back on the couch, and I quickly straddled his lap. Something in me unlocked, or maybe I finally got out of my own way.

“Holy fuck, Austin. You feel so good.” He dragged his hands down my back and paused at my waist, gripping it like he needed to hold on to something before floating away.

The soft moans and faint whimpers as our tongues danced seared into my mind. I couldn’t get enough. I didn’t think it was because I’d had a dry spell but that it was Caleb. He felt perfect under me, but a small voice in the back of my head shouted at me to stop before I ruined everything. I ignored it and kept touching Caleb, kept letting him touch me.How could something that feels so right be wrong?

Eventually, I had to break for air. We stared into each other’s eyes, breathing hard. It felt like my smile threatened to crack my face. I could say the same about his.

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