Page 47 of Aftertaste

“You must taste them a lot, if they changed your palate.”

Yes! It was like she understood him.

“All the time. But, I mean, can’t complain, right? Gave me a leg up over all the culinary school snobs.”

“It must be exhausting, though, communing with the Dead like that.”

“You get used to it. Sort of.”

“And cooking,” she went on, “becoming a chef—that’s been your release for it all?” She shook her head in awe. “Pretty brilliant. Getting the aftertastes out of your system without messing with the Dead.”

Wait… what?No. She didn’t think…

“I mean thatiswhat you’re doing, right?” She gave him a look he couldn’t entirely read. Expectation? Suspicion? Hope? “You’re not still… experimenting?”

This felt like a trick question.

“Uh, well…”

Hewantedto tell her the truth. Heshould havetold her the truth. Fess up. Admit the whole thing. About his dad at Saveur Fare. About the revenant souls over at Hell’s Kitchen Supper Club. About the fact that he hadn’t left his clairgustance behind. Instead, he hesitated. Because she’d warned him. Months ago. Had told him that he should not, under any circumstances, keep messing with the Dead.

“You know, it’s actually kind of a funny story?”

She raised one eyebrow. “Funny how?”

He swallowed.

If he came clean, this thing between them—whatever it was, whatever it could be—might be over before it even began. It had only been a handful of hours, but he already felt more spark, more thrill, more desire with Maura than he’d felt in years of fruitless dates and passionless relationships. He couldn’t just let her go. Not without giving her the whole picture. He would find some way to show her all the good he was doing, all the people he was helping, that it was safe, that he was figuring it out, then maybe—

“Konstantin?” she prompted, and he Animorphed from a man into some invertebrate jelly.

“I… um…well… remember at Seyoncé, when I told you about that drink?”

“The one that brought back a ghost?”

“Uh, yeah. That drink.Well, I thought a lot about what you said at the party.” He chose his words very carefully; this was all technically true. “If I’m being honest, it was hard to hear. It wasn’t exactly what I was hoping you’d say.” Also true. “And I was pretty pissed that you rained on my parade. So becoming a chef, opening my own spot—in a way, that was my big F you. To, um, to you.” He was practically Abe Lincoln, with all this honesty.

Her expression softened. “Look, I know I came on strong. My delivery was… unkind. But that had nothing to do with you. I—I actually tried to find you that night. After you left.”

“Really? Why?”

Maura shrugged in a way that tried—and failed—to appear nonchalant.

“To apologize. I could tell I’d crossed a line. You were cute, and sweet, andcluelessabout what you were getting into. And you didn’t deserve that.”

Cute?Kostya was about to levitate off the kitchen tile.

“Anyway,” she added, “I’m kind of surprised you took my advice. About the Dead.”

“What makes you so sure I did?” he asked, trying to stay on the right side of history while keeping it fun and flirty. “I mean, I’m a tat guy now. Maybe I live on the wild side. Maybe I’ve brought back hundreds of them.”

Maura fought to suppress a laugh. She slid her hand up his arm, pressed a little piece of plastic wrap back down against his elbow, where the edge of his bandage had come up. It hurt and he wanted her to do it again.

“Okay, Wild Thing. Sure. You screwed with the cosmic order and walked off without a scratch. Get real! If you’d really been fucking with the Dead, after all this time…”

She trailed off, that ellipsis like a death sentence.

“After all this time what?”

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