Page 226 of How to Kiss a Hawthorne Brother
“I think you might be using a little too much lemon,” Zach finally says, rubbing at his jaw.
“Really?” Tatum says. Her gaze finally shifts to me. “That’s funny. I used a recipe I got from Lennox.”
From me?When would she have gotten a recipe from me?
Zach looks at me, eyebrows raised. “Really?”
Okay. I’m so over this. I reach for the salad dressing. “Let me see.”
“It got him all kinds of attention back in culinary school,” Tatum says as Zach hands me the dish. “I’m sure Lennox remembers.”
I taste the dressing, her words catching up with me a beat too late. I wince as the overly sour flavor makes my jaw clench and my face contort.
The salad dressing tastes terrible. But it isn’t just terrible. It’s alsofamiliar.
I should have known.
Nothing about Tatum asking Zach for an opinion on her salad dressing felt right. And the way she was looking at him, all wide-eyed and innocent, it’s almost like she wastoo earnest.
I lift my gaze to Tatum who is smiling wide, her bottom lip caught between her teeth and her hands propped on her hips.
No, I take it back. She isn’t smiling. She’ssmirking,her eyes glittering with mirth.
I have one hundred percent beenplayed.
“Ha, ha, ha. Very funny,” I say dryly.
“Wait, what? What’s funny?” Zach asks.
Tatum leans forward onto the counter and props her chin in her hand. “What do you think? Does the dressing have too much lemon? I was going for subtle.”
The lemon in the vinaigrette is about as subtle as a semi-truck barreling down the highway. Exactly as it was the one and only time I completely bombed an assignment in culinary school. Idon’t know what possessed me to add three lemons’ worth of juice to the simple dressing. I was trying to be bold, probably, prove that I could buck the rules and still come out shining. But adding enough sweet to combat that much tartness would have turned the dressing into lemonade. By the time I realized as much, the damage was already done.
My instructor used me as an example of what not to do for weeks.
I slide the dish back onto the counter. “How did you even remember the recipe?”
“Honestly, with that much lemon juice in it, does the rest of the recipe really matter?”
I roll my eyes. “I’ll never forget the way you looked that day,” I say, a slight challenge in my voice. “Almost as smug and condescending as you look right now.”
“I still need someone to explain what’s going on,” Zach says.
“I was notsmug,” Tatum says tartly, and I’m weirdly happy she doesn’t break our gaze to answer Zach’s question.
I scoff. “You took an actual victory lap around the kitchen after our instructor declared it a catastrophe.”
She leans forward. “Maybe I was just happy to see the great Lennox Hawthorne knocked down a peg or two.”
“Hello?” Zach says. “Do either of you want to clue me in?”
“The great Lennox Hawthorne?” I say. “That’s rich coming from Christopher Elliott’s golden child. How is daddy dearest?”
She rolls her eyes. “Golden child? Says the guy literally working on his family’s farm?”
I stand up and lean over the counter, bringing my face level with Tatum’s, and place my palms flat against the cool stainless steel. “Hawthorne might be sitting on family land, but it’s still my restaurant. I’m the one doing the work and making it successful.”
The bravado sounds false to my ears, especially after the night I just had, but I won’t equivocate in front of Tatum.
