Page 91 of Whisking It All

Ethan: The wonders of modern technology, my friend.

Jamie: Tessa sent him a link to stream it online.

Ethan: The wonders of modern technology AND daughters.

Baz: Is anyone else watching this shit? No way are New Hampshire’s leaves any more peepable than Rhode Island’s.

Jamie: Did the big bad local news anchor offend you, Baz?

Ethan: He’s not wrong. Aster Bay has some top-notch leaf peeping.

Ethan: According to my mom.

Gavin: See if you can work that in, Jamie. Like a segue.

Jamie: I’m turning off my phone now.

Gavin: Break a leg!

Ethan: You’ve got this.

Baz: Don’t fuck it up.

∞∞∞

Tessa speared another cranberry on the end of a long wooden skewer and plunged it into the bubbling pot of sugar on the stovetop. She and Jamie had been at the small television studio where Sunrise in the City was filmed for hours. The producers had decided at the last minute that it would be great to periodically cut back to the two chefs as they worked in the studio’s makeshift kitchen, until they finally ended the segment with an interview and the overly coiffed hosts taste testing their dishes. It was an odd way to cook, but not terribly different than when guests in Vegas would press their faces up against the window of Marisa Sinclair’s bakery to catch a glimpse of someone icing a cake.

She swirled the fruit through the syrup, then set it aside on a rack to cool before shifting on her feet and skewering another red berry for dipping. Why did she agree to wear heels and a pencil skirt for this taping? Though she kept catching Jamie staring at her ass, so it wasn’t all bad.

Beside her, Jamie shook a dry pan toasting pine nuts with one hand and whisked his chardonnay browned butter with another. She caught his eye as he set the pine nuts off the heat. He dumped the nuts into a small ramekin on the workstation that would look good on camera when he plated up his dish—the producers had been very clear that they were to plate their dishes on camera while the hosts interviewed them—and poured a generous swirl of oil into the pan, preparing to fry his sage leaves. She smiled to herself, knowing both the sage and the pine nuts were her additions to his dish, the small mark she was leaving on his plate.

It felt good to work like this, side by side with Jamie. They couldn’t speak or it would interfere with the filming at the anchor’s desk mere steps away from the kitchen set, but every glance, every time their hands brushed on the workstation or he placed his hand to her waist as he stepped around her, felt like an entire conversation. She thought of all the times they’d have together in the future when they would prep a meal side by side like this—all the Friday nights alone in his cottage, all the holidays and birthdays. Maybe they’d bring back Sunday dinners, the two of them cooking her grandmother’s recipes and some of their own and welcoming their friends and family for a weekly meal.

A twinge of nerves hit her as she considered how many of those moments depended on Ethan being okay with his daughter and his best friend being together, but Jamie seemed sure that it would work out, and he knew her father better than she did. For the hundredth time, she swallowed down the fizzy panic, the pre-emptive alarm bells urging her to get out, to leave before Jamie could decide she wasn’t worth the trouble. When she looked at Jamie, when he looked at her, she felt like maybe, just maybe she was worth it after all.

Jamie dipped a spoon into his browned butter sauce, capturing the smallest amount on the tip of the metal curve, and held it out to her with a questioning eyebrow raise. Her stomach flip-flopped as she realized he was asking her opinion on his sauce. She leaned forward, his hand beneath the spoon brushing her bottom lip as she sipped the sauce from the spoon. The nutty brown butter combined with the rich reduced champagne and the bright herbs as it coated her tongue. She licked the last drop of it from her top lip, fighting the smile when his eyes heated at the sight, and nodded. It was perfect. They were perfect.

Tessa lifted a cooled, candied cranberry from the wire rack and held it out to Jamie to taste. The firm berry in its sticky candy coating shone under the studio lights like a jewel held between her thumb and forefinger. Rather than taking the berry from her fingers with his own, however, Jamie held her wrist and leaned forward to capture the tips of her fingers, and the berry with them, between his lips. His tongue swiped the cranberry and he sucked her fingertips clean, before he righted himself with a smirk, her pulse pounding between her legs.

Holy shit, this man.

He gave her the smallest of nods and returned his attention to dropping sage leaves into his now-hot oil, and she had the strangest desire to poke her finger in the dimple on his cheek.

“We’ll be back, with chefs Jameson Chase and Tessa Cordeiro after these words from our sponsors,” the female host, Wendy, announced and Tessa could practically feel the camera sweeping over her as she began scooping what was left of her white chocolate buttercream into a piping bag.

Those final moments, as Wendy reapplied her hot pink lipstick and Gene, the other host, called for a refill on his coffee, flew by in a whirlwind of retrieving her uncut Swiss roll from the chiller and dropping candied cranberries into the designated ramekin. Before she knew it, they were counting them back in.

“Good morning, Chefs. We can’t wait to taste what you’ve been working on all morning,” Wendy said as she and Gene sauntered onto the kitchen set.

“Good morning, Wendy. Thanks for having us,” Jamie said with an easy smile as he effortlessly formed another agnolotti.

“You two are the co-chairs for Aster Bay’s Food and Wine Festival this year, isn’t that right?” Gene asked, his smile reaching all the way to his eyes as he surveyed their work.

“That’s right,” Tessa said as she began slicing her Swiss roll into thin slices that would show off the perfect swirl of cake and buttercream. “We think people are really going to love all the new programs we’ve got in store for them this year.”

“Like axe throwing and spa treatments?” Wendy asked with a quirk of her eyebrow that wasn’t entirely friendly.

Jamie chuckled, setting aside one perfectly formed agnolotti and starting the process over with another one. “It’s a little unconventional, we know, but Tessa and I feel strongly that we want this festival to show off all that Aster Bay has to offer, not just our incredible food and wine.”

---