Henry sighed again and leaned back in his chair. “Yeah, I probably don’t need to spend what I do. Lance thought it was stupid and overpriced too.”
“Lance?”
Henry shook his head. “My last mistake. Hated that I was spending so much on cologne when he’d buy whatever was next to the shampoo and razors.” Henry gave a dry little chuckle. “Among other things he hated.” He got quiet for a couple of seconds, then waved his hand through the air. “Who knows? I’m sure there’s a cheaper cologne that smells as nice. But this one makes mefeelgood when I wear it, you know?”
We’re not talking about Lance, I guess. Got it.“Well, it better for that kind of money.” Tristan chuckled as his nerves unspooled. “Sorry for calling you cocky.”
“Why? I am cocky. I know what I can do, I know I’m good at it, and that’s okay. I’m gay, if you missed that tidbit, so I have to be self-assured and confident and over-the-top to make any dent in society. Wouldn’t want to be a disappointment to my parents, right?” Henry shrugged. “I also know when other people are good at shit, but I don’t like to talk up the competition too much.”
He was gay, so he had to be cocky. It explained a bit more about Henry. When you started on a lower rung, you had to work that much harder, be that much more bombastic, and draw that much more attention for the same... everything. Tristan had always chosen disappearing as a coping mechanism instead. “It must have been a big deal to come to my door and ask for that recipe, huh?”
“You bet your sweet ass it was. First time I’ve come across a chiffon cake I like better than mine, and I like mine a hell of a lot.”
“Well, I still can’t give it to you.”
“I figured you wouldn’t. You don’t owethiscocky son of a bitch the time of day.” Henry drained his tea and sighed. “But thanks for spending time with me, anyway.”
Tristan smiled honestly, completely. “Yeah. No problem.”
Small problem. If Henry had been sexy before—and he certainly had—now he was... gravitational.Thank God there’s a table between us.Tristan wasn’t about to let himself fall headfirst into a relationship that was all passion and charm. That’s what screwed his family up. Every time.
But damn it if this didn’t test his self-control.
Three days later, Henry furiously beat his dough, eyes flicking between his bowl and his oven and the clock above the café table. Zero difficulty during practice, and now filming day? Everything had decided to explode. He’d made one batch of cookies perfectly fine—his gingersnaps were cooling to be decorated with white chocolate. They’d already crisped nicely. But his chocolate chip had been a nightmare. For two batches. Now he was cutting it far too close, and this time, they had to work.If I’d fucking been paying attention to my oven, it wouldn’t have happened.His first dough had been an utter catastrophe. He couldn’t explain it. He’d made the same cookies a half dozen times in their practice days. But today they were tough and didn’t spread out the way they were supposed to. His recipe was designed to be crisp and served with milk, not chewy and pillowy. They’d also come out too salty. If he hadn’t known better, he would have diagnosed it as too much baking soda, but he’ddefinitelymeasured it out the same way he always did.
The second batch had burned because he lost track of time. He’d been paying attention to the other bakers—like Nina, who’d loudly tossed an entire plate filled with cookies into the trash—and especially to Tristan. But Henry had beensurehe was okay that time. He’d made these bedtime chocolate chip cookies a hundred thousand fucking times. They always cooked exactly the same way.
But they hadn’t.
And they’d burned.
It wasn’t even a small, mahogany around-the-edges kind of burn. If it was like that, he could have at least served them and taken the hit if it came to it. These had gone black along the bottoms.
Now he had his dough ready and he quickly plopped balls of it onto his lined pans. He’d have time to get them cooked. They only took about ten minutes. Decoration was another matter. He wasn’t a “rustic” chef. He was a precise machine and prided himself on that fact. That meant clean lines, not messy, half-melted icing. He wouldn’t be satisfied with half-assed cookies, and if he wasn’t satisfied, what thehellwas he actually proving?
He tossed his pans into the oven, set the timer, and had to move on to his gingersnaps. They were both classic flavors, and he knew he had to perfect them. No hiding behind exotic spices or fancy techniques today.
He drizzled lines of tempered white chocolate all the way across his gingersnaps, then again in the other direction at a slight bias to make his crosshatch. The chocolate gleamed—hopefully some of that shine would carry through once it set.
“Fifteen minutes, chefs!” Sylvia said the awful words loud and far too joyously. “Get those cookies cooled and plated. We may not have Santa Claus, but we do have three hungry judges. And me.”
Henry glanced into the oven, patently ignoring the camera that hovered near him. The barest edges of his rounds had browned, but not enough, and the middles hadn’t started their fall. He willed them to cook faster, or for time to go slower, or for his asshole to unclench for half a second. Any or all of those things would have been welcome.
Another minute and his cookies had collapsed properly in the center. He whipped them out, transferred them to cooling racks, and started to wave his pan at them to cool them like an idiot. But what the hell else was he going to do? Royal icing would slide right off his cookies at this temperature. They were bedtime because they went with milk, but they were also bedtime because of the royal icing moon in the center.
“You’re not done?” Tristan had turned around to look at him as he plated up his own cookies. “You know you’re screwed, right?”
Gee, thanks for the update.“Not if I pray hard enough.” He waved the pan and checked the clock and waved a different direction and checked the clock. The time wasn’t slowing down at all. He only had ten minutes left. He glanced his fingertips across the top of his cookies and... the tops were cool. Not the core, but he had two dozen chocolate chip cookies to ice and needed to start now if he wanted a chance at finishing in time.
“I don’t know if you can do this.”His mom’s voice played through his head once again.
Can’t fall down that rabbit hole right now.Henry set down his pan and grabbed the pale ivory icing, doing his best to ignore the constant itch at the back of his skull, the old words resurfacing yet again. Carefully, he edged out twenty-four crescent moons, forcing himself not to watch the clock at all lest he screw up one of his outlines. He wasn’t going to trip, not if he could help it.
“Five minutes, bakers! Anything not plated can’t be counted!”
Yeah, give me a goddamn minute. Or ten.He switched to his flooding icing, which was slightly thinner and...Please set up in time you filthy bastards. Luckily, he had a lot of time to let them sit. The judges started at the other side of the room and he would be nearly the last one to present. If anyone needed to be worried, it was Nina. She’d also had to start over at least once.
His hand quivered and that was okay. This flood icing didn’t need to be neat. It just needed to fill the crescent outline. He worked each in turn with a toothpick to force the icing into the very corners of the moon, and by God, he managed what he set out to do. He didn’t like his cookies being so warm. The icing could still melt slightly and sink in and throw off the flavor balance, but it didn’t seem like it was slippingoff.
