Tristan scoffed a laugh and rolled his eyes. “I’m covering my shame, thank you very much. Give me some credit.”
Henry leaned back and looked below Tristan’s waist. “I’ll give you... three credits. Because those boxers are still damp and they aren’t hiding much.”
“Three, huh?” Tristan reclined onto his pillow. It wasnice, not having to worry about covering himself up. Especially here in fucking San Francisco. All those long-sleeved shirts werefuckinghot.
Henry reclined next to him and smiled serenely. He draped an arm over Tristan. “Just so we can get it out of the way... am I here tomorrow night too?”
Would he be? They’d been sent a pretty strong message earlier that day about getting too close together, and Tristan had been functioning entirely on autopilot when he’d told Henry to bring his toothbrush. He’d been trying to get the conversation over so that no one would hear.
But then this. Henry was being so good about the scars when no one else seemed able to be. If his biggest rival could treat him with respect... what did that say about the quality of men he’d been with before? Tristan couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt this calm and relaxed. If Henry could make him feel that way... maybe it was worth risking the competition.
Maybehewas worth the risk.
Tristan kissed him on the biceps. “You can consider yourself officially invited to stay here every night until further notice.”
“Oh, I don’t know if you want to do that. I’m like black mold: you’ll never get rid of me.”
“Well, could be worse.” Tristan kissed his mouth this time, then nestled into the pillow and the embrace. Tomorrow, he could start to worry about pretzels and bienenstich and black forest cake. He could worry about keeping their budding relationship a secret from the production crew. He could worry about whether he was making the right decision.
Tonight, he only needed to worry about coconut, a hard body spooning him, and Henry fucking Isaacson.
Henry stood at his station, whipping cream by hand for his cake. He could have more easily used the stand mixer, but there was something particularly visceral about doing the whole thing manually. It was like a good workout... really, really like a good workout. His arm already ached from the effort.I’ve gone soft. I can’t even whip my own cream anymore.Admittedly, he should have frozen the bowl and the whisk before he started, but had it always takenthislong?Maybe I’m remembering those halcyon days of culinary school with serious rose-colored glasses.At least it was a practice day; he wouldn’t be this stupid during the actual competition.
“Jesus fucking Christ.” Tristan tossed a length of dough onto his countertop, then turned to Henry. The corners of his mouth bowed in a scowl. “These pretzels are going to be the death of me.”
“Are you boiling them in the baking soda too long?”
Tristan snorted. “I can’t even get that far. I can’t shape the damn things. They look like little piles of dog shit when I’m done with them. Super appetizing when they bake up to a nice dark brown, I’m sure.”
Henry came around the edge of his station and offered Tristan the bowl. “You whip this, I’ll show you how to shape them the lazy way.”
“Are you sure about that?” Tristan glanced side to side and lowered his voice. “What if they catch us out? I mean, we don’t need to get caught.”
“I’m not giving you the recipe. I’m showing you how to shape them. If they want to toss me out for being a decent person... fuck ’em.” Though Henry kept his voice low for that too. In case the higher-ups were listening and didn’t like the way he referred to them. “Besides, we can obviously help each other a little. Katherine got to stay.” He still wanted to find out exactly how much help Bertha had gotten, and who had ratted on her, but the production crew were closed-mouthed and she hadn’t come in to film any extra pieces yet today.
After a few moments, Tristan nodded and grabbed the proffered bowl. “Done and done.” He stared into the bowl. “God, you whip your cream by hand?”
“I was bored and felt like reconnecting with my roots. And don’t mock me when I’m helping you.” Henry moved in front of the long, thin strands of dough. Eleven of them were all laid out together, and one of them in a mess well away from the others. “Okay, they aren’t too bad to shape. It’s getting everything down in your head first that’s the tricky part.” Henry picked up one of the strands. It was a good consistency for pretzel dough, felt right against his fingertips and moved easily enough. He laid it down and Tristan stepped up closer, whipping the cream furiously... and loudly. “You can stop whipping for a second.”
“Thank you, oh mighty overlord.”
Henry shook his head, chuckling. “Okay, so you want to twist it twice, then bring the arms down.” At this point, he could make pretzels in midair, but that was useless for teaching. He did it a little more slowly than he would have normally, showing each twist. Then he wet the ends of the dough and laid them against the bottom curve. Some slight finger adjustments to get the holes proportioned correctly, then he stepped back and gestured to it. “See?”
“Oh yeah. I can do that.” Tristan rolled his eyes and handed Henry back the cream. “Don’t go anywhere—unless your timer goes off—because I totally don’t have this at all.”
“Yeah. I picked up on your ever-so-subtle sarcasm.”
Tristan offered another eye roll, but he grabbed a new length of his dough. He laid it straight on the counter, then a curve, two twists, and he wet the ends to place them together. It looked... not entirely offensive. He didn’t have enough actual body, and the arms were too long, but it was clearly a pretzel, which seemed better than he’d been doing before. No dough tossing, at least.
“Thanks. I guess it’s not that bad. I was getting too frustrated.” He picked up another piece of dough, and this one turned out much better. A lot more evenly spaced. “If you still need someone to whip that cream, I owe you one.”
“I’ve got it.” Henry moved back behind his own station and glanced at the timer. Eight minutes until his first check on the cakes. No way they’d be done by now. He examined his partially whipped cream.That means I have time to pop this in and chill it down.It would whip up a lot better from cold. With a sigh, Henry put the whole thing in the freezer.It’s no longer amusing to whip it by hand, either.Once it was good to go, he’d pull out the electric hand mixer and do it up properly.
Henry stood back and watched as Tristan made the rest of a fairly even batch of pretzels. Time still wasn’t going to be his friend, and preserving all that work on the shape when he dipped them into the baking soda bath was just one more frustrating part of the process, but the shaping wasn’t so far off they were unrecognizable. A lot better than some of the testers people had been producing.
I didn’t expect the German round to be the really hard one.Go figure.
As Henry stood waiting and contemplating, a familiar head of white curls stepped out from backstage. Bertha, being escorted by Kristin, the tiny blonde production assistant who’d led them all here that very first day.
