“That’s just mean.”
“I had a cauliflower risotto at a restaurant last week that was delicious.” Aaron made a chef’s kiss motion. “Cauliflower doesn’t taste like anything so it sops up sauce like a sponge.”
Brad laughed and sipped his beer.
“You could do the show,” said Aaron.
“Hardly.”
“There’s a dessert round. Or we could do a special all-pastry episode. But even if not, you’re a good savory chef, too.”
“Sure, but I don’t want to be on TV.” Cameras made Brad nervous. When he’d still been working at the chocolate restaurant, he’d been asked to do a short on-camera interview for a feature story on a local morning show, and it was like all the words he knew had fallen out of his head. He’d said “well, so” about a hundred times. He worried he’d go on Aaron’s show and forget what salt was.
“Just think about it. You’d be great. And you won’t have to talk very much, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“I’ll think about it.Ifthe focus is on pastry.”
Brad liked the world of pastry a lot more than he liked savory cooking. No one would ever ask him to use cuttlefish or fish eyeballs in a cupcake. The stinky cheese was giving him ideas, though.
And, see, this was why he wanted creative control. If he wanted to see what happened if he put Brie or Gorgonzola or Limburger in cake frosting, he should be able try it. But since he was making cookies for cats, too, he’d need access to all kinds of weird ingredients he never worked with—fish, liver, beef stock. More than anything, he liked the challenge. Breakfast pastries like muffins and danishes were no problem. He could make a batch of scones in his sleep. It was everything else that came with this job that had piqued Brad’s interest. Aaron just couldn’t appreciate what a weird opportunity this was.
And, well, if he got to see Lindsay again, that was a bonus. He knew full well that she hated his guts, but he wanted to show her he was not the man she thought he was, that he’d grown up in the time they’d been apart. Would she come by the café when he was working? Would she even speak to him? He wasn’t sure, but it was worth a shot.
He would have taken the job even if his ex’s friend wasn’t involved, but he couldn’t help but think that he’d been handed an opportunity. That this was exactly where he was supposed to be at this point in his life.
He’d never been with anyone he clicked with so well, that he could talk to about anything, that understood his job and why he loved it so much. And, well, she’d lingered in his head, in his heart, long after she’d walked out of his life. If the universe was putting him in Lindsay’s orbit, then he intended to do what he could to show her what she’d walked out on.
“Well,” said Aaron. “Let’s toast to new adventures.”
“I suspect both of us are about to experience a lot of those.” Brad clinked his glass against Aaron’s.
Chapter 2
The time to make the doughnuts was five in the morning, but Brad was used to a baker’s schedule. His new boss, Lauren, clearly wasn’t; she yawned as she let him into the café on his first day of work.
“I’m getting you your own key,” she mumbled. “Just as soon as I have coffee.”
She led him through the café. The main door opened into a vestibule with another heavy glass door, a safeguard against cats trying to escape, although Lauren had told Brad during his interview that they’d never had an instance of that. That second door led to the main café area, where there were a counter, a glass display case for pastries, and the requisite coffee and espresso machines on the back wall. A huge menu hung over the counter. One corner had a display of T-shirts with the cat café’s logo and punny phrases like, “Spent a purr-fect day at the Whitman Street Cat Café!” and “Cats are paw-some!” A couple of café tables sat near the counter for those who just wanted coffee and not to sit with the cats, a necessity created by a few other coffee shops closing in the neighborhood recently.
Behind that, there were two doors. One led to what Lauren called the cat room, a sumptuous space with big sofas and several more café tables and chairs. The café kept fifteen to twenty cats there at any given time, and customers could lounge there and hang out with those cats. Lauren had told Brad during the interview that the café was mostly a pretense for the space to operate like a shelter, finding forever homes for the café’s feline residents. The café periodically hosted adoption events and then rotated in cats from local shelters.
Lauren had also explained that the other door off the counter area was new. A wall had been added to the cat room to create a hallway that led between the café counter and the kitchen. This space had been an Italian restaurant before it was a cat café, she told Brad, and the full restaurant kitchen in the very back was now Brad’s to use how he saw fit.
The hall between the café counter and the kitchen was very narrow, only really wide enough for an average-size man to walk through. Its purpose was to provide a cat-free area to bring food from the back to the counter in the front.
This was going to be a very interesting place to work.
Brad had looked at the kitchen during his interview but hadn’t felt like he could make recommendations before he had the job. He looked a little more closely now. The kitchen had been cleaned to a shine, the stainless-steel appliances sparkling in the lights as Lauren flipped the switches near the door.
The kitchen was really designed for savory cooking, but there were four ovens, and that was a good start. Lauren led him to the pantry, which was stocked with all the ingredients he’d requested after she’d hired him. In his bag, Brad had a notebook with recipes he’d been developing in the week since he’d been hired, all things he’d tested at home.
“I’ll leave you to it,” said Lauren. “I’m gonna go see if I have enough mental power to make the coffee maker work. If I’m successful, do you want a cup?”
“Sure.”
“You’d think after eight months with an infant who wakes up at all hours of the night that I’d be used to being awake at five, but you’d be wrong.”
“This time of the morning is tough if you’re not used to it.”
