I let out a laugh. “Oh, so as well as wanting your photo, everyone dresses up for you now, do they?”
Fin chuckled. “I’m not saying that. But they do tend to have brushed their hair.”
I recalled standing on the doorstep when Fin first landed, with my scruffy bedhead and the previous night’s make-up smeared down my cheeks. “I’ll have to give you that one. Maybe I’d have washed my face.”
Fin smiled. “Then there was that first morning when I made breakfast.”
“That omelette,” I said, recalling how good it was. “It really was to die for.”
“And that’s my point,” Fin said, his whole demeanour lighting up. “Watching you enjoy something, not because some chap off the television made it, but because it tasted good. You were the same with the pancakes. You didn’t turn your nose up because they came with red noses and antlers. You saw the fun in them. These days everyone seems so serious when it comes to cooking. So pretentious. You remind me of why I became a chef in the first place. To make good simple food that people enjoy eating.”
“You don’t like what you’re doing now?” I asked.
“I like being part of a successful TV show and how it’s instilled a joy of cooking in a whole nation. I like getting to know the contestants and seeing the fire in their bellies. That’s what drives them to be the best. I love that I’m able to play a part when it comes to their individual journeys, helping them along the way, and hopefully making them better chefs.” He scoffed. “And there’s no denying the pay’s pretty good.”
I could only imagine.
“What I don’t like is all the extras that come with it. Like the stuff I mentioned before. I know there’s good and bad in every job but being out there can be hard sometimes.” He indicated to the window and streets beyond, before turning his attention back to me. “I’ve hosted TV shows in the US, but they were for more niche channels and the audiences weren’t as big. In my day-to-day life I could carry on pretty much the same as I always did. Then I came here to doCooking Hell, although at the time none of us knew what we were getting into. No one involved predicted how big it was going to be. It was as if overnight I became public property.”
“None of that explains why you didn’t tell me about it all though. From what you’ve said you must have known it would come out at some point?”
“I was trying to hold on to the bit of anonymity you’d given me, I suppose. Plus, I was scared.”
“Of what? Not of me, surely?”
“I was scared things would change. That you’d change. Come over all…”
“Fangirl?”
Fin smiled. “I was going to say weird.”
“I’m already that.”
Fin let out another chuckle. “Seriously, this is your home. The last thing I wanted was for you to feel uncomfortable. Like you had to tread on eggshells, to think about what you were doing or saying all the time. AndIdidn’t want to have to do that either. If you’d known, neither of us could be ourselves.”
“That’s where you’re wrong,” I said.
Fin furrowed his brow. “What do you mean?”
While he was being honest, I told myself it was time I was truthful too. I got up from my seat and headed over to the sideboard. Opening a drawer, I pulled out Fin’s cookbook and returning to the table, placed it down in front of him.
He looked from the book to me. “So you did know?” he asked, clearly confused.
“Not at first. Remember when I said Annie had given me a gift?”
“You mean this was it?”
I nodded. “She’d told me all about you apparently, the night we were drowning our sorrows. Then clicked that I couldn’t remember a word of what she’d said. This was her idea of a joke.”
“Good old Annie,” Fin replied, smiling. “That’s just the kind of thing Elliott would have done.” He picked up the book and studied the blurb on the back cover, before flipping it over to the front. “I’ve always hated that photo,” he said.
“By then it was pretty obvious you weren’t going to mention your illustrious career. So, I hid that away and left things as they were.”
“I see.”
“No, Fin. I don’t think you do. If you did, you’d know that not everyone wants a piece of you. There are people out there happy to let you do what you doandbe yourself. People like me.”
Fin smiled, looking at me with the same degree of intensity I’d seen before. “So why didyoukeep quiet?” he asked. “Most people would have blurted it out as soon as they realised.”
