“It must have been nice,” Karl says, “to grow up with traditions like that and to have those memories of your mom.”
I remind myself I know nothing about him. “How about you? You have family Christmas traditions growing up?”
His drink stops midway to his lips. “No,” he answers simply. I want to ask him to elaborate, but he distracts me with his guitar. He obviously doesn’t want to talk about it, so I let him lead me to our guitar lesson for the day. Clearly, we both have demons we want to avoid.
Early in the morning, we take a break, and I call Ileana to walk me through a recipe for the thousandth time. I tell her we’re having guests, and I want to make her slow-cooker barbacoa, so I picked up ingredients yesterday. I want to throw it all together early, so it’s ready by dinner time when Adrian joins us.
Karl watches in awe as I sear beef chunks before tossing them into the slow cooker. “You could help me peel some garlic,” I tease him.
He shakes his head. “I can’t cook.”
“Peeling garlic isn’t cooking,” I say with a laugh.
Eventually, he decides to help, and he tosses more garlic than I think will be necessary, but Ileana has reassured me garlic is the key.
“Usually, this recipe goes with red wine, but I’m leaving that off for Adrian tonight.”
“Is that typical for barbacoa to be cooked in wine?”
I snort. “No. But Ileana is a maverick in the kitchen. Believe me, if I can get it half as good as hers, this will be orgasmic.”
Karl chuckles and rests his chin on his hand while he keeps watching now that his task is done. “What are those?”
“Smoked cardamom,” I say as I toss the pods in between layers of beef.
After throwing everything in the slow cooker and setting it on medium, we return to our grueling guitar lesson. Karl is kind of a hard-ass, but I can tell he is proud of how fast I’m learning.
I’m proud of myself, to be honest. I never thought I’d love playing an instrument as much as I do.
We work into the evening, and at six sharp, Adrian shows up. I run up to him. “Adrian, hi. I’m Lola,” I say with a giggle.God, who am I? Be cool, Lo.
Adrian shakes my hand as he blinks down at me, then he finds Karl serving himself dinner.
“Roger told me you had a girlfriend, and I didn’t believe him. Guess it’s true.”
My cheeks feel hot under his gaze. God, he is beautiful. Longish raven-black hair that hits his jaw, with a deep widow’s peak in the center over a perfectly symmetrical face. I know men don’t appreciate being called beautiful, but Adrian Köhler is just that—breathtakingly beautiful. Tall, lean, with a sharp face that reminds me of modern Hollywood vampires in teen movies, but with an older look to him shaded by barely-there scruff.
“That’s right,” Karl calls out. “So hands-off.”
I blink down at my hand in his, and I realize I never let go. Adrian smirks and steps around me to say hi to Karl.
“Are you hungry, Adrian?” I ask when I find my voice.
“I wasn’t, but that smells amazing.”
I stack a tower of tortillas in front of the men, a bowl of red salsa, and chopped onion and cilantro. I need to start feeding Karl something other than tacos, but it’s so enjoyable to watch him eat them. His head bowed, tilting to the side, moaning with every bite. It’s almost erotic, and a girl could get used to that.
Now I stare at both of them, bowed and hovering over their plates, so they don’t make a mess.
“So, where did Fritz have to go?” I ask to kick off the conversation.
Karl rolls his eyes, and Adrian chuckles.
“What?” I ask, missing the joke between them.
“We have no fucking idea,” Karl says.
Then Adrian jumps in. “He’s always sneaking off, not telling us why. We were able to find out from the pilot that he is flying in to Mexico, but we have no idea where in Mexico, or why. We’re taking bets.”