“Sure,” she agreed, “I’m good with all of that. Sorry to make you mad, Taz. I’m just looking out for a friend.”
“Not a problem,” he lied. “Now, I’m going to be late if I don’t hit the road now. I just have to grab a few things from the kitchen,” he said. “See you later, Harlow.” He left her standing in the hallway, and God, he felt like an ass, but there would be no fixing it now. He had just enough time to grab his gear and head over to Kai’s place. He’d apologize to Harlow tomorrow, when he’d be right back at the bar, getting the menu ready for the night. His life was beginning to feel like he was a hamster stuck on a wheel that never stopped spinning, and he wasn’t sure if he even wanted to get off of the damn thing.
* * *
Taz got to Kai’s apartment a few minutes late and he could tell by the look on her face when she opened the door that she wasn’t sure if he was going to show up or not. He hated that he made her feel that way. There was no reason why he couldn’t try to at least be friends with the girl—they did work together.
“Sorry that I’m late,” he said, “I had to stop by the bar and pick up some things for us to use since you said that you don’t have many kitchen items. I even brought my favorite pot.”
“Wow—your favorite pot,” Kai teased, “I feel honored that you brought it to my humble abode.” He laughed at her teasing and walked into her place, after she made a grand, sweeping arm gesture, silently inviting him in. “I take it that you ran into Ryker and Harlow?” she asked.
“Yeah, how did you know?” he asked.
“I stopped by there about an hour ago to pick up my paycheck and they were both asking me a million questions about you helping me out here tonight. I mean, it was Ryker’s idea to get you to help me with my college cooking class. I think that they believe that something is going on that isn’t between us, Taz.” She put her hands on her sexy hips, reminding him of how Harlow just lectured him, and damn if her stance didn’t make him hard. “Have you given them a reason to think that something’s going on here, Taz?” she asked.
“What?” he asked. “Hell no,” he shouted. He put his gear down on her kitchen counter and turned back to face her. “I’ve even told Ryker that he’s got the wrong idea about what’s happening between us, but that asshole won’t listen. You’re too young for me, Kai,” he said. It was the opposite of what he’d just told Harlow, but he didn’t care. Kai had been flirting with him for weeks now, and he’d reminded her that she was way too young for him at every turn, not that it was helping.
“Yes, so you’ve said,” she mumbled, rolling her eyes at him.
“So, what did you get from the store?” he asked, moving on to the lesson part of their evening. If he could get this part over with, he’d have no reason to stick around, and then, he’d go home and get his dick under control.
“I got everything that you told me to pick up,” she insisted. “Except, I had to substitute the green onions for yellow ones. Is that okay?” she asked.
“We’ll just have to make do,” he said.
“Okay—oh, and instead of chicken, I got pork chops,” she said. Taz sighed and shook his head at her.
“That’s not the same at all, Kai,” he said.
“Well, they were on sale and the chicken was expensive, so I went with the pork. Can’t you just teach me how to make them instead?”
“I can, but I thought that you had to make the chicken dish for class,” he reminded. “Won’t that mess you up?”
She shrugged, “I have no idea,” she admitted. “How much is cooking pork chops like cooking chicken?” she asked.
“Not at all alike,” he grumbled, “but I’m sure that we can figure something out.”
“Or you could just teach me how to cook the chicken another night,” she offered.
“I work every other night,” he reminded, “and, I just picked up a shift for next Monday that Ryker asked me to take.”
“Um, I could come into the kitchen at work, if that helps,” she said. It didn’t help him—not one bit. If she showed up at his kitchen at the bar, the guys wouldn’t ever stop giving him shit about her hanging out with him. They wouldn’t get it, and that would only lead to him being pissed off at work on a permanent basis.
The only good thing about her coming to the kitchen at the bar was that they’d have more elbow space. Her kitchen was tiny, and he wasn’t even sure if they’d both be able to fit in there together.
“Let’s see what we can accomplish tonight and then, we’ll go from there,” he offered, not wanting to give her a straight answer for fear of saying the wrong thing. He didn’t want to agree to anything more than was necessary.
“All right,” she said. “Well, if you wouldn’t mind helping to teach me a few of the basics, I’d appreciate it. I’ll get everything out that I bought, and you can decide what we can make with it.”
“Sounds good,” he said. He was usually good at coming up with recipes on the fly. It was one of the challenges that he was given while in culinary school in Paris. The junior chefs would be given a list of ingredients and told to make a dish with it. Sometimes, they’d have a theme to work from, and sometimes, it was a fly by the seat of their pants kind of challenge. He loved them, really, and coming up with something to do with Kai’s pork chops would be a breeze.
He looked over her ingredients and smiled. “Do you have any bread and celery?” he asked.
“Um, yeah,” she said. Kai pulled the bread down from on top of the fridge and the celery from the vegetable crisper. “Here you go.” She handed them over to him and he laid them with the rest of the stuff she had purchased.
“I think that we can make some stuffed pork chops,” he offered.
She wrinkled her nose and he thought it was the cutest thing he’d ever seen. “That sounds complicated,” she said.