Lila grabbed one of the chicken tenders and looked at it closely. The breading was deep-fried to a nice golden color, but there were clearly other ingredients in the recipe. She took a tentative bite, and flavor burst on her tongue.
“Damn. This is good. Is there Parmesan cheese in this?”
Mason smiled. “There is, yeah. What else do you taste?”
She took another bite, chewing carefully to decipher what other things Mason might have put in the chicken tenders he was serving inherdiner tohercustomers. “Did you put garlic powder? And is that a hint of buffalo spice in there?”
“I use barbecue sauce as the bonding agent instead of egg.”
“Barbecue sauce?” she frowned. “I was running low on that.”
“I know. I made my own.”
The bite she was bringing to her mouth dropped back down to her plate. “I’m sorry. Did you just say you made your own barbecue sauce?”
“I did.” He was beaming with pride.
“And just when in the hell did you have time to do all that?”
He shrugged, but he was still smiling bright and wide. “I made it at my place last night and brought it in today.”
“Huh. So you were planning this whole kicking me out of my restaurant since yesterday?”
“Guilty. Didn’t you like it?”
“I did,” she admitted. “I got a lot done, but it looks like you did too.”
“That’s right. See? You need help around here. I’m just providing you with much-needed relief.”
She took a bite of the chicken tender, dipping it into the small sauce container on the plate. It was barbecue sauce. “This is the sauce you made?”
Mason nodded. “Yup. It’s my very special, very secret recipe.”
“Well, it’s amazing. If you give me the recipe, I bet I could put this on the regular menu. People would love it.”
He clicked his tongue. “Sorry, darling. I can’t give you the recipe. If you wanna put this plate and sauce on the menu, you’ll have to hire me full time.”
Her jaw dropped down. “What? No. You can’t be serious.”
He leaned back in the booth and spread out, grinning at her. “Of course, I am. I wouldn’t say it if I wasn’t serious.”
“You can’t bribe a job out of me with this. Your sauce is good, but it isn’t that good.”
“We both know that isn’t true,” he responded, grinning at her.
“Mason, you are clearly a very talented chef. As you said, you’ve had jobs all over the world in fancy restaurants. Why in the hell would you leave all of that behind to work here in Half Moon Key, where you will be made to work at adiner? Makes no sense.”
“Doesn’t have to make sense.”
“Yes, Mason. Yes, it does have to make sense. I am not gonna start relying on you when you could leave at the drop of a hat to go back to your exciting life.”
Mason sighed and got up. “I’ll just have to work a little bit harder to convince you I am in town for the long haul.”
She shook her head. “I wish I could believe you.” She pushed away the plate and returned to her work, silently dismissing Mason.
He got the message and went back to the counter. She tried not to look in his direction for the majority of the afternoon, but of course, every time she chanced a look at Mason, he caught her.
People leave. I can’t trust anyone. Not again.