I shook my head, her words snapping me back into the moment.
“What’s next, chef?” I asked, wiping my hands on one of the nearby cleaning rags.
“Next, we mix in the mayo and spices. That should be easy enough. Then there’s the shaping. That’s a little time consuming. But with two of us, it shouldn’t take much time at all. Ready?”
“Most definitely.”
Together, we finished the task of making the mixture. We had quite a bit when that was all said and done, the big bowl filled with crab cake batter.
“OK, let me ask you something,” Ava said. “When Hailey gave you the recipe, did you cut down the serving size?”
“The what?” I asked.
Ava laughed. “Hailey should’ve said something. The amount she gave you, that’s for a lot of people. Like, forty-eight cakes altogether. I should’ve noticed while we were making the mix, but I, ah, got a little distracted.” She flicked her eyes up and down me, making it clear just what she’d been distracted by. “Anyway, it’s going to take some time to shape and cook them all.”
“Well, happy to help. What do we need to do, exactly?”
“The trick is my two-part process. I bake them in the oven for a few minutes just to get them going. Then, when that’s done, I toss them on the stove with a little bit of oil. The oven cooks them through, then the stove gets them nice and crispy. Lucky for us, this is a job for two people. Only question is whether or not you can do it as well as Hailey.” She finished her statement with a challenging smile.
“Never been one to back away from anything just because it’s hard. Let’s do this.”
Together, we went to work on the cakes. She showed me how to shape them, how to form the mixture into perfect patties.
“You want them about the size of a hockey puck,” she said, showing me the first one she’d made.
“Got it.”
She set her first cake on a plate in front of us to give me something to model my own after.
“This is going to be so easy,” I said. “Give me ten minutes and I’ll be after your job.” I gave her a wink and a challenging smile of my own.
“That’s where you’re wrong, my friend. Caking is like… hmm, it’s like chess, easy to learn, but difficult to master.”
“How hard can it be?” I replied. “You form them into a puck.”
“Just wait.”
With that, I went to it. Then, to my surprise, the first cake turned out… strange. It was almost the right size but somewhat misshapen. When it was ready, I set it down and regarded it with curiosity.
“What’s wrong?” I asked her. “I can’t get it to come out quite right.”
She chuckled as she set down her own cake, which was perfect.
“Now you’re getting what I’m saying. The mixture’s tricky. Here, hold out your hand, palm up.”
I did as she requested. Once my palm was up, she grabbed a hunk of mixture, giving it a quick once over to make sure it was the perfect amount before plopping it into my hand.
“Now, give me your other.”
I offered her my other hand, and she turned it palm-down and brought it over the lump. Gently, she used my hands to squeeze the mix flatter. Just like before, the sensation of her skin against mine was enough to send a wave of excitement through me, my cock twitching to attention. I thought of the dream, of what it felt like to have her bent over in front of me.
“There. Now, once it’s done, you set it down on the counter and neaten up the edges. Like so.”
She slipped the patty off my hand and set it down, going to work on the edges. With a press here and a squeeze there, she quickly had the patty perfectly shaped.
“That’s amazing,” I said, wiping off my hands and putting them on my hips. “I don’t even know what you did.”
She flashed me a smile. “When you’ve made a few thousand of these, you start to get the hang of it. The shape’s going to come out a little in the cooking process, but this helps them at least be a little uniform. Now, you try.”