It was like they were laser focused on that lush ass.
He moved the pastry blender over and over, forcing the ingredients to mix into something new. Butter, flour, sugar, shortening, salt, and ice water. His perfect piecrust. Simple and yet so complex since he’d learned it required something beyond merely following the recipe. There was a harmony required most people never figured out, a certain Zen that came with giving over to the dish, allowing it to be what it would.
“Don’t let that sit too long.” Timothy Gage looked down his patrician nose at the bowl. “We have reservations for a hundred tonight. If that crust isn’t perfect, I’ll see you go back to washing dishes.”
Macon took a deep breath and forced himself not to correct his obnoxiously pretentious boss. He’d never washed dishes. When he’d been hired at Top, he’d been brought in as a garde-manger, prepping salads and helping with small plates. That had lasted two weeks. Then one day the chef’s brother had walked in. Ian Taggart was a massive slab of muscle with a taste for lemons. Timothy didn’t do requests. He was an artiste, or at least that’s what he called himself. He was mostly an asshole who took himself way too seriously. Sean Taggart, the man who owned Top, had tried to talk his brother into being reasonable. Macon had quickly made a lemon pudding.
He’d moved from salads to assistant pastry chef that day, and he was also Big Tag’s hookup. The big guy’s wife had been pregnant at the time and mad about coconut. He’d made coconut cookies, cream pies, and cakes for the lovely Charlotte.
It was good to be needed. It was good to make something that made someone else happy.
“That is one hot piece of ass.” Timothy leaned against the wall, his eyes on Ally.
There were times he really didn’t like the man. All the time, really. He was full of himself, but he was also trained by some super-fancy school in Paris. Sean had introduced him as a big deal and explained that Macon could learn a lot from him. So far he’d really learned that Timothy liked to duck work and take all the credit, and he drank on the job.
Ally looked up and her dark eyes caught on his. He hoped he wasn’t staring like a crazy stalker guy, but it was hard to look away. She smiled and joked and he could still feel the aura of loss that surrounded her. He wanted to know what made her seem so sad at times, like there was a wall between her and the world. He wanted to tell her she didn’t need that wall. It was a stupid idea. He couldn’t take care of himself much less anyone else, so he’d kept his distance.
Still, since the moment she’d walked through the doors, he hadn’t been able to stop thinking about her.
She gathered the menus close to her chest as she started for the door. She stopped in front of the pastry station. The barest hint of a smile crossed her full lips. “What’s on for tonight?”
Tim stepped up. “Citrus tarts and a mango sorbet. But if you like I could whip up something chocolate for you. I know the staff tends to have a limited palate. I’ll fix that right up for you, sweetheart.”
Ally frowned and looked back at Macon. “Well, it looks good anyway. See you later.”
Macon nodded her way and then turned to Timothy. “Is there a reason you insulted her?”
Timothy waved him off. “Like she knows what a palate is. Had I really known who I would be working with here, I would have stayed in Europe.” He took a sip of coffee that Macon knew was drowned in whiskey. “The whole place is full of washed-up idiots. Taggart has too soft a heart to really make it in this business. He’s a brilliant chef. He simply doesn’t have a proper staff around him. It’s one thing to use his Army buddies to wash dishes. It’s another to pretend they can actually cook.”
Yes, this was what he got to listen to. It was so much better when Timothy worked on what he considered proper desserts and he left Macon alone to prepare the secondary. Unfortunately for tonight, the mango sorbet was already done, so he got to listen to Timothy’s rants.
He sucked it down. He wasn’t about to fuck up this job. He owed Adam too much. Adam had introduced him to Sean. Adam had