Breaking South (Turner Artist Rocker #3) - Alyson Santos Page 0,43

ask, eyeing her curious mix of ingredients. Pasta, sure. Vegetables, maybe some weird salad? Eggs and milk, no idea. The dietician doesn’t need to know about this.

“Um…” She picks up the package of pasta. “Linguine,” she reads. “And something else. I’m not sure yet.”

I smile to myself as she continues reading the label. She frowns and focuses back on the other ingredients.

“Only two minutes to cook?” she asks.

“It’s fresh. It doesn’t take as long as the dried stuff.”

“Okay.” I’m not sure she knows what any of that means anyway as she places the package back on the counter and begins fishing through the drawers and cabinets.

“What do you need?” I ask.

“Cutting board and knife?”

“There’s a cutting board in the drawer beside the range, and knives are in the knife block by the microwave.”

She finds the cutting board, but the knife block proves to be a more worthy opponent. She touches each handle timidly, sliding it slowly from the block to check the blade, and I try to suppress my shock. Has she never handled a knife before? Shit, I don’t need her cutting off any fingers on my watch.

“Gen? Do you know how to use a knife?”

She twists a look toward me and bites her lip. Her eyes well with such shame and embarrassment, my own chest hurts. God, this girl. She’s in my soul.

“It’s okay,” I say softly. “I’d fucking break the microphone trying to sing. Bring the one in the top left corner of the block over to the table, along with the cutting board and that bell pepper. The big green one,” I clarify when she scans the vegetables with confusion. “Oh, and that small knife in the center row on the block. That’s a paring knife.”

She nods, her lip quivering as she collects the materials.

“Hey, Gen?”

She looks over with concern.

“You’re a badass. You know that?”

A smile slips over her lips as she blinks away the tears. “Should I wash the pepper first? I should, right?”

I show Genevieve how to use a knife, and just as I suspect, she’s a pro in no time. Her problem is experience, not competence, and I have a feeling there are a lot of things she could do if she only gave herself the chance to try.

She stares triumphantly at her piles of chopped vegetables, and I can’t help but snap a photo. Her shy look shifts into radiance when she realizes I want to preserve this moment because I’m so damn proud of her.

“That’s a lot of vegetables,” she says, scanning the mounds of cucumbers, peppers, carrots, tomatoes, and every other ingredient she could find.

“So many vegetables,” I say with a laugh, plucking a cucumber from the bowl. “What are you doing with them?”

“Um. Well.” She squints back at the counter. “I wanted to make a salad, but you don’t have any lettuce. So, I guess… a bowl of chopped vegetables?”

I laugh and shrug. “A bowl of chopped vegetables. My favorite.”

“I thought maybe an egg or something too. For protein?”

Hmm… okay... I decide not to ask about the milk. Maybe she’ll forget. “You could boil eggs and throw one on top. There’s a vinaigrette in the fridge you could use as well if you want to season… it.” Not sure what to call whatever she’s making.

Her expression brightens, and I can tell she’s enjoying herself. I’d eat roadkill right now to see her smile like that.

“I need a pot, right? To boil the eggs?”

I nod. “In the cabinet beside the oven. Put the eggs in first, then fill the pot with cold water.”

“All the way?”

“No, just about halfway. So the eggs are covered.”

She nods, her tongue creeping out between her lips as she works. I’ve noticed this several times now, and it’s the cutest thing ever. When she’s in the zone, she’s a force. I can only imagine how intoxicating it would be to see her do something she’s mastered. A deep longing to watch her perform wells within me.

Over the next hour we successfully complete her weird egg-vegetable salad, cook the pasta (about five minutes too long), and even manage an olive oil toss and freshly grated parmesan. Is it a Chef Lana masterpiece? No, but I suspect she’d approve of her client’s hard work and ambition.

Genevieve chews a raw carrot, while staring at her plate of pasta. “This is the first time I’ve ever made a meal,” she says quietly. “I don’t think I’ve ever even made toast.”

I swallow my surprise, not wanting her to feel self-conscious. I