joints that needed to stay strong if I wanted to keep my job.
He looked at me and it was like he was figuring out a really hard question. I could relate.
“I do. I’m pretty decent at it.” He gestured to the cilantro, onion, garlic, and tomatoes I’d pulled out of the fridge. “You making sofrito?”
Okay, that shouldn’t have made me gasp, but it did. I nodded and started moving, since it was getting close to six thirty and people were going to get hungry. “You got Caribbean food at your coach’s?”
He looked surprised. “You remember that?”
“Of course I do.” I nodded, wondering how low Rocco was on the priority lists of the people in his life that he felt special when I recalled something he’d told me the day before.
“Coach’s actually a really great cook. And he always recruited me to help. So I can give you a hand.”
I pointed at the stove as I talked. “I was going to make a moro de guandules con coco and some pollo guisado.” I walked around him to open the fridge and pull out the chicken thighs I’d gotten at the market on my way home.
When I popped up, he was not even pretending to be looking anywhere but at my ass. And, of course, there went the butterflies swooping around in my belly. Yeah, this plan to keep it professional was working out great.
I cleared my throat and tried my best to get my body temperature under control while he stared at me like he had all the time in the world. I almost asked him if he was trying to mess with me, then realized he was waiting for instructions.
Get it together, Julia.
I gestured to the pile of ingredients on the counter. “You work on the sofrito and I’ll start the rice.” I wasn’t super confident he knew what he was doing, but I had to get his eyes on some food and off me before one of us got maimed in this kitchen.
But within a few minutes of working in companionable silence, he’d chopped up the veggies and was frying up tomato paste in olive oil to make the sofrito, exactly like my abuela taught me. Rocco just kept shattering all my assumptions.
“Damn, you do know what you’re doing.” I wasn’t joking; he’d chopped that onion and tomato perfectly and was mixing them into the hot tomato paste like a pro.
He smiled shyly as he worked. “I spent a lot of time with Coach and his wife during high school and in college. I told you he was Boricua.”
He tried to sound upbeat but I didn’t miss the tinge of sadness whenever he talked about college and high school.
“Pass me the chicken?” Rocco’s voice was soft when he worked, like he needed the rest of his energy to focus on doing a good job. I passed him the plate with six thighs and he placed each one gently in the pan, skin down.
I passed him his beer and we both watched the chicken sizzle as we took long sips of our drinks.
“So how did you get so close to your coach?” I knew I was going into territory that would put me very far from my initial plans with Rocco, but this man was so unexpected I could not resist wanting to know more.
He ran a finger on the edge of the granite countertop, taking his time. “My home life was kind of messed up growing up and he helped me out. His wife was great, but she wasn’t into cooking so I would always help out when I was over there.”
His smile was a little broken and I should’ve taken the heat radiating in my chest as a red flag that going further in was not advisable.
“I’m glad that your coach did the good work of indoctrinating you into sofrito. Did you guys hang a lot after you finished school?”
He lifted a shoulder as he watched the chicken browning in the pan. “Yeah, we still do. He helped me a lot. I couldn’t afford the dorms at Columbia, so I stayed with him and his wife the first couple of years of school. I ended up making decent money tutoring other kids. That gig got me through the end of undergrad and then business school.”
I raised an eyebrow at his casual mention of where he went to college. “Columbia, undergrad and business school? Damn, you fancy. No wonder you’re bringing in the dineros.”
He snorted at my comment and