prodded his upper arm. “You left here a beanpole, but you’ve come back all muscly. Did you notice the difference in him, Rob, compared to when you were both in London? Look at the size of his shoulders!”
Jude kept his eyes fixed on the screen rather than acknowledging Rob’s rough-sounding, “Yeah. I noticed.”
Louise must have been feeling better; her teasing ramped up. “And to think you could never get a girlfriend when you lived here. Turns out that all you needed to turn into a looker was to spend a while hauling up sails and sunning yourself on a posh yacht. I bet you had a girl in every port you sailed into, didn’t you?”
“Something like that.” If Jude could have summoned up a storm now to act as a distraction, he would have in a heartbeat. “So, your list, Lou? What do you want me to do first?”
“Give me a bit of time.” Louise clicked out of the calendar and onto what looked like a chore list. “I hadn’t planned on having your help, so I need to think about how best to use your extra manpower.”
“I need to get back to the kitchen.” Rob made to leave, his face shadowed. “Carl’s bringing his wife for lunch. You can help me prep for them both if you want? I can talk you through my plans for the summer menu….” He was hesitant. “That is if you want to hear about it from me? Or you might want to talk to Lou about it, although I promise there’s nothing on it that she didn’t taste first and then approve. We’re partners, so anything your sister didn’t like, we agreed to rule out together. Now you’re back, I guess you should have the same say over what we serve.”
His acknowledgement of Jude’s worries for Lou went a long way to reassure him, but the changes in the kitchen were still disconcerting. The door swung shut behind him as he said, “I noticed you both agreed to spend some money in here.”
“It didn’t take too much cash. I only invested in the essentials. Picked most of it up at auction.” Rob opened the new refrigerator door. “Like this beauty, and the range. They were both parts of a liquidation sale—someone else’s bad luck in catering was good luck for us, I suppose. Sad, but it saved us a ton of money.”
“Huh,” Jude pictured the restaurant kitchens both he and Rob were more used to. “Coming here must have felt like slumming it, for you.” Even with new appliances, a pub kitchen was a million miles from the ones in Rob’s father’s restaurants. The disparity in their backgrounds was a thought that still lingered. Even the judges of the contest commented on how Jude worked best with cheap ingredients, while if Rob could find a way to add gold leaf to a dish, he would. “I can’t picture you at an auction, picking up second-hand shit for pennies. It’s not exactly lifestyles of the rich and famous, is it?” And that was how he’d pictured Rob since they first met, flashy in a way that dazzled, his smile as bright as the stars Jude later spent long nights alone under, and just as out of his reach.
Now Rob removed a crate of shellfish from the refrigerator and placed it next to the sink. His glance Jude’s way was considering. “Turns out what I grew up learning first stuck more than anything I learned later. I’m much more frugal when I’m spending my own money.” He gestured at the new steel worktop. “What was here before was fine for a pub kitchen, but I wanted to start as we were going to continue; professional rather than…”
“Basic.” Jude knew there was no point hiding from that truth. This place had been designed with fry-ups in mind, not five-star cuisine. His gaze snagged on something hanging from a hook on the back of the door. “That’s…” he crossed the room to grab it. “‘Kiss the cook’,” he said quietly, reading the front of his mum’s old apron. He tied it on before coming back to the counter.
“Uh….” Rob seemed to forget what he’d been saying before he gestured at the crate. “Keeping the costs down has a lot to do with this lunch, as well.” He sorted through its contents, selecting the best of the shellfish along with the lobster. “Doing a deal with Carl is one way to keep a tight rein on the budget