Tasty by Bella Cruise Page B

corner of his mouth
with one of the flimsy paper napkins. What I wouldn’t give to
be that napkin. But no, I scold myself, I’m not going to think
like that. I’m going to behave.
    “Back
to Key West?” I ask, training my voice carefully, trying to
sound mild and disinterested. He gives his head a shake.
    “No,
Le Cordon Bleu. I’m teaching a class.” It’s cute
hearing him try to wrap his accent around the French name.
    “Really?
That’s where I went to school.”
    “Hmm,”
Cal says. Seems he’s being as careful as I am. There’s
something on his mind, but he doesn’t say it. Instead, he gives
his muscular shoulders an easy shrug. “Would you like t’come
with?”
    I
haven’t been back to school in ages. And while my memories are
complicated—I spent some of the best days of my life there, but
also some of the worst—I can’t imagine anyone I’d
rather return there with. Imagine the looks on my professors’
faces when I walk back in through those doors at the side of a bona
fide celebrity chef. The only way it could be juicier is if we
followed it up with some time naked in bed together.
    No.
Goddamnit, I need to nip this insatiable fantasy in the bud.
    “I’d
love to,” I say.
     
    #
     
    The
last time I was in one of these teaching kitchens, I was a wide-eyed
student, all full of passion and moxie and hope. I can’t help
but feel a bit jaded as I sit on a stool near the door, watching the
baby chefs stream in. Some of them are clutching books to their
chests. Others are flirting and joking. All have their lives
stretched out ahead of them, no failing business, no loan payments
coming due. They don’t even know how lucky they are. Their
biggest problem is their next exam.
    I
notice a few of the girls whispering and blushing as they pass Cal,
and I sit forward a little bit on my stool. I’m tempted to
growl at them, Summer-style, to scare them off. But of course, I have
no right. Cal and I have only hooked up a few times, after all. I
have no claim on him. For all I know, he’s banged every single
coquettish cake decorator in his class, and there’s nothing I
can do about it. But I do watch his body language with them closely.
It’s open, generous, nothing like the prickly hot and cold he’s
run with me.
    I
wonder what it would have been like to have a guy like Cal as my
instructor. My girlish heart would have lapped up every ounce of his
attention. And then my girlish mind would have had a lot of fun
imagining him bending me over a teaching stove . . . 
    He’s
showing them how to bake a soufflé, a deceptively easy task.
After all, there are only a few ingredients: chocolate, egg whites,
sugar, butter, a dash of cream of tartar, and a splash of vanilla
extract, too. But I catch a few students overbeating the eggs. I
can’t help myself. I rush to intervene.
    “Whoa
whoa whoa,” I say, as gently as I can muster. “Go easy on
those. Your approach matters here. You don’t want to work those
too hard.”
    The
students look a little flustered. One, a slender, bored-looking girl,
arches an eyebrow at me. But they do as they’re told, to my
relief. There’s nothing worse than overworked eggs.
    Cal,
busy chatting with another student, pauses to lift an eyebrow at me.
But he doesn’t say anything, not at first. Not until the
ramekins are all in the oven and I spot the same student nearly open
the oven door to check on hers.
    “Don’t!
It will fall!” I cry, dashing up from my stool again. She gives
me a sour look, but Cal appears, and puts a firm hand on the oven
handle.
    “Listen
to her,” he says firmly, his voice velvety smooth. “She
knows what she’s doing.”
    “Who
is she, anyway?” the student snaps back. Cal looks surprised by
her viciousness.
    “Juliette
Rockwell. She owns the best damned bakery on Key West, and you should
listen to her. Not every chef has a television show. But they don’t
all need it. Some, their passion shows in every recipe they dream up,
every