Heart (10 page)

Dex’s hands shook. He’d been called a dirty pikey his whole life, but the thought of the words falling from Seb’s mouth made him feel cold all over.

Around noon, Rick approached Dex and dropped a heavy hand on his shoulder. “I’m heading out to meet a supplier. Want to keep me company?”

Dex set down his knife with more care than he really wanted to. The thought of climbing into Rick’s sleek BMW was terrifying, but his mind was racing so fast it hurt, and the desire to escape the heavy air of the kitchen, if only for a few hours, was too tempting to pass up.

He’d never sat in the front seat of a car before. The sleek leather seats enveloped him like a cocoon, a very warm cocoon when Rick turned the heat on. The car was a far cry from being thrown around in the back of a rusty van, and despite the turmoil in his heart, or maybe because of it, he fell asleep.

Rick woke him when they reached a place called Walthamstow and pointed to a small warehouse. “Abattoir,” he said. “Jones slaughters all his own meat. Best butcher in London. Come on, I’ll show you.”

He led Dex to the back of the building and introduced him to Jones, a butcher with the broadest Scottish accent he’d ever heard. Jones was pleasant enough, but the sight of row upon row of knives and cleavers lined up on the walls and the smell of fresh blood made Dex nervous. He stood in the corner with his back to the wall, chewing on his lip, until Rick called him forward.

“Look at this.” He gestured to a whole pig Jones had laid out on the huge wooden table. “Gloucester Old Spot. See this fat here? It’s the best bit.”

Dex nodded, silent and dumb. Rick was always saying shit like that, like Dex had a clue what he was talking about. “Are you taking this back to the restaurant?” he finally asked.

“When Jones has cut it up for me. Come stand here and watch. I reckon you’ll pick it up pretty quick.”

Rick wasn’t wrong. Dex watched Jones work his butchering tools efficiently through one half of the pig, and it wasn’t hard to follow the natural lines of the body. The cuts were a little different from those of the meats he already knew, but he thought he could figure it out. The other thing he liked was that no cut of the pig went to waste. Each part was neatly packed and labeled.

“Want a go?” Jones held out the long butchering knife.

Dex glanced at Rick.

Rick shrugged and nudged him forward. “Go on. You’ve got a good eye. I think I can trust you with three hundred quid’s worth of meat.”

Dex wasn’t so sure, but he took the knife anyway, and a little while later, was pleasantly surprised to see the clean piles of meat set out in front of him. Butchery wasn’t a skill that interested him, but Rick seemed pleased every time he did it, and that was good enough for him. Life was far easier if you did things to make your master smile.

Dex managed to stay awake on the journey back to the restaurant. He watched the city fly by with muted interest, barely noticing the bustle until something caught his eye. He pointed at the neon-pink sign and frowned. “I keep seeing that everywhere. What is it?”

Rick shot him a strange look. “It’s the Olympics, kid. London 2012?” Dex was mystified, and his confusion in turn seemed to mystify Rick. “Where the hell were you all summer? Under a bloody rock?”

Dex didn’t have an answer for that, and went back to staring out the window. His mind drifted to Seb as they neared the restaurant. He felt tense and on edge, like a bomb was about to fall from the sky and obliterate Seb from his life again, like the morning had been a dream and he’d never been there at all.

The notion made his chest ache. He’d left Seb behind in Padstow, and it had hurt so much he could hardly breathe. Still hurt, even now. He thought back to those hazy summer months more than a year ago. Thought of the first time he’d seen Seb’s magical blue eyes in the crazy mess of his fudge shop kitchen. Thought of that mind-blowing moment when he’d felt Seb’s lips on his neck.

He wondered if Seb would ever know he was the only man he’d ever
chosen
to fuck him.

S
EB
LOOKED
up as they came in. He was once again the only one in the kitchen, and something was off. Something had changed. It took Dex a moment to realize he’d moved the whole dessert section around in their absence.

“Where’d you go? Anywhere fun?”

Seb directed his question at Dex, but Rick answered for him. “Walthamstow. Had to see a man about a beast. You should see this one with a whole pig.” He cuffed Dex’s shoulder. “Quite a butcher under all that hair.”

Seb paused in whatever he was doing on the pudding counter, his gaze curious and almost amused. “Where did you learn that, Dex?”

There was no escape this time, and Dex resisted a strange urge to hide behind Rick. “My da.”

Seb stared at him, waiting for him to elaborate, but Dex lost his nerve and fled the kitchen to get changed before any more questions came his way.

There were more chefs in the kitchen by the time he got back, and Seb was still busy putting the dessert section back together ready for the evening rush. He didn’t glance up as Dex drifted past him, and for a precious few hours, Dex was almost able to convince himself he wasn’t there at all.

He put his head down and got on with his jobs, trying to ignore the conflicting emotions gnawing at his belly. Trying to ignore the tingling presence of the man he’d tried so hard to forget. He’d always felt safe with Seb, like his broad shoulders and big hands could protect him from anything, but he felt unsettled now, clumsy and stupid, and it didn’t help that nothing in the back area of the kitchen was where it should’ve been. It seemed Seb had disrupted more than Dex’s dormant heart.

It was just before six when Rick came looking for him again. “Good news, lad,” he said without waiting for Dex to follow him out of the kitchen. “You’re officially promoted. New pot washer starts tonight.”

Dex stopped on his way to the kitchen door. “Promoted? To what?”

“That’s up to you. I want you to do a bit more cooking, but you need to figure out which section suits you best. Spend some time on all of them. In fact, why don’t you start on puds with Seb? He can probably use a hand while he gets settled in.”

“What?”

“Seb,” Rick repeated with surprising patience. “Go and help him, learn from him, and next week, you can try something else.”

Dex didn’t move until Rick grasped his shoulders and literally pushed him across the kitchen. He stumbled into the dessert section, off-balance from Rick’s playful shove, and narrowly missed colliding with Seb. Seb reached out to steady him, but Dex sidestepped his hand and wound up by the wall, his eyes fixed on the floor.

Seb sighed. “You want to help me make brownies?”

With Rick’s eyes still on him, there was little Dex could do but nod. When he looked up, he found Seb had turned away from him and back to his work, his shoulders hunched and unforgiving.

Seb didn’t look around as he spoke again. “The recipe is in the folder. Get the scales and start weighing.”

Dex fetched the scales and the folder with a giant cake on the front that clearly denoted it as the dessert folder. He set them on the counter, opened the folder, and stared hard at the pages, hoping something familiar would jump out at him.

Seb appeared silently beside him. Up close, he seemed bigger than Dex remembered, but his unique vanilla scent was as intoxicating as it had ever been. “Get some self-raising flour from the dry store.”

“Is that the blue one?”

“It says what they are on the packets.”

Dex trudged to the dry store, but as luck would have it, another chef was already there and passed him the right flour without comment. By the time he got back to the counter, Seb had already started weighing out the ingredients, some with the scales, and some by eye. Dex watched with a fascination he remembered from watching Seb make fudge back in Padstow.

“Pass me that chocolate.”

Dex picked up the bowl of broken-up chocolate and duly poured it into the saucepan Seb seemed to be mixing his ingredients in.

“What happened to your hands?”

“Hmm?”

“Did you burn them?”

Dex looked down at his hands. He’d forgotten the strange, scaly rash that had appeared a few hours after he’d cleaned the charcoal grill. “No. They’re a bit funny from cleaning the grill.”

“Did you use D9?” Seb took the pan from the counter and slid it onto the gas burner behind them. “You’re supposed to wear gloves with that, and goggles. Did you read the bottle?”

Dex peered into the saucepan containing the slowly melting butter, sugar, and chocolate. “What goes in next?”

“Eggs.” Seb retrieved a bowl of beaten eggs. “Wait until the chocolate is just about liquid, then take the pan off the heat and mix these in. I’ll be back in a minute.”

Seb disappeared, abandoning Dex with the pan of molten chocolate. For a moment, he was relieved, like he could breathe again, and then his heart felt the loss of Seb’s presence beside him.

Fuck. How can he still do that, after all this time?

Dex didn’t have a clue, and he spent the rest of the shift fluctuating between a desperate need to stand as close to Seb as possible and the real knowledge he’d stayed too long in Stoke Newington. Seb had found him, and by chance or not, it was only a matter of time before someone else did.

“How long are you going to keep this up?”

Dex glanced around, but Seb had spoken quietly. To anyone else, it looked like he was simply checking his work. “Keep what up?”

“This. I know it’s been… a while, but I don’t get it. Did I do something to upset you?”

Dex stared. “Upset me?”

“Why won’t you talk to me?”

“What do you want me to say?”

Seb hissed though clenched teeth. Dex leaned back from the harsh, impatient sound until Seb finally sighed. “Meet me after work. I can’t work with you like this. It’s driving me fucking crazy.”

Thirteen

D
EX
TRIED
to slip away at the end of the hellish shift. He took a quick and necessary shower in the staff room upstairs, bypassed the bar where the rest of the staff had gathered, and snuck out the back door to find Seb waiting for him on the steps. Damn. Rick must’ve told him Dex never stayed for a drink.

Seb stood and inclined his head toward the street. “Come on. Let’s get a beer.”

His voice was hard, his face firm and unyielding. Dex had spent his whole life complying with the wishes and demands of others, and it felt natural to slink down the steps and follow Seb to the nearest pub.

He sat on a bar stool while Seb ordered drinks. He wanted to stand and be ready for an easy escape if the opportunity came up, but he was tired—bone-deep tired—from a day that had turned every facet of his new life upside down.

Seb slid a pint of something toward him and reached for his wallet. Dex found his balls at the last moment and paid the barman. Seb shot him a questioning look, and Dex scowled right back. He had money. He could buy his own bloody drink.

“This is a bit weird, eh?”

Dex swallowed a bitter mouthful of beer and considered Seb’s question. He didn’t like booze. He only drank it when someone told him to. “I didn’t know you’d be here.”

“Neither did I until a few days ago, and trust me, you were the last person I expected to see. How did you end up in London?”

Dex shrugged. Talking to Seb didn’t feel as strange as he’d thought it would, but that was a question he couldn’t answer, and a telling reminder that the sooner he moved on, the better.

“Rick really likes you. Thinks you’ve got promise.”

“Best pot washer in town, that’s me.”

Dex’s tone was dry. Seb frowned and shifted his position, leaning forward on the bar to face him. “You do more than that, Dex. I saw you in the kitchen today. You’re really good, especially considering—”

“Considering what?”

Seb took a drink of his beer and set it down again with undue care. “You can’t read, can you?”

“Can.”

“I don’t believe you.”

Dex slid off his stool and shoved his hands into his pockets. He wasn’t sure what he’d expected when Seb had ambushed him, but it wasn’t this. So what if he couldn’t bloody read? It wasn’t like he’d ever been to school to learn.

Seb caught his arm. “Don’t go, Dex. I’m sorry, okay? I won’t tell anyone. I promise.”

Seb’s hand engulfed Dex’s wrist, his touch as charged and heated as it had ever been. Dex felt his resolve melting, ebbing away until it was all he could do to fall back onto the bar stool. “I can read some,” he said mutinously. “I can read numbers, and names. Knew the name of your shop, didn’t I?”

“Can you write?”

“Never tried.” Dex looked down. Lying to Seb felt all wrong. He’d heard the name of Seb’s shop on the street, and the only name he could read was his own.

Seb was silent for a moment, then without warning, Dex felt his fingers brush through his shower-damp hair. “It really is brown. I thought it was just wet.”

Dex fought for the strength to shy away from the soft gesture, but nothing happened. “The bleach grew out.”