The Pairing(52)

“Heard.” I bring the butter over, and he unwraps a big, flat piece from its parchment paper. He folds the dough around it, picks up a rolling pin and whacks it so hard that dishes across the room rattle.

“Sorry!” he says to my surprised yelp, pounding away with his rolling pin with a fervor that I find upsettingly hot. “Makes it easier to roll! There’s a recipe binder in the cabinet over that prep station, can you go to the éclair section and make the chocolate and white chocolate glazes? Pistachios are already prepped in—”

“Dry storage, I see them,” I say, thankful for the distraction. “On it.”

I take the binder down and fly through the instructions, bubbling with adrenaline. Once I’ve translated the phrases I don’t know, I lay out the ingredients the way I do when I make drinks, so I can see everything at once.

“Nice mise en place,” Kit says, glancing over. He tips his head back to shake hair from his eyes.

“Thanks, you good?”

“Yeah, I just—I don’t have anything to tie my hair back.”

I unwind a rubber band from some sleeves for to-go cups and bring it to him. He looks down at his butter-slicked hands and back to me.

“Could you?”

Could I—could I slide my hands into Kit’s thick, soft hair while he’s busy maneuvering dough with the calm agility of a professional?

“Sure,” I say evenly.

I sweep my fingers up from his temples and gather the front pieces of his hair into an untidy knot, tying it off. I could swear he shivers at the touch, almost leans into it. When I give the knot a tug to make sure it’s secure, his hands falter on the rolling pin. Oh.

“You still like that, huh?” I comment, my tone light, uninvested.

“Don’t tease.” He’s aiming for firm, but his voice cracks on the second syllable. My hand is still in his hair, and I have the overwhelming urge to plant a kiss on his crown.

Instead, I lean close to his ear and whisper, “This is just like Ratatouille.”

“Good fucking God, Theo.”

He elbows me away, half laughing and half groaning as I yell, “What! We’re in France!” on the way back to my station. But I tuck the moment into my apron, the breath he held before he knew I was joking.

Kit cranks the butter-filled dough through the rolling press four times, folding and turning, letting me peek at the paper-thin layers of lamination before he cuts it to shape. He rolls triangles of dough into croissants and tucks bits of chocolate and raisins into pockets with nimble hands. Eight sheet pans of pastries settle into the proofing rack, and he switches seamlessly to the stove beside me to make choux dough. I babysit saucepans like my life depends on it.

Apolline returns as I’m pulling the éclair fillings out of cold storage and Kit is piping the last dollops of choux. She thanks us with a kiss on each cheek, then heads out front to reopen with the few pastries left in her cases. I notice the whisk tattooed on her ankle, a match to the one on Kit’s wrist and presumably somewhere on Maxine. I remind myself what happened the last time I got jealous of one of Kit’s classmates before I lose focus.

“That’s good,” Kit says, watching me roll out baguette dough. “Much better than last time.”

I feel useful and lit up inside. I dart from station to station, from cold storage to dry storage, to the front of the shop with chouquettes and cream puffs, to the back to tell Kit what’s needed. I’ve been spending so much time by myself in the wine cellar and the bus bar, I forgot how much I thrive in good, competent, back-of-house madness.

The shop fills with locals picking up afternoon snacks and tourists filling boxes to carry away to their beachfront hotels, and we make it work.

It helps that Kit is extremely good at this. He’s so deeply in his element, it’s like Swayze in Road House when he finally gets to bust out his tai chi. The pastry school training keeps his lines neat and his measurements accurate, but the rest is all him. The flick of his wrist, the clear, decisive tone of his voice as he thinks out loud, the way I know from a shift in his hips or shoulders exactly how to follow in harmony. I put out my hand, and Kit pushes a piping bag into it; Kit tilts his chin, and I pass the oven mitts. If I could see us from above, I’d see two bodies, two aprons with the same stardust patterns of flour and cinnamon, one set of choreographed steps.

Our friends used to say they could tell we’d grown up together because we have the same gestures and tics, like two branches of the same nervous system. Outside of sex, I don’t think I’ve ever felt that more than I do in this kitchen.

It makes me think of our old dream. Fairflower. The restaurant Kit believed we could open and that I thought of as an unattainable daydream. If I had let Kit convince me, would it feel like this? Would it be possible still, if I asked and he said yes? Maybe we could still open our own little shop somewhere, anywhere. Make up new menus every weekend, bike home from the market with baskets of fruit, stay up all night experimenting. Stay up all night doing all kinds of things.

Kit looks up at me over a steaming pan of croissants, a stray bit of hair falling across his brow. When he smiles, it’s the pleased smile of a job well done, and I’m struck by a memory of him smiling like that between my thighs.

“One more hour!” Apolline calls.

The final rush goes in a flurry of pastry flakes and sugar nibs, éclairs boxed as soon as they’re finished with pistachio dust. By seven o’clock, when Apolline turns over the sign in the front window, we’re all sweating through our shirts, but we’ve done it.