Love is Always Write Anthology Volume 8

Burke, open up!"
    Staff.
    Burke let go of the vodka just in time. He grabbed beer instead. Only twenty dollars probably. Staff wasn't worth the price of the vodka. He untwisted the cap and sucked back the cold liquid as the banging continued on the door.
    "Burke? I'm gonna break the door down if you don't come out and talk to me."
    Oooh, tough guy. "Go away."
    "Can you give me a minute to explain?"
    "No."
    "Thirty seconds?"
    Burke didn't reply.
    "Ten seconds?"
    Burke smiled against his better judgment. He chugged the rest of the beer as he walked to the door.
    Without removing the safety chain he opened it a crack.
    "Ten... nine..."
    "Okay, thirty seconds, please?" Staff's hair was tousled and he was out of breath. Kind of like he'd looked in bed the night before. Burke liked how he looked and the way he sounded worried. He closed the door and before he could undo the chain Staff knocked again.
    "Hold your horses." Burke opened the door and stood there for a moment before moving away from the door so Staff could enter.
    "She's a chef."
    "Huh?" Burke had no clue what Staff meant.
    "She's Betty Dee, a TV chef. And she's got a restaurant in Santa Cruz... She's famous for a couple of dishes and she never ever gives recipes for them."
    "I don't understand."
    "There's a big cooking competition over at the next resort this week. I couldn't get a room over there, so I booked the week here to try and spy on her."
    Burke didn't say anything.
    "You're here at Cockatoo just to spy on a cooking competition, not because you're gay?" Burke thought about Staff not wanting to fuck him. But he was pretty good at blowjobs for a beginner. Burke was really confused.
    "I'm gay. It was just kind of good luck coming here." Staff's cheeks got a little pink again. "I'm a chef, too. Only I'm not a celebrity chef. I've been trying to see what she writes in that damned little notebook of hers. I had been following her around most of the time since I got here— as well as I could with the binoculars– but I got kind of distracted after I met you. I was a little worried I might have missed the chance to decode her secret competition recipe."
    "Recipe?"
    "Yeah. I think I got it. Or at least part of it." Staff's words tumbled out. He sounded pretty excited and rambled on about spices and herbs. Burke let him talk. He knew he probably sounded like that when he talked about computer stuff; he couldn't help it. Staff's eyes lit up and his voice got kind of soft and sexy, so Burke let him keep talking, mainly because Staff said Burke had distracted him from the spy mission. He liked how that sounded. Maybe Staff really did like him, even a little.
    "...thyme."
    "What time?"
    "Thyme, with a "T-H. The herb..."
    Burke shrugged.
    "She writes in some kind of code, but I figured it out. Or at least I think I did." Staff took a breath. "Want to see if I got it right? I'll cook it for you."
    "How?" Burke wasn't sure if he liked Staff assuming all was forgiven. But he did like that Staff wanted to cook something for him.
    "At Strokes. I'll see if the chef will let me use the kitchen to try it out."
    "You can do that?" Burke was kind of warming up to the idea. Well, mainly he wanted to see if Staff really could cook or whether all of this was just a huge lie. But why would he concoct such an elaborate story? If he wasn't interested in Burke, Staff could just go his own way.
    "I can ask, and hope he'll let me into his kitchen. After the lunch rush."
    "Oh." Burke was already pretty hungry after the sailing and stressing out.
    "Well, I was supposed to meet you for lunch today, wasn't I?"
    Burke nodded.
    "So, isn't this better? Your own private chef?"
    Burke shrugged.
    The corners of Staff's mouth turned downward, and the glint faded a little from his eyes. "You don't believe me, do you?"
    "I don't know yet. But I'd rather have you cook me lunch than anything they're serving in a place called Pecker's."
    Staff chuckled and the smile returned to his face. "Totally."
    Fifteen minutes later they were in the kitchen of Strokes. The chef had heard of Staff's restaurant and told him to help himself to anything he needed as long as he didn't get in anyone's way while they covered lunch service for the paying guests.
    Burke still felt upset about the whole spying and deceit thing. He sat on a stool near the back of the kitchen and watched Staff slice the heck out of a series of vegetables, wielding knives like a ninja. His gaze followed the motion of the blades and it