“A half show?” I ask.
“Only half the couple showed up.”
“Oh.” My heart twinges a little for the solo person. “That’s a little… sad.”
“Exactly,” she says ushering me forward. “Which is why he needs a partner.”
“No way,” I say, trying to dig in my heels, but May’s built like a bull, and the poor single male is the red flag being waved in front of her.
“It can’t be me. I’ve got to oversee—”
“Nonsense. Your girl Keva is in charge, Robyn’s second-in-command, you’ve got me and Josh here to take care of the unexpected, and Lily’s on call. If we need you, you’ll know.”
She maneuvers me to the table, picks up the plain black apron Keva had provided, and thrusts it at me. “Have fun,” she says with a wink.
Sighing, I turn to apologize to the paying customer who I’m pretty sure has no interest in cooking alongside the shop owner all night.
He turns to face me, and all seems just a little bit more right in the world.
Sebastian’s face betrays nothing as he looks down at me. “Ms. Cooper.”
“Mr. Andrews.” I swallow. “Where’s your date? Is your mystery woman meeting you here tonight?”
I’m more than a little curious about the mysterious, complicated woman responsible for him ending things with Genevieve.
He lifts his shoulders. “I’m solo tonight.”
I wait for him to elaborate, and when he doesn’t, I narrow my eyes. “Mr. Andrews. What are you doing here?”
“Learning what sort of food pairs with champagne.”
My eyes narrow further. “First the champagne party. Now this. You’re spying on me. Hoping I’ll fail, so you can swoop in with your offer the second I do.”
“Yes,” he says mildly. “Spending three hundred dollars tonight is a stellar example of monetary sabotage.”
Josh appears, carrying a tray of flutes filled with the welcome wine. We’re apparently Josh’s last stop, because there are only two glasses on his carefully balanced tray—he’d spent all afternoon practicing with plastic cups filled with water—and Sebastian takes both of them, handing me one before I can protest.
“It’s a German Riesling Sekt.” Josh carefully enunciates the word that was unfamiliar to him until Robyn’s coaching yesterday. “A fun, spirited sparkling wine with relatively low alcohol, a Bosc pear greeting, and a creamy vanilla finish that is requisite.”
I carefully hide a smile at his perfect recitation of Robyn’s note card. “Thank you, Josh.” I start to hand him back the glass, but my shy employee is already rushing back to May.
Sebastian takes a sip. “It’s good.”
“Of course it’s good. It’s how we run a successful business.”
I place just the slightest emphasis on successful to let him know that Bubbles & More is no closer to being bullied into closing.
Since the glass is in my hand, I take a small sip and study Sebastian, who seems strangely at ease for a single man in a room full of couples.
“Why not bring the other woman?” I ask.
“I’m sorry?”
“At the tasting you said you and Genevieve broke up because of someone else.”
He glances down at the glass. “Is that what I said?”
“I—” Wasn’t it? “Yes?”
“There’s nobody here but you and me, Ms. Cooper.”
As if I need the reminder. Every time I’m with the man, the rest of the world seems to fade away, and the Frank Sinatra songs in my head seem to be getting more and more intimate.
On the current playlist: “I’m a Fool to Want You”
Indeed, Frank. Indeed.
Thankfully, Keva’s loud, booming voice takes command of the room as she introduces herself and Robyn, as well as the structure of the class.
I don’t want to interrupt or call attention to myself, so I move farther back into the corner, glancing over in surprise when Sebastian hooks the neck of the apron I set on the table on his index finger and holds it out to me, a clear challenge in his gaze.
I set my wine on the counter and snatch the black apron out of his hand, ignoring his smirk as I loop the thin tie over my head. I’m fumbling around for the back ties when I feel a hand brush mine. His hand.
I stand perfectly still as Sebastian ties a knot at my waist, his movements methodical and efficient. I turn my head to mutter an under-the-breath thank-you when his fingers drop to the side of my waist. My breath catches. His finger slips gently under the string—untwisting it, I realize—but then it stays just a moment longer than necessary. I feel his warmth, even through the fabric of my thin sweater, and I must have gulped my wine faster than I realized because I feel a little light-headed.
His hand slides away and he clears his throat slightly, picking up his flute once more and fixing all of his attention on Keva, who’s explaining the first course—a smoked salmon blini, which she explains is a ten-dollar word for a tiny pancake, earning a laugh from the group—as Josh and May silently move around the room handing out baskets filled with all the necessary ingredients.
“Okay, for real. Why are you really here?” I ask Sebastian once Keva’s given us the instructions to get started. “Looking for a fire hazard? Violation of liquor license?”
“I like champagne, and I’d like to learn how to cook,” he says, pulling a jar of capers out of our basket and studying it.
“You can’t cook?”
“Not really. Can you?”
“No,” I admit. “Well, sort of. Growing up, my brother, sister, and I all had to take care of dinner one night a week. My sister sometimes used an actual cookbook and put together something passably good, but my brother and I mostly embraced boxed pastas and jarred sauce.”
“Did you have a specialty?” He hands me the package of smoked salmon.
“I make a pretty impressive Hamburger Helper, and my Chef Boyardee skills aren’t bad either. You?”
“Delivery. I’m really, really good at ordering delivery,” he replies.
I smile a little. I think maybe he does too.
Once our ingredients are laid out, Keva walks us through the next steps, encouraging those of us without a clear view of her table to come up for a closer look, which Sebastian and I do. She dices the red onion and salmon, grates a little lemon peel, mixes the blini batter… She makes it look easy.
Twenty minutes later, Sebastian looks over from the metal bowl he’s stirring and inspects my cutting board. “It looks like you’ve just dissected something, and not very well.”
“Yeah, well.” I go on my toes to peer into his mixing bowl. “That looks like brain matter. Did hers have so many bubbles?”
Our eyes meet for a second. “Switch,” we say at the same time as he hands me the bowl and moves behind me to take my place.
Ten laughing minutes after that, we sip the Deutz Millésime Robyn’s selected and stand before the ultimate jury. Keva is standing in front of our counter, hands on hips, staring at our finished plate. She has yet to say a word.
Sebastian and I look at each other out of the corner of our eyes, and he rolls his lips inward as though to keep from laughing. I’m less successful, and a giggle bubbles out as I look again at what can only be described as a massacre. Somehow our pancake has managed to be both burned and completely raw, the salmon has been overworked to the point of looking like mush, and Sebastian got way too into grating the lemon, so there’s a fine film of bright yellow covering the entire plate in a very neon-mold-type fashion.