As per usual, I blushed at his words. “Merci, Chef.”
“Next, slowly fold in one third of your flour powdered sugar mixture at a time. After you have added the last of it, fold in your chosen food coloring. Does everyone have their macaron form sheet laid out?”
“Oui, Chef,” the class said as one.
“Test your consistency, if it’s correct fill your piping bag and begin pressing out your shells,” Chef directed. At this point we’d gelled as a group and it was rare any of us were lagging behind the others. There were twelve of us remaining of the eighteen that had started this course. Pressing the spatula into the batter I found mine to be at the consistency I desired and moved on to filling my piping bag and pressing out the cute little buttons.
“Don’t forget to tap your trays class once you have all your macarons laid out. We don’t want any nasty air bubbles ruining your hard work,” Chef called out to us.
Once my form was full, I began lightly tapping the tray against the countertop to force the air out.
“While your macarons bake, you’ll be making your filling. But today I want you to incorporate whatever flavor you choose into the buttercream mixture. I look forward to the surprise when I sample your creations tomorrow,” Chef said. I immediately knew what flavor I’d be incorporating into my little pink fluff balls, raspberry. It was my go-to flavor. After we cleaned up our stations, I headed over to the internship I’d signed up for this semester on campus. It would help hone my skills and look great on my resume when I started the job application process.
When I got home, the rogue body that was camped out on our sofa this morning was gone but once again, the kitchen was destroyed. Tired as I was, I managed to get it back in order before taking a shower and retreating to my room to hide like the coward I was. I despised confrontation, and my roommates were well aware of that. They continually took advantage of my good nature, but the only saving grace was I knew this would all be coming to an end once I was working full time.
At ten thirty, after I’d showered and had just laid down my phone rang, and I knew exactly who it was. The one voice I wanted to hear most. “Hey Rockstar, how goes the recording?” The dorky side of me was smiling at my attempt to sound like one of the cool kids.
“Hey yourself, handsome. It’s going. You never realize how many details go into this until you actually do it. How was school today?” Rhone asked.
“It was great, Chef had us make macarons which are super temperamental,” I replied.
“Ooh, are those the little different colored cookies you can eat in one bite?” Rhone asked.
“Ha-ha, yes although they’re meant to be savored so you’re supposed to take small bites and enjoy them.” I could see him already, shoving cookie after cookie into his mouth. Somehow, he and his friends would make it a contest to see how many they could shove in their pie holes at one time. Better brush up on the Heimlich maneuver.
“I enjoy them just fine, like three or four at a time,” Rhone said, I could tell he was smiling on the other end. “Look at that, my boyfriend’s a baker.”
“Boyfriend?” I questioned.
“Too soon?” Rhone said.
“No, but we haven’t even been on a date yet,” I added although I didn’t know what the guidelines were for this sort of thing.
“Do we need to? I only want you, you said you only want me so I’d say that makes us boyfriends,” Rhone stated.
“At Rocktoberfest, you said you didn’t want to label it. What’s changed in the last forty-eight hours for you?”
“Nothing more than me missing the hell out of you. I keep hoping to see you coming around the corner. I miss you more than I thought possible considering we only just met,” he admitted.
I couldn’t deny I felt the same way. “Yeah, I get it. So boyfriends who still need to go on a first date?”
“Yeah, I like it. Speaking of which, did you find a place to go?”
“I have a few ideas but haven’t narrowed it down,” I said.
“You gonna get a job at Hell’s Kitchen working for that guy who yells at everyone?” Rhone asked.
“No, no, no. He scares the bejesus out me. I can’t even watch his show without having an anxiety attack,” I admitted.
“Yeah, he’s pretty intense. I might go ballistic if he yelled at you so let’s cross it off the dinner list.”
“Wasn’t even on there,” I told him.
“You don’t cuss much, do you?” Rhone asked.
“Not really, wasn’t raised that way and I guess it kind of stuck. At least it’s a positive considering my less than stellar upbringing,” I admitted, remembering the time my father forcefully washed my mouth out with a bar of soap for saying the “s” word. To this day I still can’t stand the smell of Zest.
Late nights talking to Ely had become my favorite way to end each day. Even though he was tired, I could tell he was still excited to hear from me. The lilt in his voice, his reaction when I said the word boyfriend. Just everything about Ely checked off boxes I didn’t know I had. How could this be when we’d known each other such a short time? Hell, I was ready to take him to meet my mom when I didn’t really know the man myself. What’s his favorite movie? Favorite food? Where’s his dream place to travel to? Jesus, I didn’t even know which way he left the toilet paper facing. Not that that would be a make it or break it item, but still a minor irritation to some. Over rather than under. I wanted every first in the book with Ely and I wanted to be his one and only. What the fuck was wrong with me? It’s like he slipped me some sort of drug that had me thinking about him and not much else.
By the end of our first week in the studio, we only had four of the tracks down for the CD which wasn’t great. Two more remained that should flow effortlessly since we played them on the regular, but I was concerned about the other six we hadn’t messed with more than a handful of times.
“Yo, Rhone,” Seltzer said, standing beside my kit. We’d been at it for… fuck, I don’t even know how long today and we just weren’t nailing the intro which was a bad sign. This song was going down in flames. “Let’s take a break and give Stoli and the guys a call. Maybe they can sit with us and figure it out. We might be too close to it to see what’s missing.” I liked that all four of us had a piece in the lyrics and music we wrote. Not one of us were labeled as the solo song writer on any of our songs – we all contributed whether it was a line or ten lines, we each touched every song Embrace had.
“Yeah, okay,” I agreed. “Chase, did you hear that?” It had gotten to the point I wanted to pull my hair out.
“On it,” Chase said, picking up his phone. “Hey Stoli, do you guys have some time today? Err tonight?” he corrected himself, looking out the window into the darkness. “We’re stuck and in need of a new set of ears on this track. Right on, thanks man.”
We broke for dinner while we waited for Stoli to get here and were surprised an hour later when all four members of Social Sinners came to our rescue. “Thanks so much guys,” I said.
“No worries,” Stoli added. “We weren’t doing much. Sounded like you guys were in need of fresh ears on a new track?”