Chapter Five
“What are you doing to that chicken?” Wyatt asked as he looked over at what Kai was working on. He’d been focused on his own recipe, and only just noticed what Kai was working on.
“Frying it,” Kai said, a tiny smile playing about his lips. “Not like you normally would, I guess,” he added.
“I wouldn’t fry it at all. Too long and too hard,” he said.
Kai looked up at him, raising one perfectly-defined eyebrow.
Wyatt swallowed.
He’d been like this the entire time—when he hadn’t been outright flinging innuendos at him—and it was making him nervous. Was he trying to get Wyatt to screw up again?
“Right, so… you’ve cooked it, and now you’re gonna fry it?” he asked, hoping that sounded like an intelligent question.
“I’ve poached it,” Kai said. “In an aromatic broth. And now I’m going to fry it.”
“Without batter?” Wyatt double-checked.
He didn’t understand half of what Kai did, but he understood this even less than usual. Also, he could smell nutmeg, which seemed like a weird thing to pair with chicken.
If Kai wasn’t so… standoffish, Wyatt would even have been fascinated by him. The way he worked was measured and methodical, his dishes original, his command of flavors pretty damned masterful.
The thing was, he was also a jerk.
Wyatt wondered if that was just something he did on TV, or if maybe he genuinely couldn’t help it. Maybe asshole was written all the way down to his bones.
But now he was flirting, and there was really no other word for it, and Wyatt didn’t get it.
“Without batter,” Kai confirmed, smirking. “Trust me, and I’ll be gentle with you.”
Wyatt’s ears burned.
It wasn’t that he was uncomfortable with being flirted with, exactly…
Okay, well… maybe he was. But only because it was on internationally-available television, and only because it was Kai.
He wasn’t out as bisexual, but he didn’t care if people figured it out. The only thing he cared about here was that he felt like he was on the wrong end of a prank someone else was pulling. He was afraid to tease back, in case that was what Kai was angling for.
Not that Wyatt could figure out why, or what he was hoping to gain by tripping Wyatt up—making him look stupid might have been entertaining, but it wouldn’t have been good for Kai’s long-term career, and Wyatt was pretty sure Kai wasn’t that petty.
Which left him all the way back at square one—why was he doing this?
“I’ll trust you,” Wyatt said, hoping that his blush didn’t show up too much on camera. Since he was wearing about half a pound of stage makeup, he figured there was an even chance that no one would notice.
At least, that was what he was telling himself.
“So uh,” he began, turning his attention back to his own work. “A good lava cake should be inviting on the outside and warm and gooey on the inside.”
“Just like you,” Kai commented, not even looking up from where he was patiently frying naked, poached chicken legs.
If Wyatt thought he’d been blushing before, it was nothing compared to now. No one was going to miss this. Everyone watching was going to see him flustered because of a few teasing lines.
He was normally good at handling this. Hell, he was kind of known for it, it was part of his overall charm, as far as he was concerned.
On the other hand, he normally expected it. This was all coming out of nowhere.
And it was coming from someone who, three weeks ago, had been offended by the idea of having to work with him. That was the part that Wyatt really couldn’t make sense of.
“Anyway, it only needs a couple of minutes in the oven because you’re really just looking for a crust to form, so I’ll start cleaning up and let Kai explain what he’s doing,” Wyatt said.
That gave him a few minutes to gather his thoughts, which were still swimming in his head.
Wyatt carefully avoided looking at Kai in case he said something else, or raised his eyebrow again, or… something.
He wasn’t used to feeling this off-balance. He was used to being in control of most situations, and at least understanding the rest of them.
It could have been fun, even, if he’d been expecting it at all.
Even now, Wyatt could see that Kai was actually pretty funny, his wit as sharp as his cheekbones. Or his knives.
Knives were probably a better comparison, but it wasn’t easy to miss how damned pretty Kai was. He looked like one of the beautiful elves out of a fantasy movie, lithe and long-limbed and with high cheekbones and haunting eyes.
Not that Wyatt was thinking about any of that. It was just…
Under other circumstances, he wouldn’t have necessarily knocked him back if he was flirting for real. There was no point in pretending otherwise.
“Are you close?” Kai asked once he was done working, and Wyatt couldn’t even tell anymore if that was supposed to sound filthy, or if it was just Kai’s voice.
“Uh.” Wyatt forced himself to swallow past a lump in his throat. “Yeah, nearly done,” he said, peering into the oven.
The timer went off as he looked down, making him jump. He managed to laugh at the last moment, and that made him feel just a little better.
They were almost done, and he could find out what the hell was going on in just a few minutes. There had to be a reasonable explanation for this.
He took the lava cake out of the oven and turned it onto a plate with appropriate oohs and ahhs from the small studio audience. This part made him smile.
The cake smelled rich and chocolatey and looked as perfect as he’d ever managed, so if Kai’s intention was to make Wyatt screw up, he’d failed. He’d made a mistake last week, but he wasn’t going to repeat that.
“Now, you can’t tell if a lava cake came out right until you crack into it, so I’m gonna dust this with sugar and then leave it to Kai for judgement.”
“Perfect timing,” Kai said, arranging his chicken artfully on a cutting board, a tiny bowl of sauce provided next to it. “Be careful with the vinaigrette, it’s mostly chili.”
Wyatt wasn’t entirely sure there was supposed to be any chili in a vinaigrette, but he couldn’t pretend he hadn’t been watching with interest as Kai worked. Besides, he was starving.
Once Wyatt was done dusting the lava cake with confectioners’ sugar, he swapped places with Kai.
“How do you want me to eat these?” Wyatt asked.
“Don’t be afraid to use your fingers,” Kai said cheerfully, and Wyatt instantly regretted asking. It was a normal, reasonable answer, but it felt like there were other layers to it.
Probably because Kai had spent the whole episode laying all the groundwork to make Wyatt think of the filthiest possible meaning to everything without it even needing to be intentional.
He focused on the chicken, which looked weird as hell but smelled really good. Rather than taking the whole leg to his mouth, he broke one of the coolest ones apart with his fingers and dipped the meat into the vinaigrette he’d been left.
A soft, happy noise escaped him automatically, even as his lips started tingling from the chili. Kai hadn’t been kidding about that, but it worked, and it tasted fruity and bright against silky, juicy chicken, and…
If nothing else, Wyatt had to admit that Kai knew what he was doing. He would have eaten this voluntarily and probably asked for more after.
A borderline-orgasmic moan from the other end of the counter made Wyatt look up just in time to see Kai licking chocolate off his lips.
“Good?” Wyatt asked nervously.
Kai made another happy sound in the back of his throat, low and desperate, as though he’d never experienced more pleasure at once in his entire life.
It was enough to make Wyatt blush all over again, just when he thought he’d gotten a handle on things.
“I need to be alone with this,” Kai said, picking the plate up. Wyatt stared at him as he walked past, digging his spoon into the cake again, and walked right off the set.
Luckily, they were done, so it didn’t really matter.
“So uh… Kai’s gone, so I guess it’s up to me to remind you guys that the recipes are on the website, we’ve got social media for the show if you’ve got questions or comments, and we’ll be back next week,” Wyatt said, not sure he’d gotten everything, but sure he was finished.
He beamed at the camera as earnestly as he could, and then breathed a sigh of relief once they were done.
Donna grinned back at him from the audience, giving him both thumbs up. Wyatt wasn’t sure the episode had gone that well, but maybe he hadn’t looked as confused as he felt.
Kai was standing off to the side, still eating the lava cake. Obviously, he hadn’t entirely been kidding about enjoying it. That felt good, though it was overshadowed by everything else that had been going on for the last half hour.
Wyatt hesitated a moment, picking at the remaining chicken—it was good, and there was no sense in wasting it—before deciding that he definitely needed to know what the hell that had been about.