Rev (24 page)

Maybe some old chips and beer?

I wasn’t far off. The fridge was mostly stocked with beer and some protein shakes. I was lucky to find a couple eggs and a piece of a stick of butter thrown haphazardly into a compartment with some saggy peppers and an onion that had seen better days. I shook my head.

This is ridiculous.

Rummaging around the wooden cabinets of the kitchen, I was surprised to find some salt, so old it was congealed inside the shaker, and a small packet of pepper inside a crumpled up McDonald’s bag. There was some old cookware—clearly never used—stacked in a pile and pushed far into the deep corner of the kitchen counter.

I was overjoyed to find a vintage cast iron skillet, the bottom stamped with the Griswold logo. It must have come with the house or something, because Griswold Manufacturing closed in 1957 after almost 100 years of worldwide renown for their cast-iron cookware. This baby was from a time when things were made by hand in America and designed to last forever.

And as if by fate, pulling apart that heap of unused cookware uncovered a head of garlic that must have rolled out of sight some time ago and gotten lost in the disorder of the kitchen. It was firm, no signs of slime or mold, so I counted my blessings and added it to the motley collection of ingredients.

Okay, let’s see here…

I had a bit of butter, a couple eggs, a small red bell pepper I could salvage, a sad looking onion, some garlic, and salt and pepper.

If only I could find some potatoes, then we’d really have something.

But I’d searched the whole kitchen. There wasn’t anything left to unearth.

Unless…

I stepped through the small side door and into the garage. Under the dim light provided by a lone, flickering bulb, I spotted a fire engine red tool chest that was as tall as me, several boxes of beer stacked on top of each other, and—aha!—a large burlap sack. If there was one thing I was right to assume, it was that Dean was a meat and potatoes kind of guy.

I grabbed 3 of the dark brown russet potatoes, which were starchy and absorbent and would pick up the garlic, onion, and pepper flavors quite well, and headed back towards the door to the kitchen. But then something caught my eye.

Is that him?

There was a picture on top of the workbench to the far side of the tall tool chest. I hadn’t noticed it before, but as I looked closer it was obviously a picture of Dean, though from when he was a little kid. He had the same dark eyes that at once pushed you back, like they were barricades against the world, and drew you in, like portals into some realm of enchanting contemplation.

And there was someone standing next to him. Something in her face made me certain she was his mother. She was tall and beautiful with thick, raven black hair and pale, immaculate skin. She was also incredibly sad, her eyes heavy and exuding a sinking gaze of emptiness.  It was almost like, just by looking at the photograph, you drove her to detachment and unease.

They were both, on the whole, more guarded than aloof. There was something you could sense looming over the photograph even if it wasn’t directly present. And it wasn’t just the background, with its stormy waves and heavy mist rising above the rocky coastline.

I began to wonder deeply about Dean’s past and exactly where he came from.

And I only just met him last night…

But there was something about him, something so mysterious and contradictory, that I couldn’t help but be intrigued. And I loved intriguing people. Anything exceptional and peculiar got me excited. Dean was certainly that. I sensed that his rough, tough, and hard as rock exterior wasn’t all there was to him, not that there was any problem with his exterior. But I felt the need to pull back his layers one by one—like an onion.

Speaking of onions.

I returned to the kitchen to start preparing breakfast. It was really a salvage mission, but I did my best.

Okay, let’s see here…

I preheated the oven and grabbed that gorgeous vintage cast iron skillet, rubbing the inside with a bit of the butter. As it heated up, I diced the pepper and onion, pressed a clove of garlic, and peeled and shredded the three potatoes. I threw the pepper and onion over some melted butter to sauté for a couple minutes.

Oh, that’s good. Not so shabby, Saylor!

Cooking always awakened my abounding enthusiasm for life’s little adventures. As the rich smell filled the small wooden kitchen, I inhaled the aroma and closed my eyes for one brief moment of serenity.

Then I stirred in the shredded potatoes and a little salt, blending them with the onion, pepper, and garlic until the mixture was golden and tender. I removed it from the heat and made some indentations over which I cracked the eggs. With a sprinkle of salt and pepper, the dish was ready for baking. I set the skillet on the top shelf of the oven and glanced at the clock. The eggs would set in around 12 minutes, so I walked out to the living room to wake Dean.

But he was already up and about, a look of intense agitation written all over his angular face. The delicious scents of morning cooking wafting through the small home hadn’t gently roused him with a harmonious attitude and sunny disposition. Oh no. It was exactly the opposite. Dean looked flustered, bewildered, and altogether perturbed as he stood there with the blanket draped around his waist, trying to make sense of an unfamiliar situation.

“What the hell is going on?” he asked, stretching out his muscles from a night of sleeping awkward and contorted on the small couch.

“Breakfast,” was all I said.

Dean cocked his head to the side and then, sniffing at the air like he was altogether unaccustomed to the concept of cooking, asked, “What’s that smell?”

I smiled. “When you cook something fresh, that’s what you get.”

Dean shook his head. “No, I mean, where’d you get all of that?”

‘The food?”

He nodded.

“I found it. The onions and peppers and eggs were in the fridge and the garlic was under the pans in the—”

“What makes you think you can go through my stuff?” he interrupted.

I was taken aback. “Um…you mean, cook you breakfast?”

“That’s my stuff,” he reiterated.

“Yeah, the yellow onion and saggy peppers and spices—if you could call it that—I got out of a fast food bag you shoved in a cabinet and forgot about… That stuff?” I crossed my arms and stared at him, my exasperation more than evident.

Dean didn’t even respond. He dropped the blanket and staggered over to the shower. He wasn’t one for civility or decorum, so I wasn’t at all surprised that he didn’t have the slightest inhibitions about walking around in his boxer-briefs while there was a guest in his home.

A guest? What exactly was I?

I couldn’t much focus on that line of thought, however, because Dean’s ridiculously well-honed ass was right there in front of me. Wrapped in the tight, thin material of his underwear, his rock hard cheeks tensed with perfect firmness and muscularity. It was a sight to behold, especially after years with Ace and his sad, flat rear.

The sound of the shower running snapped me back to reality and I refocused my attention on the oven and the state of my skillet eggs breakfast.

I peered into the oven and decided the eggs could do with another couple minutes of cooking. The key was to make sure the egg whites set and didn’t come out too slimy while the yolks still had some gooeyness to them. It was a lot easier to do that with baking than it was with frying since the airflow ensured a much more even heating than the single hot surface of a heated pan. Still, you had to watch those yolks. Nothing worse than beautifully crisped potatoes with dried out eggs on top.

I need place settings.

Wait? What the hell was I thinking?

I wonder, what are the chances that Dean has matching cutlery and placemats stashed away in one of these drawers?

None, a quick search confirmed. Though I did manage to dig up two chipped plates and some old forks with wooden handles that probably came with the house along with the cast iron skillet. The closest thing to placemats that Dean had was an old newspaper. I neatly tore a sheet in two and set the table out by the patio.

By then, breakfast was ready. When I removed the pan from the oven, the smell was intoxicating—a heady rush of simple, hearty smells. I was hungry and it was perfect.

Almost as perfect as this view.

I didn’t look down as I filled the two plates with steaming hot food, because the sight of a blue ocean and even bluer sky stretching into the infinite distance captured my attention. It seemed like they went on forever, converging, growing closer and closer, but never quite meeting. The sun sparkled perfectly over the slight, even delicate, undulation of the calm water, and I spotted small white flashes where the fish briskly splashed above the surface.

“Wow,” was all I could say. And I said it loudly.

“Wow, what?” Dean’s gruff voice questioned from somewhere to my right.

“The ocean—it’s beautiful.” I walked to the kitchen and placed the skillet on the range.

As Dean turned to let me pass through the narrow doorway and back into the small dining area, my hips briefly pressed against his upper thighs. Somehow, that single moment was as thrilling as the booming crash and salty spray of the ocean waves under a full moon in the depths of night.

I blushed. Imperceptibly, I hoped.

“The sharks think so too,” Dean said, taking a seat at the table and digging at the plate in front of him with his fork. “They’ve been hanging out here a lot this year.”

I took a seat across from him. He was wearing a black t-shirt that, while not tight, couldn’t hide the swell of muscle beneath. As he stabbed at an egg on the plate and raised it to his mouth, his pecs and shoulders pulled his shirt tight in all the right areas. His sleeves were getting quite a workout. They didn’t stand a chance.

“Holy shit!” Dean exclaimed. “This is actually really good.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I frowned.

“Just didn’t expect Roman’s step-daughter to be acquainted with cooking or anything like that.” Dean shoveled the rest of the dish into his mouth and finished his plate with a final few massive bites.

How the hell does he eat like that and stay so ripped?

“Yeah, well I had a life before all that,” I pointed out, digging into my own plate of moist eggs and crisped garlic pepper potatoes. “My mom only met Roman two years ago.”

Dean looked up at me with those dark eyes that betrayed absolutely none of his inner thoughts or feelings. “Hmmm. So what did you do before all that?” he asked, strolling to the kitchen for another helping.

“I was in a cult.”

That came out weird.

I followed up. “It was like this weird nature commune thing in Northern California. I never knew my father and we drifted around a bit—my mother and me—and ended up at this place that was really closed off from the world. I spent most of my childhood there, until I was 17 at least.”

Dean sat back down and began eating again. I couldn’t tell what exactly his reaction was. He was a hard man to read. Finally, when he’d finished his second plate, he sat back to rest, and asked, “Why’d you leave then?”

Too much too soon… No one needs to hear about that, especially Dean.

“Just, something happened,” I blurted out. “Something that made my mom realize we had to get out of there. And we drifted around a bit more, and I finished high school and my mom was waitressing at this diner, and that’s where she met Roman.”

Dean stretched his arms back and behind his head. Across the narrow table, I watched the hem of his shirt rise just above the angled athletic grooves on either side of his torso.

I guess all that food just goes to his muscles.

Dean certainly needed the fuel to power that million-dollar racecar of a body.

“Yeah,” he commented casually, standing up to grab my plate and his and bring them back to the kitchen. “I think I heard about that since it was right around when I started with this organization. Roman getting hitched. Big news. Guys said he met her in some shitty diner.  Most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. Invited her to a little party at his place on Figure Eight Island and the rest is history.”

I followed Dean into the kitchen. “I always thought it was kind of romantic.”

Dean shrugged, heavy muscle bunching against his neck. “Yeah, well, not all of us are destined for the romantic life.”

I frowned. “Well, that’s a terrible way to look at things…”

Dean stared out over the water. “Sometimes life is terrible and that’s your lot. I think the problem is everyone’s got such high expectations. Everyone thinks they’re a special snowflake. That they have some proud uniqueness and destiny. That they’re in some special story with infinite and unknown possibilities.”

He was starting to brood, and the ocean in the background gave the whole scene a kind of moodiness and melancholy.

But I had to admit it made him even hotter.

“Yeah, well, enough of this,” Dean said, finally breaking the silence. “We’re getting you back to your step-father.”

“I told you I can’t do that,” I reminded him.