Chemical Warfare
Ryan hit the door harder than necessary. The smoke had followed him across the hallway like a personal insult. When Patrick opened it the haze inside was thick enough to sting.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” Ryan said. “I opened one window to get the cat stench out and your entire kitchen decided to migrate into my living room.”
Patrick stood in the doorway with a tea towel in one hand and an expression of forced calm that fooled no one. Behind him the apartment looked like a small industrial accident. “Everything is under control.”
Ryan looked past him. Three pans sat on the stove in various states of blackened ruin. The extractor fan was either off or completely defeated. Smoke hung in layers under the new sculptural pendant light. “That is the opposite of under control.”
“It is a temporary setback.”
“It is chemical warfare. I cook food. Food smells like food. This smells like you tried to cremate a chemistry set.”
Patrick’s jaw tightened. “You fill the building with cooking smells constantly. Late night truffle. Whatever expensive leftover you decide the rest of us need to experience. Do not act like you invented neighbourly consideration.”
“That was dinner. This is a cry for help written in carbon.”
“Leave.”
Ryan stepped past him into the apartment. “Your cat has never respected a single boundary in her life. I am simply matching the household energy.”
Patrick made an outraged sound but did not physically stop him. Ryan walked straight into the kitchen and stopped.
The damage was worse up close. Three pans. Not one ambitious failure. Three separate attempts at something that had gone so wrong the original ingredients were no longer identifiable. One pan held a blackened slab that might once have been protein. Another contained a dark sticky mass that had welded itself to the metal. The third was simply empty and smoking, as if it had given up halfway through and decided to protest by existing.
Ryan stared at the wreckage for a long moment.
“How,” he said quietly. “How do you burn three pans at the same time.”
“I was multitasking.”
“You were committing arson with cookware.”
Patrick folded his arms. The defensive posture was sharp, but underneath it something rawer was leaking through. He had spent a ridiculous amount of money on this dinner. He had invited people who already expected him to fail. And now the one person he least wanted as a witness was standing in his kitchen watching the entire performance collapse in real time. Embarrassment sat right behind the pride, and the pride was losing.
“I told you to leave. I am cooking.”
Ryan turned slowly and looked at the rest of the counter. Bags and boxes still in their specialty packaging. Vacuum-sealed parcels of things that cost more per gram than most people’s hourly wage. A small wooden crate of very hot chillies, still sealed with the importer’s sticker. A culinary siphon still in its plastic shell. A professional flambé torch with the safety seal unbroken. Tiny bottles of infused oils with handwritten labels. A set of molecular gastronomy spheres and a syringe kit that looked like it belonged in a lab. Serving vessels that were more sculpture than plate. A bag of obscure dried seaweed. Something that claimed to be black garlic aged for ninety days. A block of chocolate so dark it was basically a threat.
None of it suggested a coherent recipe. It suggested a man who had walked into a high-end food hall, pointed at everything that looked difficult, and said yes.
Ryan picked up the still-wrapped siphon and turned it over in his hands. “You bought a cream whipper.”
“It is for textures.”
“You have never made a texture in your life that was not accidental.”
“I am expanding my range.”
Ryan set the siphon down and gestured at the torch. “And a flambé torch. Because nothing says ‘I have this under control’ like open flame in the hands of a man who already set off the smoke alarm with toast.”
“Presentation matters.”
“Survival matters more.”
Patrick’s face had gone defensive and bright. “I am going to make an impressive dinner. Guests are coming. People who have spent months telling me I cannot cook. I am going to show them. I am going to show you.”
Ryan’s gaze drifted past him to the television mounted on the wall. The screen was paused on a YouTube playlist. The titles alone were a warning. Twenty-component plated duck with cherry gel, smoked tea foam, and edible soil. Spherified yuzu and basil caviar over hand-pulled noodles with a consommé clarified for six hours. A dessert that required liquid nitrogen, a sugar sail, and three different temperature-controlled creams. Another that involved dehydrating something for forty-eight hours before reconstituting it into a crisp that had to be plated within ninety seconds of assembly.
Ryan read the list twice to make sure he was not hallucinating from the smoke.
“You are trying to cook Instagram,” he said. “That is not a dinner. That is a hostage situation with garnish.”
“It is ambitious.”
“It is the most elaborate insurance scam I have ever seen. You are going to burn the building down, claim the art, and somehow still serve a foam that tastes like regret.”
“I know what I am doing.”
“You do not. You have three pans that look like crime scenes and a shopping list that suggests you are trying to summon a Michelin inspector through pure spite.”
Patrick’s voice rose. The wounded pride was fully audible now. “Get out. I do not need an audience. I especially do not need an audience that smells like someone else’s cat and self-righteousness. I planned this. I paid for this. I am not failing in front of you.”
Ryan opened his mouth to keep going and then stopped.
Under the defensive volume, under the dramatic posture and the expensive chaos, Patrick was panicking. Not just about the smoke. About the guests. About the money already spent. About the fact that the one neighbour who already thought he was ridiculous was now standing in the middle of the evidence. Embarrassment and pride were fighting each other in real time, and both were losing to the burnt pans.
Ryan’s tone shifted. Not soft. Not kind. Just practical.
“Move.”
“What.”
“Move. I am turning the heat off before the smoke detector decides we have all suffered enough.”
“I do not need rescuing.”
“This is not rescue. This is containment. There is a difference. Rescue implies I care about your dinner. Containment means I refuse to come home to a smoking crater because you decided very hot chillies and a flambé torch were a personality.”
Patrick did not move fast enough. Ryan stepped in, killed the burners, and shoved the worst of the pans off the heat with a folded towel. The smoke did not disappear but it stopped actively getting worse. He crossed to the windows on the correct side of the apartment and pushed them wider so the haze had somewhere useful to go.
“You were supposed to be at work,” Patrick said, still bristling.
“I was. Then your kitchen tried to annex mine. I live next door. I am not interested in the next Hindenburg happening through the wall. And more importantly, when this is over I get to remind you for the rest of the year that I sacrificed a shift to stop you from torching the floor. That is not charity. That is long-term ammunition.”
Patrick stared at him. The protest was still there but it had less energy behind it. Deep down, under the performance of outrage, something in him had unclenched the moment another person started making decisions in the kitchen. He would rather die than admit it.
“You are trespassing,” Patrick said, clinging to the script. “I did not consent to this.”
“Your cat trespasses daily. Consider this community service.”
“I can still fix it myself.”
“You cannot. You have already proven that three times over. Sit down or help. Those are the options.”
Patrick’s mouth opened. Closed. He looked at the ruined pans, the still-wrapped equipment, the paused video of a dish that required a degree in food chemistry, and then at Ryan standing in his kitchen like he belonged there.
“I am not sitting while you take over.”
“Good. Because I am not doing all the work while you stand there looking decorative and offended. Start chopping. Chillies. Small. Uniform.”
Patrick looked at the chillies as if they had personally insulted him. “I know how to chop.”
“Evidence suggests otherwise. But we are going to pretend.”
Ryan cleared a usable stretch of counter, located a knife that had not yet been involved in the earlier disasters, and set the chillies in front of Patrick with the air of a man issuing a very temporary truce. He himself started assessing what could still be salvaged, what needed to be thrown out before it became a health violation, and which of the expensive ingredients might still be coerced into something edible that did not require liquid nitrogen.
Patrick picked up the knife with more confidence than skill. He cut into the first chilli. The smell hit immediately, sharp and aggressive. He kept going, jaw set, determined to prove he could handle something as basic as a cutting board.
Ryan worked beside him in silence for a stretch, the only sounds the knife on the board and the gradual clearing of smoke through the open windows. It was almost functional. Almost.
Then Patrick lifted a hand to push hair out of his eyes.
The effect was immediate and catastrophic.
Patrick made a sound that started as a gasp and became a full, high, undignified scream. The knife clattered. The cutting board jumped. Half-chopped chillies scattered across the counter and onto the floor. Her Grace, who had been watching the proceedings from the relative safety of a dining chair with the expression of someone reviewing a disappointing play, shot upright at the noise, hissed, and bolted. She knocked over a bag of dried something on the way past, scattered specialty salt across the tiles, and vanished under the sofa in a streak of offended fur.
Patrick staggered back from the counter, both hands pressed to his face, still making noises that suggested the end of the world had arrived specifically in his eyeballs.
“It burns. It burns. Why does it burn like that. What is wrong with these chillies. What is wrong with my face.”
He spun toward Ryan, eyes streaming, voice climbing into pure accusation. “You did this on purpose. You let me chop them and you never said a word about not touching my face. You wanted this to happen.”
Ryan looked at him, completely unimpressed. “I didn't warn you because I didn't realise basic chilli handling required adult supervision.”
“That is not an answer.”
“It is the only accurate one.”
Patrick tried to walk and immediately walked into the edge of the island. The impact sent a stack of still-wrapped serving vessels sliding. One hit the floor with a crack that made both of them flinch. Patrick kept moving in blind, panicking circles, eyes streaming, voice climbing.
“Stay still,” Ryan said.
“I cannot stay still. My face is on fire. This is chemical warfare. You brought chemical warfare into my kitchen.”
“You bought the chillies. I only told you to cut them.”
“You are enjoying this.”
“I am not. I am trying to stop you from permanently damaging your corneas so that Monday’s dinner does not also include a trip to urgent care.”
Patrick did not listen. He blundered toward the living room, still clawing at his eyes, still swearing in inventive combinations. Her Grace shot out from under the sofa in renewed panic, collided with his ankle, and sent him sideways into the armchair. Cushions went everywhere. The half-dead plant from earlier in the week, already traumatised, tipped over again and deposited the rest of its soil on the rug.
Ryan crossed the space in three strides, caught Patrick by both wrists, and stopped the frantic rubbing before it could make anything worse.
“Stop. Listen to me. Stop touching it.”
Patrick’s hands were still trying to get back to his face. Ryan held them. The contact was firm, practical, and closer than either of them had planned. Patrick’s skin was warm. His pulse was going too fast under Ryan’s fingers. Up close the damage was obvious: eyes red and streaming, face flushed, the whole of him vibrating with pain and wounded dignity.
“Sink,” Ryan said. “Now.”
He steered Patrick back into the kitchen without letting go of his wrists. Patrick went, still protesting, still half-blind, still somehow managing to step on a piece of dried seaweed and nearly take them both down. Ryan got him to the sink, turned the cold water on full, and guided his hands under the stream first.
“Rinse. Properly. Do not splash it back into your eyes.”
“I know how to rinse.”
“Evidence continues to suggest otherwise.”
Patrick leaned over the sink while Ryan kept one hand steady on his shoulder and used the other to cup water and carefully flush around the worst of the irritation. It was not elegant. Water went everywhere. Patrick hissed and swore and tried to pull away every time the cold hit the sensitive skin. Ryan held him in place and kept going until the worst of the burning oil had a chance to dilute.
“Breathe,” Ryan said. “You are not dying. You are just learning why people respect chillies.”
“I hate these chillies.”
“They hate you back. Mutual.”
Patrick’s breathing gradually evened out. The streaming slowed. He stayed bent over the sink a moment longer, water dripping off his face and onto the front of his shirt, while Ryan’s hand remained on his shoulder for no reason that was strictly necessary anymore.
Ryan looked at the man in front of him: expensive kitchen in ruins, face wet and red, hair damp from the splashback, still trying to maintain some version of dignity while his eyes watered and his cat plotted revenge from under the furniture. The realisation settled in with perfect clarity.
Ryan was beginning to suspect Patrick did not cook food so much as repeatedly challenge it to survive.
Ryan let go of his shoulder and stepped back before the observation could turn into something less useful.
“Better?”
Patrick straightened, blinking, still pink around the eyes. “Define better.”
“You are no longer screaming. That is a start.”
“I am never touching another chilli as long as I live.”
“Good policy. We will work with things that cannot fight back.”
Patrick wiped his face with the least scorched tea towel he could find and looked at the disaster that was still his kitchen. The smoke had thinned. The pans were cooling in their shame. The expensive ingredients waited in their packaging like evidence. Somewhere under the sofa Her Grace made a sound of pure judgement.
“You are still trespassing,” Patrick said, because the script was all he had left.
“I am still containing. Sit down. Drink water. Do not touch your face again.”
Patrick sat. He did not argue further. The relief of not being alone with the failure was visible even if he would rather set the remaining pans on fire than admit it.
Ryan looked over his shoulder at Patrick, sitting miserably at the table with red eyes and a glass of water, surrounded by enough expensive ingredients to bankrupt a small restaurant.
He was going to fix the dinner.
He was also going to make Patrick suffer for every second of it.
Chapter 4 - The Worst Sous-Chef Alive
Ryan cleared the worst of the burnt pans into the sink and turned to survey the rest of the kitchen properly. It was beautiful in the way that expensive things often were when no one had asked whether they actually worked. The countertops were a pale stone that showed every fingerprint. The knife block held six blades that all looked the same length. There was a marble mortar and pestle that had never met a spice, a set of copper pans still with the protective film on the bases, and an island so large it seemed designed for people who preferred walking to cooking.
“This kitchen cost more than most people’s cars,” Ryan said, opening a drawer that contained three identical microplane graters and no peeler. “And somehow it still lacks the basics. How do you spend that kind of money and end up without a working peeler.”
Patrick was still at the table with his glass of water, eyes pink around the edges. “Everything is functional.”
“Functional for what. Looking at. Because that is not the same as cooking.”
“It is an aesthetic space. I did not design it for industrial volume.”
Ryan held up a tall, twisted metal object that might have been a sculpture or might have been a very confused utensil. “What does this do.”
“It looks beautiful.”
“That was not the question.”
Patrick stood, still a little unsteady, and came over to defend his territory. “It is a statement piece. Not everything has to have a single purpose.”
“In a kitchen it does. Otherwise it is just expensive clutter waiting to fall into the soup.”
Ryan set the object down and started rearranging the ingredients he had already sorted. He placed the usable proteins together, the aromatics in the order he would need them, the liquids near the stove. It was basic mise en place. Efficient. Boring. Correct.
Patrick watched for thirty seconds and then began moving things.
Ryan caught the motion out of the corner of his eye. “What are you doing.”
“The colours looked better the other way. The green next to the red was fighting the ceramic.”
“The ingredients were arranged by when I need them, not as a still life. Put the shallots back.”
“They look better over here.”
“They look like they are about to be used in sequence. That is the point of a kitchen, Patrick. Sequence. Not a gallery wall.”
Patrick moved the shallots back with the air of a man making a great personal sacrifice. Ryan handed him an ordinary stainless mixing bowl.
“Whisk the eggs into that.”
Patrick looked at the bowl as if it had insulted his entire bloodline. He whisked for approximately ten seconds, then reached for a wide, pale ceramic vessel with a hand-thrown rim and began transferring the eggs into it.
Ryan stopped him mid-pour. “No.”
“The metal one is ugly. It does not belong on this counter.”
“You cannot move hot or actively cooking food into random attractive containers. That one is not heat-safe, it is heavy, and if you drop it we are both cleaning egg off the floor for the next hour. Leave it in the bowl that was designed for the job.”
Patrick set the ceramic down with exaggerated care. “You are impossible to work with.”
“I am the only reason this dinner is not already a write-off. Start the dough.”
The dough was simple. Flour, water, a little oil, salt. Ryan had decided that if Patrick wanted to feel involved he could handle something that did not require fire. He measured, mixed, and turned the shaggy mass onto the floured counter.
“Knead. Heel of the hand, fold, turn. Keep it moving. Do not murder it.”
Patrick stepped up to the counter with the confidence of a man who had watched exactly one video. He pressed. He folded. He somehow managed to both underwork and overwork different sections at the same time. The dough looked increasingly offended.
“That is not kneading,” Ryan said. “That is a personal dispute with gluten.”
“I know how to knead.”
“You do not. Watch.”
Ryan took over for a demonstration. Clean pressure, steady rhythm, the dough coming together under his hands the way it was supposed to. He stepped back.
“Your turn.”
Patrick tried again. The motion was still wrong. Too much wrist. Not enough weight. The dough stuck and then tore.
Ryan lost patience.
He stepped in behind Patrick, close enough that the front of his body nearly brushed Patrick’s back, and put his hands over Patrick’s hands on the dough. The contact was immediate and practical. He guided the pressure, the fold, the turn.
“Like this. Heel. Push. Fold. Turn. Again.”
Patrick’s hands were softer than they had any right to be for someone who claimed competence. Smooth. Warm. The kind of hands that had never done real kitchen work. Ryan registered it the same way he registered a dull knife: information that explained the problem. He adjusted the angle of Patrick’s fingers and kept guiding.
Patrick felt the solid line of Ryan’s chest at his back, the heat of him, the controlled strength in the hands covering his own. On a decent person that kind of body would have been a problem. Irresistible, even. Instead it was attached to Grumpington McHotass, which made the entire proximity an insult. He tried to focus on the dough and immediately made it worse.
Ryan noticed. The second he got this close Patrick’s technique collapsed further. The man became actively less coordinated, as if proximity itself was a disability. Ryan became more thorough about the correction than strictly necessary, slowing the motion, correcting each press, keeping his hands in place longer than the lesson required.
“You are doing it on purpose,” Patrick said, voice tight.
“I am teaching. You are the one falling apart because someone is standing behind you.”
“I am not falling apart. You are an overbearing control freak who cannot let another person touch dough without supervising like a prison warden.”
“You are deliberately being impossible. The dough is not complicated. You are making it complicated.”
Patrick’s shoulders were rigid under the guidance. Ryan could feel every small frustrated breath. He kept his hands where they were until the dough finally started to behave, then stepped away as if the contact had been nothing more than a tool.
Patrick immediately criticised the teaching. “Your method is aggressive. There is no need to manhandle the process.”
“My method produces dough that can actually be used. Yours produces therapy material.”
They moved on.
Ryan handed Patrick a jug of cooled vegetable base and the immersion blender. “Blend. Lid on. Steady. Do not wave it around like a magic wand.”
Patrick positioned the blender, pressed the button, and somehow failed to seat the lid properly. The puree erupted in a wet green arc. It hit the backsplash, the counter, and the front of Ryan’s shirt in one impressive spray.
Ryan lunged and killed the power before the rest of the jug could join the first half on the walls. Green dripped down his chest.
“Are you kidding me.”
Patrick stared at the damage with the expression of a man who had not expected physics to apply to him. “The lid was on.”
“The lid was optimistically near the on position. That is not the same thing.”
“It is everywhere.”
“Including on my only clean shirt. The one I put on after your cat turned the rest into a biohazard. Congratulations. You have now ruined the backup.”
Patrick looked from the stained fabric to Ryan’s face and made the tactical error of sounding defensive. “It is only puree. It will wash out.”
“It is not going to wash out in the next ten minutes, and I am not finishing this dinner looking like I lost a fight with a liquidised garden.”
Ryan pulled the shirt over his head in one motion and dropped it on the least contaminated section of counter. He stood there in the warm kitchen air, bare from the waist up, waiting.
Patrick’s eyes did a quick, involuntary circuit and then locked on a neutral patch of wall. “Why do you always end up naked in my apartment.”
“Because your household keeps destroying my clothes. Give me another shirt. You ruined this one.”
Patrick turned toward the bedroom. Ryan followed.
The bedroom was spectacularly, unapologetically Patrick.
One wall was given over to large paintings of beautiful naked men in various classical and not-so-classical poses, all of them lit as if the room itself expected an audience. Strange expensive sculptures occupied the surfaces: a twisted glass form that looked like it had melted and then changed its mind, a bronze piece that might have been abstract or might have been something ruder, a small marble torso that had no practical reason to exist. The wardrobe ran wall to wall and was packed so tightly with colour that the doors barely closed. Silks, metallics, prints that should not have been legal, jackets in shades that belonged on tropical birds.
And above the bed, in a frame that looked custom, hung an enormous portrait of Her Grace.
Ryan stopped in the doorway and stared.
“This is your bedroom.”
“Obviously.”
“It looks like a very expensive identity crisis had a party and never cleaned up.”
Patrick moved toward the wardrobe with complete confidence. “It is curated. Every piece has a reason to be here.”
Ryan pointed at the nearest painting of a reclining nude. “Including the wall of beautiful naked men.”
“They are art. The human form is a valid subject.”
“They are a theme. A very specific theme.”
“I like beautiful things. That is not a crime.”
Ryan’s gaze landed on the portrait of the cat. Her Grace stared down from the canvas with the same judgemental expression she wore in real life, rendered in oils with alarming seriousness. The background was a soft, expensive blur. The lighting made her fur look almost regal.
“You have a massive painting of your cat.”
“Her Grace, Duchess Clementine von Whiskerton,” Patrick corrected automatically. “And yes. It was painted by a major artist. It cost two thousand dollars. It was my birthday present to her for her second birthday.”
Ryan turned to look at him. “You spent two thousand dollars on a commissioned portrait of a cat for her birthday.”
“She deserves nice things.”
“Some people’s cars cost less than that. You gave your cat a status symbol.”
“She has excellent taste. Unlike certain neighbours who appear in my bedroom without invitation and start auditing the walls.”
Ryan wandered further in, still shirtless, still dripping faint traces of puree, and stopped near the bedside. A discreet drawer sat slightly ajar. He tilted his head, then reached over and nudged it open a fraction more with one finger.
The contents were neat, organised, and extremely self-explanatory.
Ryan’s mouth curved. “Well.”
Patrick spun. “Do not.”
“You have a collection.”
“That is private.”
“You invited me in here to find a shirt. I am finding things. These are things.”
Patrick crossed the room in three strides and shut the drawer with more force than necessary. His ears had gone pink. “You have no right to inspect my private belongings.”
“I am not inspecting. I am observing. There is a difference. One involves forms. This is just me noticing that your private life has more accessories than your kitchen has peelers.”
“Get out of my drawer.”
“It is already closed. Relax. I am not judging the inventory. I am judging the fact that you organised them by size.”
Patrick’s face was fully red now. “They are not organised by size.”
“They really are. It is almost professional. Do you alphabetise them too, or is that only for the wine.”
“You are impossible. You are standing in my bedroom half naked making assumptions about my personal life while covered in the puree you forced me to blend.”
“I did not force you. I gave you a simple task. You weaponised it against my shirt. And I am not making assumptions. I am making observations. For example: either you are extremely prepared or you host more interesting evenings than the ones that end with burnt pans and a screaming match about chillies.”
Patrick yanked open the wardrobe with unnecessary violence and started dragging shirts along the rail. “I host perfectly normal evenings. The contents of one drawer do not define a person.”
“They do when the rest of the room already looks like a museum of beautiful naked men and a shrine to a cat with a title. At this point the drawer is just supporting evidence.”
“You are never being invited in here again.”
“You say that every time I end up in your apartment without a shirt. It is losing impact.”
Patrick pulled a shirt free with a triumphant noise and shoved it at Ryan’s chest. The fabric was an explosion of tropical flowers, neon pinks and oranges fighting for dominance. “Take it. Put it on. Get out of my bedroom before you discover anything else and invent an entire personality profile based on my storage habits.”
Ryan caught the shirt, still grinning. “Too late. I already know more about you than I did ten minutes ago, and none of it is making you look more normal.”
“Out.”
“I am going. Try not to commission any more portraits while I am gone. The cat already owns more art than most people.”
Patrick pointed at the door. Ryan went, floral shirt in hand, still looking far too entertained by everything he had just seen. Patrick followed him back into the kitchen looking like a man who had survived a home invasion of his personal brand.
Ryan pulled the floral disaster on. It was slightly tight across the shoulders and made him look like a walking holiday brochure. He spread his arms. “Yeah. That’s your job.”
Patrick went red all over again. “You wish.”
“I really do not. But if you are going to dress me like a resort cocktail, the least you can do is match the energy.”
Patrick disappeared briefly into the bedroom again and came back in a shiny silver shirt that caught every light in the kitchen and threw it back with interest. It was the kind of garment that belonged on a stage or in a very specific kind of nightclub. On Patrick, in the middle of a cooking disaster, it looked like a dare.
Ryan laughed, lower this time. “You look like a disco ball that developed opinions.”
“It is metallic. It is intentional. And it is still better than whatever that floral crime is doing to your torso.”
“Your crime. Your shirt. Your puree. And now I also know your bedroom looks like an art dealer’s fever dream and your cat has better wall space than most humans. The shirt is the least of it.”
Patrick pointed at the remaining tomatoes with the air of a man changing the subject by force. “Chop. Properly this time. Fingers tucked. Knife down, not sawing.”
Ryan raised an eyebrow. “You are giving orders now.”
“I am reclaiming some dignity. Start chopping or I will tell Her Grace you insulted her portrait.”
“She already hates me. The portrait is just confirmation.”
Patrick picked up the knife with renewed determination and immediately gripped it like he was trying to strangle the handle. Ryan watched two cuts and intervened.
He took Patrick’s hand, turned it, and rearranged the fingers into a safer claw grip. The contact was brief and corrective. Patrick’s skin was still warm from the earlier water.
“I am not an idiot,” Patrick said.
“I am trying to keep your thumb attached to the rest of you. There is a difference.”
Patrick resumed chopping with the corrected grip. It lasted almost a full minute before the fingers slipped back toward the dangerous position. Ryan reached to fix it again, then stopped with his hand halfway there. He looked at Patrick.
Patrick looked back with an expression of pure, weaponised innocence.
Ryan corrected the grip anyway. “Do that one more time and I am putting you on garnish duty for the rest of the night. And by garnish I mean standing in the corner holding a sprig of something pretty while wearing that silver shirt so at least the guests have something reflective to look at.”
“You are enjoying the power trip.”
“I am enjoying the fact that no one has lost a finger yet. Lower bar than you think.”
Ryan needed a bottle of oil from the high shelf near the dining area. Her Grace had claimed the chair directly underneath it and was sitting like a small, furry security system. Ryan pointed.
“Move the ugly thing so I can reach.”
Patrick’s head snapped up. “Her Grace, Duchess Clementine von Whiskerton, is not an ugly thing. You will refer to her properly.”
“There is nothing graceful about that cat. She is a tiny agent of chaos in a fur coat. A four-legged insurance claim. Satan’s unpaid intern. The reason I am currently dressed like a tourist attraction.”
Her Grace turned her head with theatrical slow precision and hissed at him. The sound was small and venomous.
Ryan took an automatic step back. “Did she just understand me.”
Patrick laughed, the first unguarded sound he had made in an hour. “She has standards. Unlike some people who break into bedrooms and audit the art.”
“She has a personal vendetta and excellent timing. Tell your demonic familiar to relocate so I can get the oil without losing an eye. And for the record, I did not break in. You led the way while trying to hide a drawer full of very organised personal equipment.”
Patrick scooped Her Grace up with the ease of long practice. She allowed it, still watching Ryan with open suspicion. Patrick deposited her on the sofa and returned, silver shirt catching the light like a warning.
“We are never discussing the drawer again.”
“We can discuss the portrait instead. Two thousand dollars. For a cat. On her birthday.”
“She is family.”
“She is a menace with better representation than most working artists.”
Ryan retrieved the oil, set it down, and looked at the half-chopped tomatoes, the partially recovered dough, the remaining green puree still clinging to the backsplash, and the man in the shiny shirt who had somehow made every simple task into a negotiation and whose private life had turned out to be even more absurd than the public version.
“We are going to finish this dinner,” Ryan said. “You are going to follow instructions. I am going to pretend this kitchen was designed by someone who had ever cooked a meal in their life. And if your cat interferes one more time I am renaming her myself and the new name will not be flattering enough for a portrait.”
Patrick opened his mouth, closed it, and reached for the next tomato with the corrected grip.
“I still maintain the ceramic bowl was the better aesthetic choice.”
“And I maintain that aesthetics do not matter if the food is on the floor. Chop.”
Patrick chopped. Ryan moved around him, reclaiming the space one practical decision at a time. The silver shirt flashed every time Patrick shifted. The floral shirt made Ryan look like he had lost a bet. Her Grace watched from the sofa with the patient attention of a creature waiting for the next opportunity to cause problems, her two-thousand-dollar likeness still hanging in the bedroom like a threat.
The kitchen was still a mess. The dinner was still a gamble. But for the first time since the smoke had started, something resembling a plan was taking shape under the banter and the ruined shirts and the ongoing war over what a bowl was actually for, and Ryan had the uncomfortable new knowledge that Patrick’s private world was somehow even more committed to the bit than the version that set off smoke alarms and commissioned oil paintings of cats.
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