I feel something touch my lower lip, cool and soft. I open my mouth and he places it on my tongue. It's rich and creamy and layered, a cheese I think, with honey and something nutty underneath, the flavors unfolding slowly as I chew.
"Oh my God," I breathe. "This is incredible. What is this?"
"Aged Humboldt Fog with buckwheat honey and a sliver of toasted hazelnut," he says. "Now. What do you feel when you taste it?"
I pause, still blindfolded, chewing slowly and letting the flavors settle.
"Strangely melancholic," I say finally, the word surprising me as it comes out. "But happy too, like a bittersweet memory. Like a memory that makes you ache a little because it was so good and so pure and you can't get it back, can't recapture that exact feeling. It reminds me of this cheese course we did in cooking school, my first year in Paris. I remember sitting there in that classroom thinking that this is what I want to do for the rest of my life."
I sink into the memory, and the tightness in my chest that's been there all day loosens for the first time.
"Okay, hold on. One more." His footsteps move away and I hear the oven door open, the scrape of metal on metal, something sliding onto a board. A knife cutting through pastry, thesound of it crackling. Him blowing gently on something to cool it. His footsteps coming back, closer now.
"Okay," he says, and his voice is very close. I can feel the warmth of him standing right in front of me. "This was a little hot, so be careful."
He places it in my mouth, and the taste hits me immediately, so familiar it makes my throat tight. Roasted figs, caramelized and jammy, nestled in buttery pastry with honey and the faintest whisper of lavender. Like the galette my grandmother used to make. The one I told him about this morning.
It's not identical to hers. The figs are cut differently, halved instead of quartered the way she did it. The lavender is a touch less prominent than Grand-mère's version, more subtle, just a hint on the finish. The crust is maybe a little thicker, more rustic.
But the heart and soul of it are the same, the essence is there, and the memory wraps around me like arms pulling me close, like her kitchen on a summer afternoon with the windows open and the breeze coming through, like being nine years old and barefoot and loved without conditions or expectations or the constant weight of not being quite good enough.
My eyes start watering behind the blindfold.
"Alex..." I pull the towel down and he's standing right there, close enough to touch, smiling at me. Not the cocky grin, not the flirtatious smirk he uses when he's trying to get a rise out of me. A soft, earnest smile that makes my chest ache.
"Told you it was a surprise," he says softly. "You said your grandmother gave you your love of cooking, that she made you feel like food could be magic. So I thought, as a night-before-opening present, I'd try my hand at it." He gestures behind him. "I was actually going to give it to you in the morning, but since you're here."
I look past him at the galette on the counter. It's beautiful, a small wedge already cut, the figs glistening with caramelizedhoney, the cast-iron pan it was baked in still warm. It's not her galette, but it's his version of it, made with her memory in mind, and no one has ever done anything this thoughtful for me.
Not my father with all his money and his connections and his carefully mapped-out life. Not any boyfriend I've ever had. This man listened to a story I told him eight hours ago about my grandmother's fig tree, and then he went into a kitchen at midnight and made it for me.
"Thank you," I say, and my voice comes out small. "I… I don't know what to say. Just… thank you."
"Of course." He leans back against the counter, crossing his arms. "So what did you feel when you tasted it?"
I close my eyes, letting the taste and the smell wash over me again. "Summer. My grandmother's hands covered in flour. The sound of cicadas in the garden outside her kitchen. Feeling safe, and excited, and like everything in the world was exactly where it was supposed to be." I open my eyes and look at him. "Like I could do anything and it would be okay."
"Well, I think you're right about that. I haven't known you long, but you seem capable of anything. And I think tomorrow will be okay." He smiles at me.
We sit there for a moment in the warm kitchen, the galette between us and the vineyard dark outside the windows. The silence isn't uncomfortable. It's the opposite, actually. It feels like we're in a bubble, separate from everything waiting for me tomorrow.
Then the idea hits me, bold and reckless and probably stupid, but I don't care.
"Okay, your turn." I pick up the towel and hold it out to him, a challenge in my eyes. "Blindfold on. My turn to lead this little exercise."
He laughs, shaking his head but already reaching for the towel. "Oh man. One tasting and you think you can run the whole operation."
"I absolutely can run the whole operation."
"It's a very delicate art, you know." He takes the towel from me, grinning. "Years of training. Can't just hand it over to anyone."
"Shut up, Alex. Put the blindfold on."
He ties it around his eyes, still smiling, and sits down on the stool right next to mine, close enough that our knees are almost touching. He's facing me now, his hands resting on his thighs, and I can see the rise and fall of his chest through his t-shirt. His hair is messy from running his hands through it and he looks relaxed and open and completely at my mercy.
My heart is beating faster than it should be, harder than it should be, and I know what I'm about to do is probably a terrible idea but I don't care.
I don't know if what I'm about to do is crossing a line we can't uncross or not, but it's too late because my body has already decided, has been deciding all week every time he smiles at me or teases me or looks at me like I'm the only person in the room.