"Nothing about today makes sense." His grin hasn't dimmed a single watt. "Second plate, Solene. He asked for a second plate."
The mayor takes the stage forty minutes later. Forty minutes of Boris pacing the kitchen like a caged animal, wearing a trench in the stone floor between the prep station and the door. Every third lap he picks up a wooden spoon, puts it down, picks up a different wooden spoon, puts that one down too.
"Stop touching my spoons."
"I need something to do with my hands."
"Fold them. Like a normal person."
He folds them. They look like two dinner plates stacked on top of each other. He unfolds them immediately and picks up the first spoon again.
The brass bell rings.
We both freeze. Boris with the spoon halfway to his mouth like he was about to stress-eat it. Me with my hand lying against the cold steel counter.
Mayor Elliston booms through the square, amplified by some minor enchantment that makes every syllable land with a gavel.
"Ladies and gentlemen, distinguished visitors, and our most esteemed guest critic-"
"Get to it," Boris growls at the wall.
"-after careful deliberation and scoring across all categories including innovation, technique, flavor complexity, and presentation-"
Boris snaps the wooden spoon in half. Clean break. Doesn't even look down.
"-the jury and Mr. Vance have reached a unanimous decision."
Unanimous.
My stomach drops through the floor, through the foundation, through the bedrock beneath the town hall.
"The winner of the thirty-seventh annual Montmartre Food Festival, and recipient of the exclusive town hall catering contract for the coming year-"
Boris grabs my good hand. His palm swallows mine completely. Calluses against calluses. Two people who have never once in their lives been gentle with their hands.
"-is the collaborative entry from Solene Rostova of Verdure, and Boris Cleaver of The Hearthstone Tavern!"
The sound hits the kitchen wall like a physical force. Three hundred people screaming at once. Pots rattling on their hooks from the vibration. The window glass buzzing in its frame.
Boris's hand tightens around mine.
Then I am airborne.
His hands lock around my waist and I leave the ground so fast the kitchen blurs. Stone floor, steel counters, hanging copper pots, fluorescent lights, all of it spins into a single smear of color as he lifts me above his head and turns. My chef's coat, still stained with barbecue sauce from three weeks ago because the stain set permanently and became a badge of war, flares out like a cape.
"Put me down!"
He does not put me down. He spins faster. My legs fly outward. My hip clips a hanging ladle and sends it clanging into the wall.
"Boris!"
"We won!"
"YES! My inner ear is not!"
He pulls me down from above his head but does not set me on the floor. Tucks me against him instead, one arm under my knees, one arm across my back, still spinning but slower now, a lazy orbit around the kitchen. My arms hook around his neck because physics demands it. My face is three inches from his face. Sweat and woodsmoke and that sulfur-honey spice ground into his skin at a molecular level.
"Solene."