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If there were just a way to make this moment last longer.
To stretch it all out into eternity.
“What's all this?”
They pull apart, but he isn't ready to let go just yet. Her fingers are still in his grasp, until he's just holding onto the tips of them as their eyes meet briefly again.
He turns around to face Cousin, who has somehow appeared in the front of the house out of nowhere to interrupt them, yet again.
“What do you mean?” he replies, trying to keep his face straight and not tense up.
Cousin stares at him, interrogating, then his eyes look behind him to Syd's. Cousin looks amused, or is it a bit smug? He's not sure how to read it.
It clicks, though, that maybe it has something to do with what they were talking about back in the kitchen, because they both start giggling again.
“Okay, I see. I see,” Cousin says, backing away from them. “Sorry to interrupt whatever this definitely doesn't exactly look like-”
“We did it!” Syd says brightly, as Cousin is about to walk away.
He turns around again to look at her, eyes so bright. Alive. She just looks so fucking happy right now, he could cry. Her eyes find his again. Like they always somehow do.
He feels full. Better than any meal he's ever eaten.
“Did what?” Cousin asks, confusion on his features for a moment, being their bystander.
“Um...stars?” she says, almost like she still doesn't believe it. He hears her swallow as she rapid blinks then holds up her fingers. “Two.”
“Stop fucking with me,” Cousin says with a dry laugh. “Chef Sydney, do not-”
“She's not,” he tells him, as Cousin lets go of the breath he was holding, excitement lighting up his whole face. “We just found out. Just now.”
He doesn't say a word, just runs over to embrace them both.
“I knew we could do it! I knew we could!” he says, pumped.
He's hugging them and smacking them right into each other again. Cousin's already crying and it's too much. They both were already, so he really opens up the waterworks between the three of them.
“Shit, I feel high as fuck!” he says to them, wiping at his face and letting them out of his bear hug. He blinks like he still doesn't believe it. “Does anyone else-”
“No!” she tells him, holding up a hand. “We were going to wait until after service to tell them.”
He eyes them both again, carefully taking in their faces. Dropping his penetrating gaze to see her hand on his cousin's arm still, resting there.
“Okay, Jane,” he tells her, sniffing and laughing at them as she narrows her eyes. “I'll keep your secret. For now.”
He's not following along, but Cousin makes his exit, leaving them all alone again.
“Jane?” he asks her, whispering. He's not sure why he's whispering.
“It's just,” she tells him, whispering back. She shuts her eyes for a moment. “It's a joke. Private.”
“Okay,” he tells her, dropping it. He just can't stop smiling. It feels like nothing could make this moment better. Her warm touch is still lingering there on his arm.
He craves it.
“Would you-” they both start to ask at the same time.
“You first-” they also add in unison.
“I'll go,” he tells her, smiling again as her eyes get huge, expectant. She grins back at him, like it's just overflowing, radiating from her.
She's so beautiful. It's joy. She's joy.
“Would you, uh,” he starts, nerves in his voice for a moment, trying to control his stutter that's somehow been resurfacing. “What are you doing after this?”
“Like, after service?” she asks, as though she needs him to be more specific.
“Uh,” he begins to answer, taking a deep breath. “I mean more about...beyond that? Um, life, I guess?”
“Life?” she asks him, with a silly grin, pulling back again. “I thought,” she goes on, that familiar authoritative tone creeping into her voice. “I thought you were maybe just going to ask me to have dinner.”
“Dinner,” he replies with a nod, licking his lips, thinking it over.
“Just to start with, of course,” she starts to explain, a little tilt of her head as she blinks at him.
“So, you're asking me out?” he tells her, pointing at his chest.
“I think you were?” she tells him, shaking her head. “I just walked it back a little. Not a lot, just, like-”
“No, no, it's good,” he agrees, chuckling, staring down at his shoes now. “I mean, dinner with Michelin star Chef Sydney Adamu is-”
“Stop,” she tells him as he meets her eyes again.
“What? It's like, a prize you win, or something? A sweepstakes?”
She pushes at his chest lightly at the tease. She does that thing where she flips her braids over her shoulder again. Her hand is gone from his arm now, but this motion catches his attention immediately like it did in the kitchen hours ago.
He really likes it, he can't say exactly why. Only that he's been noticing it.
“It wasn't really,” she goes on, pausing, like she's still working through all these feelings, too. “It wasn't about the stars. I mean, yes, but not really.”
He starts to think about that. About how there's so much more there. Like those cola ribs. That it's just the beginning, or a new beginning, and he wants to know it all.
“I can see that,” he tells her, as she smiles sweetly, and seems to stand even taller in front of him. “I can see so many things, now.”
“I could tell you more,” she says, turning shy for a moment. “If you'd like to know-”
“Yes!” he says immediately, probably sounding too over-eager again. But it's how he feels.
She looks encouraged by that. “Kasama?”
“Yes, chef,” he answers with a nod, seeing that they're both thinking about all of this the same way.
“You can't keep saying that. It's so annoying. You...you have to call me Syd, or-”
“Sydney,” he says softly. Like the way it sounds in his head when he thinks of her.
It sends a tingle down his spine, the way she sucks in her breath when she hears it. It instantly transports him to the night before last.
“Yes,” she finally manages to reply, her teeth biting on her bottom lip.
He looks past her shoulder, towards the kitchen, then glances back towards the restroom alcove, to see if they're really alone in here.
He's been thinking about how to do this. The right way.
“I think we should talk about, uh, redoing the pass?” he asks her, lowering his voice. It works; she moves in closer. “Like you brought up the other morning.”
“Oh, yeah,” she agrees. “Maybe just trying to arrange it a bit different this time? See what works best.”
“Yeah. I'd definitely be down for that.”
It comes out sounding exactly how he feels, and her eyes turn focused, intense and singularly on him. He reaches for her wrist and wraps his fingers around it. His hand goes to her waist again.
“Fuck me,” she says under her breath, as he leans in, his mouth almost on hers.
She closes the tiniest of space left between them, kissing him like she needs more, letting him pull her in tightly to give her this. Like he's a cup that's already overflowing, that she's both drinking from and filling at the same time.
It's different from the night before last. That felt like a goodbye. Like they were working out their regrets hard and fast and trying to hold tight onto something that was slipping away.
He hears the table legs scoot across the floor with force of their feelings coming out. They're moving everything, or it's all moving with them. Different from the tenderness in their hug, building on top of it. He has to hold them down to keep the table from sliding across the floor and alerting everyone to what they're doing now.
They break for air, and he holds her face in his hands again. Sketching her lips reddened and plump into memory, how the desire in her expression feels like it could melt him into a puddle at her feet. He's stunned, in the best possible way.
It's a little messy, but she licks at her lips, like she's trying to get another taste of him there. It makes him almost swoon. He doesn't know how he's going to get through this service, really.
“We should, uh,” she says, trying to catch air. “Finish this up after our date. Carmen.”
He thinks he'll be chopping a lot of onions for the next several hours.
“Heard, chef.”
She rolls her eyes at him, and steps back towards the kitchen. A swing in her hips now as she walks back inside of it. She turns to smile at him briefly, knowing he's staring as she passes through the doors.
He's not worried at all. It feels like something that's only just getting started.
It's like the moment he tasted her ribs yesterday. Remembering that he loved this once, that there could be love in the food, and in this place.
She did something to him. Forever.
She brought him to his senses and made him realize what he's been running away from all along.
Sydney feels like home to him already, and he knows he would've waited forever after the first time. He realized he would have done whatever, that first morning after, to make her feel like she might give him a chance to earn his place in her life again.
To be useful.
But what she really needed was just for him to be there.
And somehow, on that magic day, it all came together in one place.