Recipe for Disaster Read Online Free PDF Page B

delight.
    Bitch.
    Literally.
    Grant stops petting the suddenly animated Schatzi to come kiss me, which he does gently on my forehead. “How was your day?” He smiles at me in a way that makes me know he had a good night.
    “Long, annoying. You?”
    “Same. Probably less annoying than yours. Have you eaten?”
    “Not yet, just got home.”
    “Pasta?”
    “Perfect.” Grant and I have easy shorthand. I love that we don’t have to share every tiny detail of our day first shot out of the gate. We’re both busy, we’re both under pressure, there are a million pieces of minutia that we’ve dealt with since last we spoke, and neither of us feels the need to unburden it all. We’ll eat, and slowly let the days we’ve had trickle out, the important bits. My guess is that because we are both only children, both from broken homes with indifferent parenting, we’re self-sufficient by nature. He heads to the kitchen, and I follow, perching on a stool across the island from him. He grabs an apron, wraps the ties around his back over his nonexistent tush, and ties it in front on his round little belly. He runs his fingers through his fine sandy hair, and heads for the sink to wash them, almost like a surgeon. Then he pulls the large cutting board from underneath the counter and grabs his eight-inch chef’s knife. I love watching him cook. And I’m not the only one.
    Grant was both the winner and the fan favorite of season three of
World’s Supreme Chef
, handily beating out fifteen other American hopefuls to compete in the international reality-TV competition, and narrowly edging out a win over the French cheftestant. His charming self-deprecating personality made him a darling of the talk show circuit for a few months, and helped garner him an investor partner to help him finally have his own restaurant, which has been packed to the gills since the moment he opened. His place, Nez De Cochon, is right across the street from Stephanie Izard’s Girl & the Goat, and they often joke with each other that they both wish the other were less successful so that they had a place to send the reservationless walk-in patrons they can never accommodate. He’s nearing completion on a second place, a more casual comfort food diner concept, and after being a judge for season six of
WSC
, has been approached by a major network to develop a prime-time cooking show.
    The prize package he received, along with the endorsement deals and bestselling cookbook his presence on the show generated, allowed him to purchase this spacious condo in the West Loop, walking distance to his Randolph Street restaurant. It also allowed him to hire MacMurphy to do the design and build of the gut rehab he wanted, which was how we met. We worked closely together on the project, and I was thrilled with how much he relied on me, embraced and accepted my suggestions. He cooked for me. We became friends. Then one night, almost accidentally, lovers. I would have written it off as a one-nighter between friends, but the next morning he made me breakfast and asked if he could take me on a proper date. I figured it would be rude to decline the offer, in light of all the naked the night before, which is also how we ended up in bed the second time. And the third. We quickly became, for lack of a more romantic term, a habit. By the time I finished the apartment, he asked me to move into it, and I couldn’t think of a good reason to say no.
    Grant is like no one I’ve ever dated. I always leaned toward big hulking boys with more muscles than brains. Simple boys, not so much emotionally unavailable as emotionally indifferent. I always liked things uncomplicated. I never really needed much more than a strong warm body, the occasional release of straightforward sex. I wasn’t really ever very good at romance or being a girlfriend; most of my relationships landed in the nebulous region between friend with benefits and better-than-nothing boyfriend. I liked men who didn’t need