Egg Whites and Blue

Chapter 2-1

Chapter 2

“Would you put that away for ten minutes and unload the dishwasher?” asked Kiko as he combined his burger ingredients. Dom snapped the laptop closed and scowled, but moved over to deal with the dishes anyway.

“I ran it, didn’t I?”

“And I’m thankful,” said Kiko. “Now we have something to eat off of.”

“You seem annoyed,” said Dom, pulling out coffee cups and returning them to the cupboard. Kiko tried not to laugh.

“And you’re not?” he asked instead, then paused, shut his eyes a moment. Nothing good ever came from losing his temper. He took a few breaths and went back to what he was doing.

“You can’t blame me. Sander wants to get with you again.”

“That’s not happening, Dom.” Kiko paused, then opened his mouth to tell Dom he liked him much more than he liked Sander anyway, but Dom spoke first.

“I know. And he’s going to know, too, when I win the pie competition.”

Kiko held back his laugh but could not manage to hide his smile. Luckily, Dom had turned his back and couldn’t see just how amused he was at the thought of Dom winning any kind of food-related contest.

“You’re entering the pie competition?”

“I am now. I figure if I take a half day tomorrow, it’ll give me time to stop by the grocery store on the way home and make a pie. Pop it in the fridge and it’ll be ready for me to take over on the third.”

“So you’re trying to kill Sander?” asked Kiko, moving to the sink to wash his hands and then grab the pretzel buns he’d picked up from the Mount Angus bakery. He sliced them open, set them aside, and reached for a red onion.

“My cooking’s not that bad. And everybody loves pie. Everybody will love this pie.”

“Have you ever made a pie before?”

Dom finished unloading the dishwasher and shut the door hard before moving back to his laptop.

“No, but how hard can it be? It’s pie.”

“Dom, you’re not exactly a baking prodigy. Remember that cake you made for my birthday?” asked Kiko, smiling. Dom had decided he was going to make a homemade chocolate cake, took one look at a recipe in a book, and went out and bought a box mix instead. He had still managed to burn half of it; Kiko had told him it was the thought that counted. When he looked over at Dom, the man was scowling, an action he found so compelling he had to move over to kiss him.

Dom barely kissed back.

“The directions on the box were wrong.”

Kiko slid into the seat across from Dom, reached out and took his hand. When Dom met his gaze, he smiled.

“I appreciate the gesture, but it’s really not necessary. It’s been a decade. Sander and I have both moved on.”

“Have you?” asked Dom. “Is he single?”

“I didn’t ask,” said Kiko. He gave Dom’s hand a squeeze. “But I’m not.”

“You weren’t exactly telling him to back off that I could see.”

Kiko rolled his eyes and pulled his hand back.

“And he was checking you out, too. He’s an asshole.”

“Yeah, but he gave you his number.”

Kiko stared at Dom until he stood and retrieved the cookbook Sander had signed. He glared as he thrust it across to Kiko, who took it and opened the cover. A telephone number stared back at him, and he shut the book with a scowl.

“I was planning on selling that,” he said, annoyed. No signature, and he couldn’t just give Sander’s personal number away, not even if he thought the man deserved to be called up by fans at all hours.

“I think you should,” said Dom, fingers tapping out a search. Kiko stood to return to his burgers. “Pick someone who really wants to get in his bed, let him deal with that sort of thing for a change.”

“He’d probably take them up on it.”

“Even some old grandmother?”

Kiko laughed.

“Who do you think hoards all the good recipes?” He paused when Dom didn’t crack a smile. “No, I can’t sell that. Good thing we didn’t leave it lying around for Chad to find. Who knows what he would’ve done with it.”

“I’m guessing he would have sold it to the right person,” said Dom, frowning at his screen. “You know, I think you have the right idea with those burgers. Red, white, and blue—my pie will be so damn festive it will awe the judges.”

Kiko smiled at that. Dom’s pie would be awful. And Kiko would eat a piece anyway—or at least a bite. And if Dom really wanted to enter a pie contest to show he wanted to be with Kiko, Kiko wasn’t going to get in the way of that. He just hoped Dom could handle the entirety of Mount Angus knowing his baking was bordering on criminal.

More than that, he hadn’t seen Dom get so fixated on anything since the Eggstravaganza, and as much as Dom’s fascinations generally led to frustrations, Kiko liked seeing him so inspired. And so he left him to do his internet searches on pie while he cooked up his red, white, and bleu burgers, and even cleaned up the kitchen alone although he could have used the help.

“Coming up to bed soon?” he asked when he was finished, placing a hand on Dom’s shoulder and squeezing. After the stress of seeing Sander again, Kiko wanted to release a little tension and reassure Dom they were sticking together. He could think of no better way to do that than with a bit of fun without any clothing.

“Yeah, soon,” said Dom.