Blue Plaid

Reunion

In which Tyson gets a taste of home.

//

I hummed as I poked my tongue between my lips in concentration, carefully drizzling the cream sauce over my perfected ravioli, ensuring it was as beautiful as possible before I presented it to my course instructor. This week's lesson was in handmade pasta, one of my favorites, so I intended on making my dish the best it could be.

"Will you stop that?"

Looking up to see whose voice had pulled my attention from my pasta, I lifted the corners of my lips into a small smile when I found Kellan Pedroza glaring at me. "Sorry, is my humming annoying you?"

"That stupid little grin you've had on your face all morning is annoying me," he mumbled bitterly.

I smiled even wider. "I can't help it, man. I get to see my girl and my kid today."

I was pretty sure I hadn't stopped smiling since Stella told me the news: that she was coming to Italy to do a spread for Vogue Italia in Milan and she was going to take a few extra days to swing by Florence. Of course, she was bringing Cooper along for the ride, which meant that a much needed family reunion would be taking place in a few short hours.

Kellan parted his lips to reply, but was cut short when the course instructor clapped her hands loudly to indicate it was time to present our dishes. The twelve people in the course stood in a straight line in front of the presentation table, our hands clasped nervously behind our backs as we watched Isabella Tucci taste samples of our creations, knowing that her opinion of our cooking skills would be what ended up making or breaking our careers in the culinary industry. I held my breath when she brought a piece of my ravioli to her lips and began to chew, analyzing every flavor I'd put in while I mentally catalogued every change in her facial expression, letting out a soft sigh of relief when she made eye contact with me and nodded once, her indication of a job well done.

After all the pasta dishes had been taste tested, we were dismissed for the day, so I cleaned up my workstation and grabbed my messenger bag off a hook on the wall, heading for the kitchen door, intending to spend the couple hours I had before Stella and Cooper arrived showering and tidying up my apartment. However, I was stopped at the front door of the culinary academy by Kellan calling out my name.

Lifting my eyebrows in surprise, I nodded a greeting as we stepped into stride once he caught up, beginning the walk back to the apartment building where all the chefs attending the program were housed. "Hey, man, what's up?"

"I just wanted to say," he replied, shoving his hands into the pockets of his khakis. "That I think it's great that you're so excited to see your girl and your kid."

"You do?" That was a surprise. I had known Kellan since the day I came to Florence because he lived in the apartment across from me and we'd gotten into the routine of walking to and from the academy together, but we didn't really talk about emotional things. He knew about Stella and Cooper in the general sense, but he hadn't ever asked for more details, so I didn't give them.

"I wish I had my life as figured out as you do when I was your age." He said that as though he was eighty years old, when in reality he was about forty, trying to get into a new profession that he actually had a passion for after finally deciding that sitting in a cubicle wasn't how he wanted to spend his life.

I laughed as I responded. "I don't know that I have it all figured out."

Truthfully, it was kind of comforting to know that someone thought I had my shit together.

"Well, let's see," he tilted his head to the side and pulled one hand from his pocket so he could tick off fingers, "you got a wife and a kid and you know exactly where your career is going, so I'd say you're doing pretty well."