Personal Chef

Chapter 39

It wasn't easy getting used to the media attention. The paparazzi had snapped my picture and screamed out questions to me outside the hotel and at the airport when we'd left Europe. Thankfully it wasn't so bad when we landed in Canada.

Shawn's fans also seemed slightly obsessed with me. I was private on Instagram, but I was getting hundreds of follow requests, which I ignored. For a couple days after Shawn's announcement, both #teamkat and #teamshelsea were all over Twitter. Some unflattering pictures of me from when I was younger surfaced, which I had to laugh at. It was all so ridiculous.

Shawn mostly took it in stride because he'd been through it before. There were a couple times when he became very protective of me when someone went too far. An online news site claimed that a 'source' had said that he'd been seeing me for months while he was still with Kat. He tweeted at the site that this was false. I knew, though, that he did feel some guilt that he'd fallen for me while he was with her. I'd known for awhile that this was one reason he'd wanted to keep our relationship private. It didn't look great to jump from one serious relationship to another, because that always raised suspicions.

We had ten days at home in Toronto before we had to hit the road again for the next batch of festivals. They were in Canada and the US, which certainly made things easier.

While we were home, we decided to have our families over for dinner. Now that we were out as a couple, it made sense to take the 'introducing the parents' step.

"I'm thinking a Mediterranean or Middle Eastern inspired dinner," I said a few days before everyone was coming over.

"Like what?" Shawn asked.

We were sitting on the deck drinking our morning coffee before it got too hot and muggy outside. Summer could be miserable in Toronto.

"Baba ganoush, hummus, pita bread, tabouli, falafel, maybe sambousek?"

"I don't know what half of those things are, but if you are making them, I know they will be amazing."

"It would be more of a sampling of small dishes instead of having a big entree. Is that weird?" I asked.

"Appetizers for dinner sounds like heaven to me, baby. Won't it be a lot of work making that many different things?"

I rolled my eyes.

"Oh right. Sometimes I forget you are a professional," he said with a chuckle.

I got to work finding recipes. It honestly felt really good to be planning a menu again. The two weeks in Europe had been the longest I'd gone without cooking since I was probably in kindergarten.

Shawn and I went shopping the morning of the dinner party. It was nice to walk through the store as a couple without worrying about what people thought. A few people stopped him for pictures, and they were all very sweet to me.

When we arrived back at the condo we both got to work in the kitchen. Shawn grabbed the Bluetooth speaker he'd bought me and queued up a playlist, and we spent hours cooking and dancing while we sang along to the music. I loved it when he'd twirl me, though I didn't love it when I knocked a bowl of chick peas all over the floor when he spun me a little too hard.

"We'll fry those at the last minute," I said as Shawn finished rolling out the last falafel ball.

"I'm excited to use that thing," he said, nodding towards the deep fryer I'd borrowed from my parents.

"I'm a little worried about letting you around hot oil. You need your hands to play guitar."

"I need my hands for other things, too," he said with a wink.