King of the Kitchen (24 page)

“Do you want to go grab dinner?” Beck asked as they made their way back up to the offices.

“Can’t. Navien has something that sounds horrendous. Thrush? I don’t know. It involves her nipples and it’s because of the baby and honestly I cut her off before she could explain because I’d rather work three twelves than know anything about it. I’ll be closing for her tonight instead of over at Bar Rio.”

Beck grimaced. “Understood. See you tomorrow, then?”

“Bright and early,” Duncan groused. The early morning meetings were killing him.

Chapter SIXTEEN

“SO WE
let the audience vote on the dish this week,” Lindsay said, and from the way she was fidgeting, Beck knew he wasn’t going to like where this was going.

They’d talked about this at the last programming meeting. He and Duncan had introduced the idea on the air. The last show was going to be live so votes could be taken while they were on the air, and the winner of today’s challenge would be announced at the end.

Since it was the last one, they’d opened it up for viewers to vote on a list of four choices for what the dish would be. They’d picked something obscure Beck wasn’t familiar with, but it hadn’t been a big deal. The prep kitchen had made it a few days ago, so he and Duncan could taste it before they started planning their own menus.

“I was there when that happened, yes,” he said to her. “And?”

Lindsay pressed her lips together, smothering a laugh. “Well, Bob thought we’d liven things up a bit this week and go with a theme for the set decorations.”

That didn’t sound too terrible, so there had to be another shoe to drop. Lindsay’s eyes were sparkling with an unholy light that did not bode well.

Before she could say anything else, Carlie swept into the room with colorful bundles of fabric in her arms.

“We have two options. You can either have them match,” she said, wiggling one set of fabric, “or you can have them in different plaids,” she finished, waving the other, more colorful pile.

Lindsay clapped her hands. “Ooh, I don’t think they should match. I mean, it’s a competition, right? So they ought to look like they’re from different clans.”

Beck narrowed his eyes, focusing in on the fabric. They were plaids, like Carlie had said. The fabric was thick, but he couldn’t figure out what they were. There were also a few of the show’s standard chef’s jackets tossed on top of the pile.

“I thought you might want to see how they looked together before you made a decision,” Carlie said. She dumped the fabric on the conference room table and spread out the plaids. They were kilts.

What the hell?

THAT HAD
been three hours ago, and no amount of arguing had dissuaded Lindsay from insisting he wear the thing. Which was how Beck came to be standing in the middle of the studio wearing what amounted to a heavy woolen skirt, held up by a thick leather belt that had a sheathe for a sword, which Carlie had stuck a whisk into.

Duncan had missed the morning meeting because he’d been covering a shift at John’s cafe. Christian had been livid, but by this point, it didn’t matter. They’d done all the planning for the episode, and Duncan was comfortable with how things worked in the studio. They’d done the dry run and gone over their marks and cues the day before.

The big change was the fact that they were actually going to be live, but that didn’t affect Duncan or Beck. They’d been filming that way all through the challenge—the technical teams were the ones who would have to worry about getting graphics on the screen on time and manually handling camera fade-outs for commercial breaks.

But missing the meeting also meant Duncan had missed the wardrobe reveal, so when he walked onto the set a mere hour before filming, he was noticeably taken aback by the sight of Beck standing there in a kilt.

“You-you… it’s a….”

Beck crossed his arms and gave Duncan an unimpressed look, and Duncan promptly burst into a fit of laughter.

“Yuck it up, because Lindsay made sure there’s one for you too,” Beck said dryly. He held up the kilt he’d stashed under the counter.

While Beck’s kilt was a sedate blue-and-gray plaid, Duncan’s was an over-the-top kelly-green-and-yellow number with enough decorative buckles to make him look like a Goth leprechaun.

Duncan’s laughter stopped abruptly, his eyes traveling over the garishly colored kilt.

“Beck,” Duncan pleaded, contrite. “I’m sorry for laughing. Let’s talk about this. Clearly Lindsay has lost her mind.”

Beck agreed, but he’d lost that fight. Nothing for it now but to put up a united front.

“The viewers wanted a theme show,” he said with a shrug. “It’s not like you’re a stranger to wearing silly things.”

Duncan looked down at his T-shirt, which had a very alarmed-looking bunch of cartoon vegetables in pirate costumes sailing in a potato skin boat, with a leek in the crow’s nest and the caption “Captain, there’s a leek in the boat!” underneath.

“This is not silly,” he whined.

Beck held the kilt out to him. “Think how nicely it will go with this.”

He’d saved his coup de grace for last, knowing it would work as well on Duncan as it had on him when Lindsay had used it.

“I doubt your charity needed the extra five grand anyway,” Beck said, dropping the kilt on the counter.

“You have
got
to be kidding me,” Duncan said with a groan. “The network is ponying up more money for us to wear these monstrosities?”

“Actually, the manufacturer is ponying up the money, so you’d better refrain from calling it a monstrosity on the air. But, yes. If we wear them during the show, our charities get an extra five grand. So suck it up, buttercup.”

Duncan glared at the vibrantly hued pile. “Why does mine practically glow in the dark and yours doesn’t?”

“Because I was here on time?”

Duncan turned on the megawatt smile that had fans so convinced he was the ultimate playboy. “Trade?”

Beck pretended to think it over before shaking his head. “Not on your life.”

“Ass.”

“Go get changed. Andre wants to go over our marks with us.”

Duncan sighed loudly but grabbed the kilt and stomped backstage. It was an amusing sight. Totally worth the embarrassment of being in a kilt himself.

ACTUALLY, IT
was kind of comfy. The stage was pretty hot, thanks to all the lights and the cooktops, but the kilt was keeping Beck quite comfortable. Not that he’d admit it to anyone.

Beck puttered around the set with Andre, figuring out where he’d need to switch out pans for shots and getting his timing down. There would be a clock just for him offstage, but that only helped if he knew what marks he was aiming for. Andre was great at his job and had supplied him with a sheet that listed what prepped items he had on hand and what time he needed to make the magic switches, so it would be seamless for the viewers. It was like having the stage direction part of the script without any of the dialogue cues.

A month ago the thought of hosting a show that way would have given him palpitations, but ad-libbing alongside Duncan was easy. Viewers had commented on how much more at ease he seemed and how much more fun the shows had been since Duncan joined, and Beck agreed. He used to hate filming days, and now he looked forward to them. It would be hard to adjust to the old routine once Duncan’s four-show contract was up.

Duncan rejoined them a few minutes later, and Beck barely had time to admire the way the kilt draped over his hip bones—and accentuated the stupid T-shirt he’d kept on—before Andre dragged Duncan away to go over his cues.

In the whirl of activity before filming started, Beck didn’t have a chance to talk to Duncan much. It wasn’t until they were getting the one-minute countdown to the intro that he noticed how much Duncan was fidgeting with his kilt.

They were shoulder to shoulder at the counter, and Duncan’s constant movement was distracting.

“Stop pulling at it!” Beck whispered, and Duncan dropped his hands guiltily.

“It’s itchy,” he whined.

“It’s wool, of course it’s—” Beck broke off, his gaze shooting to Duncan’s waist. He leaned in closer, his shoulders brushing the tray Duncan was carrying. “Tell me you are wearing something underneath that, Duncan.”

Duncan cringed.

“I am definitely not wearing anything underneath this.” Duncan shifted again, his cheeks flushing. “Not one of my better ideas, I’ll admit.”

“Oh for Christ’s sake,” Beck muttered, his gaze drawn to Duncan’s long, slender fingers, which had begun to inch their way to the front of his kilt so he could pull the fabric away from his skin again.

“It seemed like a good idea while I was up changing in your office,” Duncan said.

Beck blew out a breath, his lips quirking. He didn’t know if the thought of Duncan naked in his office or the thought of Duncan bare under the kilt was the more arousing picture, but both were having an uncomfortable effect under his own kilt.

“Shit,” he breathed, studying Duncan’s kilt intently. It brushed his knees and was perfectly proper. Nothing was showing that shouldn’t be, and no one would have any idea he had nothing on underneath.

“Oh God. Stop watching me like that. You’re making it worse,” Duncan groaned. He gingerly pulled the kilt fabric away from his crotch, which only called attention to his half-hard cock.

“Well, stop messing with it.”

“We’re on in fifteen, gentlemen,” the director called out.

Beck looked up, finding the right camera, and shuffled over a few steps so his knee was touching Duncan’s. Duncan shivered slightly next to him. “This is going to suck,” Duncan said under his breath.

In so many ways. “Probably so,” Beck muttered back.

“In five, four, three, two, one, and we’re rolling,” the director called out.

Beck pushed thoughts of Duncan’s dick out of his mind as best he could with the man standing right next to him, and smiled at the camera with the blinking red light. They were live.

“Thanks for tuning in to
King of the Kitchen
. This week we’re continuing our chef challenge with Duncan Walters, who’s best known for his forays into molecular gastronomy,” Beck said. “And I’m Beck Douglas.”

“Who’s known for his rakish good looks as well as being one of the youngest chefs to take home a James Beard Award,” Duncan put in.

Beck elbowed him. “Says the two-time Zagat 30 Under 30 winner,” he teased. “If you’ve been watching the last three weeks, you know we’ve been recreating classic dishes. Last week we asked the audience to vote on the dish we’ll take on today. So we’re ending our month-long challenge series with cock-a-leekie soup, which is, unofficially, Scotland’s national soup.”

Duncan stepped out from the counter and spread his arms wide, the camera zooming in while he twirled around dramatically. Beck chanced a quick glance at him, relieved to see nothing seemed out of place now.

“The good people at Great Lakes Kilts upped the ante this week by offering us five thousand dollars for each of our charities if we wore the lovely kilts they provided,” Duncan said. He rejoined Beck at the counter and threw his arm around him. “Quite a deal, because this is comfortable enough I’d have worn it for nothing,” he said.

“But don’t tell that to the Great Lakes Kilt people,” Beck added with an exaggerated wink. “We do thank them for their generous donations. And we thank all you viewers for voting with your dollars as well. So far in the challenge, we’ve raised forty-four thousand dollars for Waste Not, Want Not, and forty-eight thousand for Healthy U—”

“Which means I’m
winning
,” Duncan crowed.

Beck turned and scowled at him playfully. “Which does mean he’s ahead, but I’ll remind him this isn’t over yet.”

“So let’s get started on today’s challenge so I can bring my record to three to one,” Duncan said, clapping his hands together.

“Traditional cock-a-leekie soup is a hearty chicken-stock-based soup with leeks, chicken, and rice, flavored with thyme. It’s sweetened and thickened a bit with prunes, which is going to be an unusual flavor profile for our American viewers,” Beck said.

“Prunes add more than just sweetness. There’s a complexity of flavor there that really works in a savory dish,” Duncan said. “Today I’m recreating this dish as a napoleon with homemade brown-rice crackers, crispy fried leeks, a thyme and smoked chicken puree, and pickled prunes.”

Beck wrinkled his nose and shook his head at the camera. “Pickled prunes and chicken puree—I have this one in the bag, folks! Today we’ll be stuffing a quail with leeks, rice, thyme, and prunes. Quail is similar to chicken, with a rich meat that is flavorful but not as fatty as duck. Ours will be crispy and delicious thanks to a generous basting with butter and chicken stock as it cooks.”

And they were off. It wasn’t quite the thrill of cooking a dish from start to finish in the kitchen, but it was close. There was the undeniable rush of trying to stay on pace, since they had to keep talking as they worked. It was surprisingly hard to talk about one thing while cooking something different. It had taken Beck months to master it—but of course, Duncan had taken to it naturally.

That was a good thing, though, because it made the time on the sound stage so much easier. There was never any dead air or awkward transitions because they kept up their joking and teasing as they went, easily filling any holes.

Plus, having a cohost who filled half the time with his own dish made the cooking part a breeze. It was handy to have the cameras cut away to zoom in on something Duncan was working on while Beck was switching out pans or pulling things out of the refrigerators and warmers hidden under the counter.

The hour flew by, and before he knew it, Beck was offering up a forkful of quail for Duncan to try.

He watched Duncan’s lips close around the fork, and the twinkle in Duncan’s eye was the only warning something was coming before Duncan moaned dramatically. Blood rushed to Beck’s cock, which had behaved until now.

“I have to admit, that’s good,” Duncan said after he’d swallowed. “Though everything Beck makes is good. I never hesitate to put anything he’s offering me in my mouth.”