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Reece hears about Michelin coming to The Langham – for real this time – through the usual tittle-tattle. The fine dining scene is a hopeless gossip mill. News, real or fake, spreads fast, especially when it's something people think they can rub in like salt into a generous cut of wagyu beef or an open wound. Worse than schoolgirls, Jack had said, and Reece doesn't disagree or pretend he's any better than the rest of the lot in that regard. They're all petty and vindictive and too damn competitive for their own good.
So. Adam's getting his third star at last.
Reece hears about it from Philip, his least favourite waiter who Jack still hasn't fired despite promising to do so months ago, who in turn has apparently heard it from Sally Thompson at Gordon Ramsey, who's heard it from fuck knows whom. Reece lights up a cigarette to keep his hands busy for long enough that he doesn't punch the smug little smirk off Philip's mouth.
"Good for him," he says, after a beat or two, and blows the smoke right into Philip's disappointed face.
By the time Jack gives him the official news two days later, his face wary and his tone careful, like he's expecting Reece to start trashing the restaurant again, Reece has given it enough thought and pushed past the knee-jerk resentment and anger that his magnanimous reaction is mostly genuine.
"I know."
Jack eyes him skeptically. "Really? That's all? No temper tantrum."
"Oh, fuck off." Reece turns his focus back on the plate on the counter in front of him, trying to figure out the ideal placement for the blackberry foam. It used to be easier, creating new things, back before his perfectionism got in the way. Now it's not enough for food to taste good and look nice; every dish on the menu has to be the absolute best version of that dish that it could possibly be. It's fucking exhausting.
"Everyone bloody well knows that the only thing that's been standing in the way of Adam getting that third star's always been Adam. And I'd rather he finally get his shit together than watch him try and kill himself with my sous-vide bags again."
"I'm sure there's a middle ground between having a suicidal meltdown and succeeding at achieving the most prestigious culinary honour."
Jack doesn't get it, of course.
How the fuck could he? Jack's not a chef, and he doesn't know Adam, not beyond his reputation and the terrible first impression when Adam showed up here all kinds of fucked up. But Jack's not been in Paris with them when they all started out, he hasn't been there for the soaring, breathtaking heights or the dark, devastating lows and the dangerous awareness that both were such overwhelming feelings that nothing in between ever left an impression anymore. He doesn't understand the way Adam's never been able to do anything in moderation. None of them are.
"Not when you're Adam Jones," Reece points out, matter of fact.
He frowns down to where the foam sits on top of the tenderloin. The violet hues of the blackberries clashes violently with the golden-brown of the roast meat, like an uninvited guest in garish carnival gear disrupting a private vernissage. It looks like shit. Reece gives it a disgusted look. It's nothing that will be served in any restaurant with his name on it.
He upends the plate into the garbage.
Behind him, Jack lets out a pointed sigh which Reece pointedly ignores.
- - -
He sends a bouquet of flowers.
Attached is a stylish, nondescript congratulations card that Reece doesn't sign. He amuses himself with the idea that Adam's going to be wrecking his brain about who it might be from and what it means, whether it's supposed to be sincere or mockery or some kind of subtle threat.
It is sincere. Mostly, anyway. But Adam doesn't have to know that.
- - -
There's a fresh wave of media flurry in the wake of Adam's triumph.
The papers are singing his praises, lauding Adam Jones at The Langham as the number one go-to culinary venue in Central London, and the TV shows are falling over themselves to get Adam to make an appearance.
Reece leans against the white kitchen counter in his Southwark flat and sips his breakfast tea as he watches Adam on Morning Live, charming and at ease and bright-eyed like Reece hasn't seen him since the first few months at Jean-Luc's. Back before the drinking and the drugs, before Adam started obsessively chasing his own shadow, sabotaging anyone he thought could hurt him, including but not limited to himself.
Reece remembers that Adam. He'd been such a cheerful, cheeky bastard. And fuck, Reece had hated him at first sight. Almost as much as he missed him once he started disappearing behind the hollowed-out, volatile, self-destructive shell of himself. A rapid plunge, followed by a long and painful descent. Every time Reece thought Adam had hit rock bottom, Adam found a way to smash that ground and drag himself even further down.
He remembers Adam, hopped-up on something or other, banging on the door of Reece's shitty little hole-in-the-wall room at five in the morning on Reece's single day off within a fortnight. No care about waking Reece or the neighbours, no care for anyone but himself, if that.
It was the week after they— after Adam got their first star. His celebration had turned into a five-day bender that Jean-Luc tolerated because he loved Adam like a son and everyone else turned a blind eye because even when Adam was always drunk or high or both, his cooking was still maddeningly magnificent. Reece was already half on his way out, frustrated both by Adam's antics and his unmatched brilliance that Reece knew in his heart he couldn't compete with while working at the same place.
Adam ducked past Reece's outstretched arm blocking the doorway and stumbled inside.
In a graceless tumble, he crashed down face-first on the bed that Reece had just exited to attend to his uninvited guest. For a moment, he just laid there as if he'd passed out, and Reece quietly entertained a morbid fantasy of pushing Adam's head into the pillow until he stopped breathing.
Then Adam rolled onto his back and looked up at him. His grin was too wide and his eyes were glassy and unfocused, but fuck if he wasn't still the prettiest guy Reece had ever seen.
"I'm gonna be the best," Adam declared, apropos nothing.
Reece didn't tell him 'you already are' because he wouldn't have admitted it then – not to himself, not to anyone, and most certainly not to Adam. And Adam didn't need anyone stroking his over-blown ego.
Reaching up, Adam grabbed Reece's wrist and pulled. If he'd seen the attack coming, Reece would have resisted, but wrung-out and sleepy as he was, his reflexes were shit. He lost balance and went down, landing half on top of Adam, who wouldn't let go of Reece's arm. When Reece tried to pull it out of his grip, Adam interlaced their fingers, holding on like a vice.
"'m gonna be fucking immortal," he slurred, bringing Reece's hand to his face and rubbing his cheek against the outside of it as if he was an alley cat begging for scraps.
His stubble burnt, and the kiss Adam pressed to Reece's knuckles was wet and sloppy.
He was out like a light before Reece could do something stupid like punch him or kiss him.
"At the rate you're going, you're gonna be dead before you're thirty," Reece told him, and he remembers thinking, What a bloody waste.
"Oh, I always knew I was going to get that third star," present-day-Adam-on-TV tells the host. "Or, I knew I would if I didn't accidentally kill myself before I got there. You know, it was touch and go for a while there."
He says it with a disarming grin, playing it off like a joke. The host laughs along with it, clearly already won over by the infamous Adam Jones charm.
Reece snorts and finishes his tea, the bold, bitter smokiness of it lingering in his mouth.
- - -
It's well after closing time when Adam shows up at the restaurant.
He's not sober, but he's not off his head either. Reece hates that he can tell the difference at a glance, hates the instant surge of relief that makes the tension bleed out of him. Everyone else scarpers, like they can hear the ticking of the bomb and are trying to put as much distance between themselves and the impending detonation.
It's nothing like the last time, though. Adam isn't laughing like a maniac or babbling incoherently or stumbling towards the sous-vide gear. He lingers at the entryway of the kitchen, looking a little lost. As if he isn't sure how he even got there, like he took a wrong turn at Marble Arch and suddenly found himself in the middle of Reece's.
"What are you doing here?" Reece asks, brusquer than he means to be.
"I thought—" Adam starts. Stops, starts again. "I thought it would be different."
Of course he did. Reece doesn't particularly want to have this conversation, consoling Adam over an achievement Reece and everyone else in the culinary world would almost literally kill for.
"We've only just reopened," he says, pretending not to understand what Adam's getting at. "We're not going to overhaul the entire place twice a year."
"What? No. I mean— Things." Adam gestures, haphazardly waving his arm. "Everything. I thought I'd get my third star and then— I don't know."
Reece scoffs. "And then what? You're content? Satisfied? You feel like you've arrived at the finish line and can take a rest on your pedestal, lean back and enjoy the fruits of your labour while everyone fawns over you."
"Pretty much, yeah." Adam hops up onto the counter with more grace and coordination than a drunk man should have. "It sounds ridiculous when you say it like that."
"Because it is ridiculous. That's not who you are. It's not who you want to be."
Only mediocre people are ever truly satisfied with their achievements, and even though there's a lot of choice words Reece has for Adam, 'mediocre' is not and never will be one of them.
He crosses his arms and watches Adam dip his finger into a half-full pan that's on the pile of uncleaned cookware next to him, before bringing his hand to his mouth and licking off the sauce. Jesus bloody Christ. The expression on his face is almost indecent. Reece is half-tempted to throw him out right there.
"That's good. It's... really good. What are you putting in there? Raspberries?"
"Of course it's good," Reece says. He'd be glad for the unceremonious change of topic if he wasn't so annoyed by the surprised note in Adam's tone. "And forgive me if I'm not sharing recipes with you."
Adam grins and points the same finger he just licked clean at Reece. "Oh, don't worry. I'll figure it out."
He probably will, and he'll use it as inspiration and make it better, and Reece wants to resent him for it. But he loves food too much and he's too much of a perfectionist that he'll never hate improvement, even when it's not coming from him.
"If you must steal my creations, I'd rather you at least make a reservation and pay for it like everyone else. I can put you on the wait list if you like."
"Or you could cook me dinner."
The fucking cheek of that man.
"Get the hell out," Reece snaps.
Adam makes no move to get off Reece's counter, much less to leave the kitchen. "What, you have something better to do? And don't tell me you've already eaten. I know you. You never eat when you cook."
It's almost midnight. Reece has been in the kitchen since morning. The most annoying part is that Adam is right. Reece indeed hasn't eaten, not beyond trying a bite here and there to see if it was fit to be served. That doesn't mean he has any intention of spending the next hour here, cooking for Adam Jones.
"If you're hungry, the McDonald's at Oxford Street is still open."
Adam shrugs. "Sure. But they don't have stuff like this." He raises the pan towards Reece before stealing another fingertip of sauce.
His eyes close as he savours the taste. His tongue darts out to lick his lips, making them glisten pink and moist under the overhead lights, and Reece wants—
Adam's eyes fly open again, gaze locking with Reece's, and the way that stupid mouth of his curves into a lopsided smile makes it clear that he caught Reece staring.
Reece pointedly doesn't look away. He refuses to feel caught, not in his own restaurant, not when Adam walked in here uninvited in the middle of the night and damn well knows what kind of show he's putting on.
"C'mon, you already made me breakfast. And you sent me flowers. Why not have dinner? Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't that usually come before the breakfast and the gifts? Though you did kick me out of your bed once, so I'm getting some mixed signals there."
"You were high as a kite," Reece argues with a fresh wave of resentment at the memory: Adam, waking up mid-afternoon, all tousled hair and bloodshot blue eyes, leaning over Reece and kissing him like it was something they did. Like it was a foregone conclusion.
He tasted awful, like stale smoke and the lingering sourness of whatever he'd taken, a sharp reminder how much of a terrible idea this was.
Reece nearly broke his nose trying to disentangle himself. He told Adam to get out, and Adam slunk off, and that was it.
He's surprised that Adam even remembers.
"I know," Adam says. "I'm sorry, it was— Look, I was a mess, but that's no excuse."
The contrite penance act doesn't suit him.
Reece rolls his eyes. "Oh, shut up. Of all the ways you messed up in Paris, kissing me while drugged up to your eyeballs isn't even a blip on the radar."
He could really do with a smoke right now, but he's fresh out and he doesn't want to leave Adam alone long enough to get himself a new pack from the office upstairs.
"So. Since we cleared up the mixed signals... Dinner?"
Reece frowns when he realizes he was so caught up in the memory that he's missed the window of opportunity to deny the assumption that feeding Adam scrambled eggs and sending him a congratulatory bunch of flowers means anything.
Adam is holding out the sauce pan again with an expectant look.
It's always like this, Adam showing up out of nowhere and thoughtlessly messing with Reece's structured, orderly life. Reece should do the exact same thing now that he did that afternoon in Paris and kick Adam out. He should tell him to get home and sleep it off.
But Adam looks more tired than intoxicated, and even under the harsh kitchen lights, his exhaustion is taking the edge off his smile and softens the way he looks at Reece. And Reece, despite himself, finds that he cares too much about Adam to break that moment.
"Fine," he says, trying hard to hold on to his annoyance. "But you're on chopping duty. While we're in my kitchen, you do what I say, when I say."
The wicked stretch of Adam's mouth makes it clear what he made of Reece's order.
Reece holds up a hand. "Not like that. Get your mind out of the gutter."
Adam's smirk doesn't waver. He slides off the counter.
"Oui, chef," he says.
And then they cook.
- End -