She turned from her post at the kitchen sink and grinned. “Two professional chefs in my kitchen! I should go take a nap.”
“You certainly can,” I offered. “We’d be happy to give you a day off.”
“Um, no,” Kai said. “No, we would not.”
Dahlia punched him in his side, not gently, I noted, and then pointed me to a cutting board.
“I’d love some help with the margaritas,” she said, gesturing to a pile of limes waiting to be juiced. “This isn’t exactly a lunch, but Kai said you guys ate lots of Tom’s fruit and snacks on the way in.” She rolled her eyes. “I’m so happy to hear that after meeting that anorexic woman Kai introduced us to at that swanky Seattle lunch spot a while back.”
Kai stared at his sister. “She was not anorexic. She was genetically predisposed to terrifying thinness. Also,” he pointed the tip of his knife at her as he spoke, “that meeting occurred about three years ago, so have I finished serving my sentence yet?”
Dahlia shook her head at me conspiratorially. “She was a train wreck. Too eager to please. And she didn’t eat her salad. It was a salad.” She huffed at the memory. “That woman,” she added, eyebrows raised, “never made the cut to a farm visit.”
I felt my cheeks getting warm and decided my safest response would be to get to business with the juicing. I cut and squeezed, content to listen to the easy banter between Kai and his sister. They caught up on local gossip, discussed the weather and the season’s harvest. When I brought the lime juice to Dahlia, she thanked me no fewer than five times, then went into full-throttle interrogation mode as she spun the rims of our glasses into a mound of kosher salt.
“So, Charlie, how long have you lived in Seattle?”
“Only a few months, actually. I moved this spring from New York.”
“Ooh, I love New York. The city that never sleeps! Why did you move to sleepy little Washington?” she asked, unblinking eyes trained on my face.
I looked at Kai, who appeared to be enjoying watching someone else endure Dahlia’s pointed questioning. “I came for the job at Thrill. I’ve been working toward being a head pastry chef for about ten years, so when the opportunity came, I took it.”
A few moments of demure interest in that little tidbit and then she was locking and loading the real ammunition. “Kai told me your name on the phone a few weeks ago and I may have done just a quick Google search. I read all about you on the Thrill website. Great photo, by the way. Are your waves natural? And you work for an ex-boyfriend. How’s that dynamic working out?”
I could feel The Splotch revving up along my neck. Dahlia turned and had her back to me for a moment. I took the opportunity to widen my eyes at Kai. She Googled me? “Well, yes. We do work together, but it’s going fine. There’s nothing between us. There really never was. Very much. And it was a long time ago.” I stopped talking, because when a person resorts to sentence fragments, that person should be silent.
Kai let out a sound of younger-brother exasperation. “’K. So we’re done with the skinny lunch girl and Charlie’s working relationship with her ex. Any other items to cross off the list before you start the waterboarding?”
“Hmph.” Dahila sniffed at her brother. “I’m not being too nosy, am I?”
“If you have to ask that question, the answer is yes,” Kai muttered, scooping salsa into a bright ceramic bowl.
Dahlia turned to me. “Am I being too nosy, Charlie? I’m just doing due diligence. It’s so seldom that we get any information at all about Brother Dear’s social life—”
“I’ll be on the porch,” Kai said and scowled at our grins on his way out.
Dahlia and I followed Kai to the porch off the kitchen, an airy room that opened onto a long, green backyard dotted with gardens. Splashes of magenta, deep purple, and show-off yellows nodded in the breeze. The view within the room was just as charming. Under a beamed ceiling and suspended by thick ropes, two sofa-sized porch swings faced each other. A smattering of other comfy chairs circled the seating area. The collection of soft cushions everywhere practically begged for a slow and luxurious afternoon nap. Or a fantastic makeout session with a very good-looking man. My eyes darted to Kai, and my pulse instantly quickened with the idea that perhaps Dahlia could read my thoughts. She set the margaritas on a rough-hewn table between the swings and poured each of us a generous drink.
I sat and sipped. “This is delicious,” I said, nose in the glass. “Citrusy, salty, made with very good tequila.”
Kai nodded. “Sweet. Less fiber, more floral and herbal. Patrón Silver maybe?”
We looked at Dahlia, waiting for the answer. She burst out in delighted laughter. “You’re both total nerds! This is perfect!”