A/N: Many many apologies for the late update ;-; this chapter turned out pretty long, featuring the awaited miiiini date and our first glimpse of mommy lion hehe. Next week, the action starts picking up and I am excited to show you Beans what I have in store for. 

Hope you like the new covers for the Taste series! Hehe. I thought long and hard again because I felt the current red/grey/blue cover didn't exactly suit the minimalist, simple nature that Vanilla would have preferred. 

Enjoy.

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[Leroy]

For some reason, it felt like I'd slept on a bed of chamomile last night. The pillow smelled of him when he was embarrassed; averting his gaze like he did when I caught him staring, red dusting his ears and leaving a faint floral scent of something shy. Adjusting his glasses would sweep that aside and replace the flowers with something deeper. Slightly bitter, like the taste of tea on lips but when he left at midnight to return home, all that remained on the tongue was something I once remembered as sweet.

I'd forgotten what it tastes like. Sweet.

The dream was soft and smelled like the past; it was a rare, pleasant dream that did not have him in it and yet when I woke, he was everywhere.

Chicken had slept at the foot of the bed on top of his favourite towel and memory cushion. The rest of the room was empty except for the morning sun slipping past the gaps in the blinds and leaving streaks of bright, blinding light across the floor. Second day off.

Usually I spent them back in the firehouse hanging around, if there weren't any odd jobs on my plate; today, I was to pick him up at eleven-thirty. His office.

He was expecting the bike, of course. Said something about calling for an Uber while I rode down to the garage and waited for him there to pick a ride together but that didn't sound very fun.

I'd driven sedans and hybrids the last year. A couple of luxury cars too, mostly for event chauffeuring and as an escort driver for government or civil officials running to and from Heathrow. They paid well so I'd apply for those on my days off. The owner of the company that supplied those rides was the kind of lady who had a thing for firefighters. She liked Jaeger. Jaeger introduced me to the job, and many others looking for some extra cash. She knew half the fire house.

In two hours, I'd called her up, rode down to her place, had breakfast nearby and checked out a nice Bentley continental—just in time for a drive to his office building in Covent Garden. I pulled up in front of the driveway three minutes past eleven-thirty and dropped him a text, watching the fancy revolving doors at the front entrance as I did.

A security guard popped by from his station in front of the building to move me further up front but stopped short when he saw me through the window I'd rolled down. He was a paramedic from one of the stations that covered Holborn. I forgot which. Our unit backed them up over the years a couple of times.

"Small world eh mate." I got out and he pulled me in for a one-arm. "Part-time?"

"Just waiting for someone. Five minutes tops, I think."

"A date?" He winked. "It's a Sunday. You deserve it."

"But you're out here working," I pointed out. The date thing, just quietly accepted. Over his shoulder, something had caught my eye. He said something, and then turned to follow my gaze.

Andre. I was pretty sure, just from the back of his head and the way he stood in the middle of the lobby, in front of the reception, raised voice only slightly muffled by the glass. A couple of words I could catch whenever someone rushed to leave through the revolving doors, glancing over their shoulder like the man was an escaped animal from the zoo.

"Ah fuck it's that guy again," the guard cursed, reaching for his walkie and radioing someone in a heartbeat. I let him, heading back into the car and raising a hand for a quick parting. Several other guards in uniform gathered. It was weird being the one watching on the sidelines.

Still, it got me slightly ticked. Andre, in a place he had nothing to do with, probably meant he'd been up there to see... him.

I checked my phone. Nothing yet. Drummed my fingers on the steering wheel. Waiting.

Andre was the kind of person who looked different on and off camera. I used to see him in chefs whites only but quitting the job and hopping over to the fire academy made me realize how popular he was as a celebrity chef here. Even Siegfried lost to him in terms of sensationalism and personality because people preferred the image of an explosive, hard-hitting chef over someone with a permanent smile on their face. Point is, Andre looked a lot worse in real life.

His fashion sense didn't help.

I steered the car further up front, a little to the left so that I wasn't in the way of other people at the drop-off and got out of the car to wait. Just in case he missed the text. He was expecting a bike, after all.

"—all fine. You see? I can walk, if you didn't know. Stay away. Now look, if you don't have the basic training to respect a person's..." He was out of the lobby, heading past the revolving doors and spitting in the face of the paramedic guy I met earlier when he stopped short, meeting my gaze from across the drop-off. "It's you again. Cox's boy."

I could hear him. He tended to mumble, sometimes, but I figured things out over a month of two doing the mise en place at his restaurant. I checked my phone, trying to decide if I should avoid him by getting back into the car or stand around and look like he got the wrong person.

This gave him enough time to cross the distance and look me up and down. I stared back like he was a stranger picking a fight. Which wasn't really wrong.

Andre was frowning and the whole thing that was his face sort of triggered the most unpleasant memories of working in his kitchen. "So it's true then," he snorted, folding his arms and looking over his shoulder. "How much did you pay that little liar, eh? What's worth the four stars? Or did you do him other favours?"

I nearly laughed in his face. Siegfried had too much of an ego to be requesting for reviews, let alone paying someone to write something nice about his restaurants. Either way, Andre was starting to think I had something to do with the shit he was hallucinating about.

"Leroy?"

I turned and he was there, mild surprise in his eyes before glancing at Andre, then back up at me. "He think's we're related," I updated, turning to the dude who could not stop dreaming up a world that was against him.

"And you're telling me you're not?" Andre scoffed, laughing. "No wonder Mr. White wants that picture deleted. So much for being the critic with the cold hard truth."

"You're ri—"

"I'm his chauffeur," I let this sink in, leaning against the Bentley and watching the confusion on Andre's face grow. "Embarrassed now?"

"You quit the restaurant to drive people around?" He couldn't believe it and the whole puzzling thing got us both pretty amused. "That's so dumb."

I left him hanging, shaking my head and heading for the driver's side. My passenger was a little less decisive; edging towards the door before I decided to open it for him to indicate that this was a real car he could touch. Neither of us spared Andre another glance even after I'd driven off and out of the office driveway.

"The look on his face," he began after some time. I met his gaze once we ran into a red. "It was..."

"Fucking hilarious." "Awfully enjoyable."

He collapsed in laughter, caving in like an avalanche and it was a sound I hadn't heard in quite a while. It rang in my ears and felt cool to the touch, sparking a drumming of my fingers on the steering wheel while I joined in. Blazing a little.

"Was he always like this?"

"Yeah. I swear, he's accused the garbage boy of stealing caviar five times and the sous chef of the afternoon shift, Andre's bistro, that one, he thought he'd swapped out the foie gras for some other ingredient on the menu."

"He's practically living in his own world. Thank god for your response or he'd probably be accusing your father of some arranged marriage agreement between you and I. Just minutes before, he had himself stationed on our floor and Claire, she's our receptionist, well she'd given me a call and that was how I knew, and so I was keeping the child entertained for thirty whole minutes, standing, because, well, that was how he liked to have angry conversations, listening to his demands for... um..."

He re-oriented himself. It had something to do with the photo Andre mentioned. I could tell he was trying not to lie.

"So he wants me to, of course, apologize for my 'false and pretentious' review of his restaurant but, um, you may very well know this, but the policy of any decent critic organization would be to stand by their word and naturally, our partners would not be happy should I be taking back my words because then I, the chief editor, would be regarded by the public as a fraud and and and so of course I refused and then he refused and so neither of us wished to back down and for some reason, he then decided to extend yet another invitation to me to, well, dine with the critics who have written 'fabulous', 'extraordinary' things about him at his restaurant where he, the 'celebrated' chef, would 'prove' me wrong."

"And you turned him down, right?"

We were cruising down the main road for seconds, heading further east down Shoreditch before another light stopped us short. He was quiet all of a sudden, so I took my eyes off the road and glanced sideways to check in.

He noticed and glanced up to meet mine. Sheepish.

"You're going?"

"Well," his old habit. Adjusting his glasses but doing it from his ears that were a shade darker, gaze downcast at his shoes and slender fingers touching but only at the tips. For a moment, I saw the old him. "Yes."

And then it was too much detail and I was staring for a second too long so it was back to the road and trying to focus on the GPS instead of... everything that was him.

"Third time's the charm, no? A-and, I don't see anything wrong with getting to know other critics in town with a different opinion. And if Chef Andre is serious about it this time, he'd perhaps even come up with a new menu to, as he so put it, 'prove' me 'wrong'!"

"He does that a lot though," I warned. Eyes on the road. "Talk shit all the time and then end up falling short. He's a waste of time to anyone who's willing to give him free opportunities."

"That... well you could very well be perfectly right about that. In fact, that does seem like a highly plausible case considering his reputation and... personality, but if he's willing to invite several other critics as well, then I suppose I, too, stand to benefit from the deal."

I wasn't going to persuade him. Maybe last time, I could. A fifty-fifty chance; but time was good at freezing things over and turning things into ice. Decision making was one of those things. People somehow start sticking to the stuff they believe in.

"Just be careful," I told him.

He laughed. "I will. Thank you for warning me." I could feel, or sort of see from my peripherals, him looking around the ride. "Now that's out of the way, perhaps you'd like to explain...? A very luxurious looking car. Is this yours?"

"For today, yeah."

He sounded surprised, running his fingers along the ledge of his window. "So, um, I mean I suppose you did mention something about being a driver on your days off... this model isn't bad at all. I quite like the beige accents. They go perfectly well with the leather finish of the interior. You do have good taste."

"Glad you brought me along now?"

"Well I was never against it," he pointed out, glancing sideways. I could feel his gaze. "I was expecting the bike, actually. As you may have guessed. So um, why... why the surprise? Not that I mind. I appreciate you going out of your way to..." he was being formal about it. Wasn't sure if it was something to laugh about or... mind the details of, but it triggered a mix.

I told him it was nothing.

"Am I good?"

We stopped at another red and was another twenty minutes till our destination, according to the GPS. He did a double take, turning to me with a series of blinks.

"Sorry, I-I um, beg your pardon?"

"At driving," I continued, laughing at the look on his face. It was cute. "What else?"

His ears went a little red and he cleared his throat, re-directing his gaze back to the road. "Yes of course. And yes, yes you are rather um, what's the word... seasoned."

"So you gonna hire me as your chauffeur then?" I teased.

"You?" He laughed. "Leroy Cox give up fighting fires for a boring day of driving me around? Impossible. You'd probably take us off course the moment your device goes off, towards the nearest car accident or or, fall victim. Something like that."

He wasn't wrong.

"I could drive you around on my days off though."

The offer made him turn, and I met his gaze sideways for less than a second, then back up to the rearview mirror, then to the road. "Don't like the sound of that?"

"No. No, of course not. I mean to say..." I could already imagine his lips thinning. He used to do that a lot, when he was thinking emotionally. "I meant to come off as serious. In my answer. So... because you're very good at this—good at giving your all when it comes to people, like right now, as you are suggesting these things... and it makes me feel like I've come up short... comparatively speaking."

I had to take a second to process this while driving. The vocab part of brain needed some rebooting and it had been a while since I'd gotten out of firehouse mode. Our first week of conversations was bound to take some time getting used to again.

"Let me rephrase. I feel like you're doing too much—no, I mean, that I am not doing enough. The scale is in imbalance." He paused, waiting. "Okay ignore the last part, I don't think that was easy to understand."

I laughed. "I get what you're trying to say. I'll take it down a notch. If you're not feeling it."

"Ah, so you don't understand, after all," he corrected bluntly, which both surprised and amused me. But he'd always been like that. "I am not saying that you are at fault in any manner, o-or that you are wrong, because you are doing things for me and if I should feel uncomfortable because I don't return these favors then the problem lies with me, and not you. I'm saying that I will try to make it up to you... if you give me some time to do so."

I wasn't expecting him to say something like that. Not because his words made me feel like he was speaking to the deepest part of me since I never really experienced the 'giving too much' all my life growing up—just, only when it came to him, yeah—but because he'd laid out the single most obvious problem I was facing back then.

That we were unequal.

"I could slow down." It was a compromise. "For you to catch up."

He was smiling. I could feel it in his voice and it was the kind of smile that reminded me of chamomile.

"That would be appreciated."

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There was something about taking him for a spin in multiple rides around the test drive arena; something unexpectedly enjoyable, comfortable, pleasing to the eye. He wasn't joking when he confessed minimal knowledge on cars. He'd ranked them according to the colour of the seats. That was how little he knew about safety features, models, and branding.

"Perhaps something similar to what I drive back home. That way, I'd feel slightly more comfortable even if someone else was driving me around," he suggested while we were touring the garage. A list of rides we thought were worth giving a go on the track. Had to admit, the selection of rides they had was impressive.

"Ah, this one." He lit up when we arrived at a Maserati Ghibli. One fucking car I'd never be able to afford. "This model looks nearly identical! Even the brand is exact. Should we add this to the list as well?" He glanced down at the clipboard while I stared at the sedan.

"This?"

"Yes," his gaze wavered, showing concern. "Is that bad?"

"No it's just fucking expensive."

"O-oh," he looked guilty all of a sudden. "I... I never knew that. It was a birthday gift. From three people, to be exact. My uncle, my godfather, and their friend. She's a celebrity baker... oh you may have heard of her. She's the owner of ARCD."

I laughed, glancing at the car plate and scribbling the numbers down on his list for him. "Think I could give that a go one day?"

"Sorry, give what a go?"

"Your car." I signaled for the salesperson on duty, who spotted us and started over.

"Oh," he seemed mildly surprised by my request, adjusting his glasses before handing the list of car plates over to the staff. "When you return, then. Of course."

Five, six times around the test drive arena in different rides and biscuits of advice by yours truly was enough to make up his mind. That part of him never really changed; the ability to weigh the consequences, map the alternate realities and ultimately decide upon the most optimal route he should be taking.

Then we were back indoors signing papers and flipping through a catalogue of professional chauffeurs available for hire. They had different rates for weekday and weekend hires. For different rides, and also for different timings of the day.

"So I assume you will be filling the position of co-chauffeur?" He turned to me with a rare, playful smile after submitting the relevant documents and waiting for the bill with his credit card in hand.

"Co-? No," I corrected, musing for effect. "I'm the main one. That guy's just filling in," I nodded at the particulars of the hired driver. Some Jason dude.

"Hm? Oh yes I must've forgot I own a firetruck," he dared another play and this time, I laughed.

"Dumbass."

Then we were heading back to his office—him, for more Sunday work. I dropped him off at the exact place we'd left Andre, watching him pass the revolving doors and scan his office pass at the electronic gate. Once he was small enough, standing in line at the lobby waiting for the elevator, I drove off.

In about thirty minutes I was at my doorstep doing up Chicken's leash and fetching his frisbee, ready to drop by Annie's with a signature dish: my presence. What a blessing.

"Precious little boy! I missed you so much," she said to my dog the moment I kicked down the door and made my entrance. He was the first and last thing she hugged. "Your owner's an eyesore. If only he brought you around more often." I gave her the finger.

"Where's Rexi?"

"She had two patients this morning. I sent her on a quick grocery run after because our fridge is practically empty but traffic's bad so she said she might take a while." She had Chicken's head on her lap; which was probably why she didn't seem very keen on wheeling herself up to the entrance to welcome the very thing she birthed.

"You ready to go?" I stood in the doorway, messing with the new rug she got.

"Mhm, just getting my scarf. Could you get the flask on the counter and the cooler bag beside it? They had kids cutting fruits with cookie cutters on some cooking channel the other day, so I tried them out."

"Just cut them the normal way?" I suggested to the full-grown adult, waiting as she wheeled over and began removing her wheelchair slippers at the entrance. I helped her with it.

Years of physiotherapy only seemed to return the strength of her upper body; standing for a couple of seconds was the max she could go with her legs. Like brushing her teeth, or getting on and off the wheelchair without help.

"You're telling that to the poor woman with a twenty-three-year-old kid who refuses to eat his fruits...?" Annie raised a brow, shaking her head while I took over and wheeled her out the front door. She'd always insist on holding on to the leash on our park trips.

"It's just texture," I told her for the millionth time. "Imagine biting into a banana without the taste. Pure fucking mush. And watermelons. Water sponges, or something."

"Yeah but where else are you going to get your nutrition? You're a firefighter for fuck's sake," she laughed, uncapping the vacuum flask I packed for her and pouring some new tea flavour into the cap. She blew on it a little and held it out to me. I downed the thing. "At least have a mandarin or two. I cut up some nice cantaloupes and apples."

Earl grey. But a little different. No sugar, for health purposes but also because I wouldn't be able to taste it anyway but still. Some sort of... added fragrance.

"Where'd you get this?"

"Borough's. I was there with Rexi earlier this week and, I mean, it was a weekday and all but god, the crowd was such a turnoff. The tea place had a new blend and it smelled amazing—apparently, adding a little bit of fancy vanilla in earl grey works wonders. Gives you the illusion that it's already been creamed even without the sugar or the milk."

"They jack up the prices a lot at Borough's," I pointed out, playing it real.

She gave me the finger. "Just admit it's a good-ass brew, Leroy. They should have this in an ice-cream flavour. Earl grey. Vanilla. A stick of cinnamon. I'd gladly order it every day."

Annie started having a thing for tea in the first couple of months of our stay in London. I'd thought it was just a phase, but years passed and she continued. It was also how she and Rexi bonded in the first place. They had a physio session in the afternoon and after some stretches, she'd apparently kicked up a fuss after struggling to hold a mug so Rexi, who was her personal therapist back then, suggested they have afternoon tea after every session. Just to motivate her.

Chicken led the way to the park, taking the route with less gravel—like I taught him to.

"So?" She prompted after noticing I'd gone quiet.

I snorted. "What."

"You know what."

"No I don't." I did.

She laughed. "Your snowstorm, you little shit."

It was how I used to refer to him, back when we still talked about having him over for dinner. The first couple of years. And then slowly, I stopped hoping. Two weeks ago, I told her he'd be spending half a year in London for work; mainly his startup but then apparently it was the lecturing gig at Cordon Bleu too, so. When I first dropped the news, I'd assumed she forgot who he was.

She didn't.

"What about him?"

"Aren't you going to tell me what happened when you two met?" She turned over shoulder and shot me the kind of face that meant 'fucking hell.' "Seven years, Leroy."

I made no move; wasn't like I knew how to answer her question. How we met was him nearly blowing up my kitchen in less than five minutes of him trying to wake me up. The next thing I knew he was running the corner of his keycard down the front of my shirt inviting me to spend the night with him in a hotel suite. All in a single day.

"Alright forget I said that just one question, okay? Just, yes or no, alright?" She popped open the lunchbox of cut fruits and offered me one on a plastic fork. "Are you still a virgin?"

I stopped her wheelchair in the middle of the road. Chicken stopped because I stopped. Some random dude on his afternoon jog stopped. The fucking wind stopped.

I let her words sink in. "What the—"

"Oh come on, let's be real," she rolled her eyes and ate the watermelon I'd rejected. "You were thinking about it."

"No," I looked at her like she'd just coma-ed again and woke up. "Annie."

"Just answer the question—"

"No it's a dumbfuck question—"

"Don't you dare talk to your mother like that—"

"You literally just asked if I had—"

"And there's nothing embarrassing about—"

"We're not talking about this," I whisper-shouted, which I usually don't do, and got her attention. Chicken was waiting around, eyes fixed on the bit of his frisbee sticking out of my bag.

Annie sighed, giving up and going back to her tea. "Fine. Hand me the frisbee."

I moved us over to the shade of the only tree in the middle of a wide, open field. There was another owner with her golden retriever on the other end. Annie played with Chicken. I looked up at the skies.

Half-an-hour later, the sun was setting. We'd finished up the flask of tea and the wind was picking up a chill that wasn't there an hour before. Rexi had called and said she'd be home in twenty, so we headed back.

"The least you could do is tell me if he's okay," she said while we were crossing the road, minutes away from the apartment building. I told her that he was everything people had expected him to be.

"And is he... maybe... I don't know... good-looking?"

"He's always been."

"Okay I meant if there was any form of improvement. Apart from being the cute, smart little boy I remember."

"... he's become pretty good with sexy now."

"Oooh I was not expecting that."

"You think I did?"

We laughed. I skipped everything else and told her about something light—not involving any emotional-weight that would've brought up the past. Mostly about Andre's plan and his shit-ass ego. Naturally, I wasn't a fan of Vanilla giving him a second (third) chance. The fucker was a class A bully in the kitchen and that personality was what made his brand as a celebrity chef who once had the skills to back it up.

"He's not giving Andre a second chance, little lion. He's giving the food as many chances as he can," she laid out like it wasn't obvious enough; that part of him, his objectivity and ability to separate chef and dish, was easy to fear as much as it was to love.

I had my reservations about Andre actually treating him like a guest at his restaurant, let alone a critic.

We arrived back at the apartment and let Chicken head on in first after cleaning his paws. Annie and I had to work on her wheelchair slippers. "Could you leave the cooler bag on the kitchen counter? Rexi's going to be back with dinner in about ten."

She was telling me to rinse the flask and the lunchbox without actually telling me to do it. Just some things didn't need bring exact about. I made sure she was good in the living before heading to the kitchen and unpacking.

Then it was the habit.

I don't notice it—like every other habit people tended to have. It's something done unconsciously; part of a routine or some faraway memory of what used to be. I opened the freezer.

It beeped after a couple of seconds. I was taking a little longer than usual to find the tub and Annie, with the ears of a parent, heard it from the next room.

"We're out," she laughed, wheeling into the kitchen and pouring herself a glass of water.

I turned to her with a brow. Raised. She couldn't possibly know. But if she did... can't say I was surprised.

"I'm your mother, Leroy," she rolled her eyes. "Haven't you noticed how the tub looks exactly the same every week you come and steal a spoonful without asking?" I could see her smile over the top of her glass. "Rexi and I don't buy that flavour. I mean, you know I like the new stuff. Just for you, I leave a tub of that in the freezer. Ever since you snuck one into the shopping cart years ago while we were at the old Sainsbury's."

I snorted. Laughing.

"You didn't say anything."

She shrugged, making a face. "Why should I?"

Keys clinking; the front door clasp, unlocking and footsteps.

"I'm home!" Rexi.

She came through the doorway to the living with bags and bags and more bags. None of them were plastic. All tote. "Nando's for dinner. Since Leroy's over and peri-peri chicken is his only addiction." She laughed, flashing a brilliant, almost blinding smile across the kitchen counter. I snorted, helping her with the bags.

"Only half true."

"You know him too well darling." "Learnt from the best." "Aw, that's cute." Right in front of my salad.

"I got your fix, by the way," Rexi went straight to unpacking one of her tote bags, producing a cooler bag just like the one we brought with us to the park. "The last tub. They had a major sale for desserts at the store and everyone was walking away with at least two flavours. I got you one too, An—the new rose and cream."

She handed me the tub with a wink, wheeling her fiancé over to the dining for Nando's while I sorted the groceries.

I waited till they were far enough. Out of earshot.

Then it was reaching for a spoon, popping open the lid of the tub and digging in—a whole mouthful, sent straight down without question. The fix. Every week. Of every month. Of every year.

Then came the wait.

It was long, like it was and had been for the past couple of years. The longing for the presence of something on the tongue; a memory; a wish; a taste of the past, so long un-revisited that it became part of something forgotten.

The feeling of looking for something you could no longer recognize. It feels... it feels like

Nothing.

Nothing.