Click HERE to read Too Hot to Handle, a steamy original short story in Louisa Edwards delectable Recipe of Love series!
On The Steamy Side Excerpt
Black caps launched into the air, gold tassels flying, and everyone around him broke into ecstatic cheers.
High school was over, life and its myriad possibilities stretched out in front of them like a wide, open highway—and all Devon felt was dread.
Time up. No more excuses. He had to tell his dad today.
Pushing past his jubilant classmates, Devon kept to his tried-and-true method of avoiding unwanted attention. He kept his head up and looked neither right nor left, and moved with unwavering purpose, as if on a mission of life-or-death importance.
He ignored the occasional glances he caught from the corners of his vision, as well as the familiar catcalls and kissy noises.
After a dozen years in the Trenton public school system with these knuckle-headed losers, Devon was immune to moronic comments about his looks. Nicknames like ‘Pretty Boy’ and ‘Baby Face’ had long ago lost all power to faze him. He never flinched, never blushed, never showed weakness.
But was that enough for his old man?
Devon spotted his family clustered stiffly under one of the gymnasium’s raised basketball hoops. Angela Sparks smiled when she saw Devon, and raised one hand to wave at him. She looked older than the other moms, even though she wasn’t. Still, underneath the worry lines and graying hair was the source of Devon’s overblown, inconvenient looks.
Devon’s younger brother, Connor, shot him two thumbs up, then made the code signal for “Mom and Dad are driving me nuts, so I’m sneaking off.” Devon jerked his head once in agreement. He didn’t need any more of an audience for this, anyway.
Connor grinned and said something to their dad, who grunted and waved him away. Phil Sparks was never anything but gruff, although Devon easily read the quiet pride and satisfaction in the man’s eyes as he followed Connor’s exuberant jog across the gym floor to join his buddies.
That look, accompanied by a complacent ‘boys will be boys’ shrug, was never aimed in Devon’s direction. Never had been, never would be. It was one of the main ways Devon knew there was something about him that was just…wrong.
As a rising junior, Connor would be the starting quarterback next year. He played football in the fall and baseball in the spring, and excelled at both. At sixteen, he was already as tall as Devon, and the accident of genetics that cursed Devon with perfectly symmetrical features, vivid blue eyes, and the much-loathed long lashes had bypassed Connor entirely. Not that he was ugly, or anything, just normal.
Average.
In short, Connor was everything Devon wasn’t. For instance, Connor was a nice person; too annoyingly nice even for Devon to despise.
Devon, on the other hand, was the opposite of nice.
He was also the opposite of average. Who the fuck wanted to be mediocre? Most of his graduating class did, as far as Devon could tell. They wanted nothing more than to go to Rutgers, get a boring desk job, get married, and die.
Devon already knew. That kind of life wasn’t going to be enough for him.
“Hi guys,” Devon said, projecting his best nonchalant, devil-may-care attitude. “You caught the show, huh?”
Angela’s eyes brightened, the deep, electric blue of them sparkling with rare happiness. “Wouldn’t have missed it for the world,” she said and clasped him close in a quick, hard hug.
Phil frowned. Big surprise there. “For God’s sake, Devon. You couldn’t comb your hair before you went up on stage? You look like somebody dragged you through a bush backwards.”
Yeah, Devon wanted to say. But if I’d slicked my hair down you’d have complained I looked like a brown-nosing nerd, so what’s the point?
He managed to hold his tongue, though, because he had bigger issues than his hair to tackle and he wanted to get it over and done with in the middle of this crowd where there was a slight chance his dad would be too embarrassed to go all out and explode.
“We are so proud of you,” his mother jumped in, ever the peacemaker, and Devon smiled at her. He was grateful for the lie, or at least for the affection that prompted it.
“Thanks, Mom.”
Phil snorted like a startled racehorse. “Speak for yourself. For me, I can’t see being proud of a kid too lazy to take advantage of the work and sacrifices his parents made so he could go to a good school and get into a good college.”
And there it was. The opening Devon had been waiting for and dreading in equal measures ever since he got his letter from the Academy.
“I know there wasn’t anything listed in the program,” Devon said, swallowing down the nerves that wanted to make his voice shake and fade. “But I actually do have some plans for next year.”
“What? You get a football scholarship when I wasn’t looking? Oh, wait. That’s right. You wouldn’t even try out for the team.”
Unwilling to be sidetracked into the old, old argument, Devon persevered.
“I did get a scholarship, but not for football.” He set his jaw and lifted his chin until he gave the illusion of staring down his nose at his father, even though Phil Sparks was a good three inches taller.
It was an effective expression. Devon knew because he practiced it in the mirror. Phil’s glower deepened.
Deep breath in. “Dad. Mom. I got accepted to the Academy of Culinary Arts with a full scholarship.”
And then he braced himself for impact.
“Oh, honey,” Angela said, darting a glance at Phil. Whose face suddenly appeared to be carved from stone.
“My son,” he said thickly, pushing the words past his clenched teeth. “Going to school to learn how to cook.”
“Now, Phil,” Angela said, hands fluttering. But Devon didn’t want her getting in the middle. For once, for once and fucking all, he wanted to have it all out with his father.
He got right into Phil’s face, tension shooting down his back and vibrating his bones. “Yeah, Dad. I want to be a chef. What about it?”
“It would be a fine career if you were my daughter. But come on, Devon, what am I supposed to tell people? That my son is going to school to learn how to bake pies with a bunch of fairies? Why don’t you just get a job styling ladies’ hair at the beauty parlor, then you can really make your old man a laughingstock.”
“Right. Because that’s what matters, Dad—what the neighbors think, or the guys down at the union hall. I’m sure you’d like it better if I stuck around the neighborhood and started working for you, snaking toilets and grouting showers. Real appealing.”
Phil’s face went red. “It was good enough to put food on the table and clothes on your ungrateful back.”
Direct hit. Score one for Devon.
Part of him wanted to take it back, knew he was crossing the line, but he couldn’t. If he faltered for even a second, he was done for.
Brazening it out the only way he knew how, Devon said, “I want more than that, Dad. I want to be somebody.”
“Sure,” Phil scoffed. “And you’re gonna get famous slinging hash in some diner? Or better yet, gonna make somebody a nice little wife someday. Shit. You got no clue how to be a man.”
A hideous combination of rage and tears surged into Devon’s throat and threatened to choke him. He wanted to scream at his dad, tell him how hard he’d fought to be admitted to the Academy, the most prestigious culinary school in the country. Tell him what an honor it was and how many graduates of the Academy went on to open their own restaurants to critical acclaim and enormous success.
But it wouldn’t make any difference. Cooking wasn’t ever going to impress Phil Sparks. The fact that his son loved it, and was fucking gifted at it, was nothing more than an embarrassment.
With a superhuman effort, Devon stomped down on the emotion and locked it away, deep inside. All he allowed onto his face was a twisted half-smile.
Rocking back on his heels, he said, “What I know is that ten years from now, I’m going to look back on this conversation from the Jacuzzi in my Park Avenue apartment and laugh my ass off. I’ll be rich and famous and successful, and I will have done it all on my own.”
Phil ground his teeth, the sound audible even over the chatter and squeaking shoes of four hundred recent graduates and their families.
“Damn straight you’ll do it all on your own. I’m not supporting this foolishness. You want to throw your life away in the kitchen, throw away all the hard work your mother and I have done to give you better options than that, go right ahead. But don’t expect any help from me.”
Devon laughed, shocking himself with the bitterness of it. “I gave up expecting anything from you a long time ago, Dad.”
And then he kissed his mom on the cheek, waved to his brother, and walked out of the school without a backward glance.
He was finally on his own for real.
Devon told himself it was nothing new, he’d been alone in every way that mattered for years—but it felt different, somehow.
Well. He’d get used to it.
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I’ve read the book! Totally awesome! I loved how Lilah taught Devon to open up. She’s the perfect woman for him!