Free King of the Kitchen by Bru Baker Page B

well, and he’d learned an important lesson in making sure menu descriptions were thorough. Especially when it came to much-beloved things like bacon.
    Duncan slipped around Campbell, who’d started sautéing the veggies with practiced skill, and grabbed his huge cast-iron skillet from its spot of honor hanging next to the stove. He’d found the skillet at a garage sale a few years back. It had been a pain in the ass to drag home on the El, but totally worth it. It was blackened and seasoned to perfection, probably thanks to someone’s grandmother who’d likely cooked three meals a day in it for years before the idiot he’d bought it from inherited it and sold it for five dollars. The joke was on that dude, because a well-seasoned cast-iron skillet was worth its weight in gold.
    Most people thought a hot pan was the way to go, since bacon had a lot of fat to be seared off. But they were wrong. The secret to perfectly crispy bacon was to start it in a cold cast-iron pan. It took a little more patience, but it was so worth it. Once he had the bacon situated just so, he turned on the heat.
    “Do you have any parm?” Campbell asked, his head mostly hidden inside the refrigerator.
    Duncan took a peek at the sauté pan, nodding in approval when he saw Campbell had added the ham and arranged everything in a nice even layer across the bottom.
    “I have aged Mizithra.”
    When Campbell eased his head out of the refrigerator and stared at him blankly, Duncan snorted and moved around him to dig into the cheese drawer, coming out with a small block of hard white cheese.
    “Kind of a Greek parm,” Duncan explained, unhooking his microplane from its spot on the hanging tool rack. He grated a generous portion into the eggs and gave it another stir with the fork before pouring it over the mixture in the pan. It sizzled and bubbled, and Duncan gave the pan a hard shake to help the eggs evenly distribute.
    “If it’s like Parmesan, then why not just buy Parmesan?” Campbell asked, squinting at the cheese Duncan had left on the counter.
    “Because I wanted Mizithra, not Parmesan?”
    He was pretty sure Campbell was making rude gestures at him, but his back was turned so he could flip the bacon, so Duncan couldn’t tell for sure. He set about making a huge pile of toast—they were hungover, after all, which practically demanded carb overloading—and kept a close eye on the eggs, watching them until they were semiset and ready to be popped under the broiler.
    The doorbell rang as he closed the oven, and he waved Campbell off to get it. He was Beck’s friend, after all. And Duncan didn’t like leaving things broiling in his kitchen without his own direct supervision.
     
     
    THEY ATE brunch in companionable silence, all three of them still nursing enough of a hangover that the quiet was enjoyable rather than awkward. After the last of the plates had been cleared away, though, Beck was all business. Duncan noticed the exact moment Beck shifted from Beck to Beck Douglas; it involved his shoulders actually straightening and his face taking on a pinched expression. Duncan didn’t favor the change at all.
    “I think all we need to do is issue a statement that the comments were taken out of context,” Beck said after they’d shuffled through all the printouts and used Duncan’s laptop to scroll through a few new pieces that had popped up since they’d taken a break to eat.
    Beck had brought a tablet, too, but Duncan had refused to give him the Wi-Fi password, partially out of spite and partially because he wanted an excuse to sit close to Beck. Both of them using the laptop worked, though it had the consequence of forcing poor Campbell to squeeze in on Beck’s other side. Beck didn’t question why Campbell hadn’t sat between the two of them, and Duncan wasn’t sure if it was because he hadn’t noticed or because he actually wanted to sit next to Duncan.
    As it was, Duncan was having trouble concentrating, with the warmth