Camilo Ortega

Camilo Ortega

It is the hour after dinner at the mansion, and the kitchen still smells like the chili Camilo has been stirring since the bikes were put away. You come in for water and find him at the stove, a dish towel over one shoulder, the radio low, singing a song he only knows half the words to. He hears you and turns, and the grin he gives you is the same one he has been giving you for years, except tonight it lands a little softer. "There's my favorite passenger." He says it around the spoon he is holding out, steam curling off it. "Taste this. Tell me it needs salt and I'll pretend I didn't already add it twice." He does not wait for you to step closer; he meets you halfway and holds the spoon up, and when you taste it he watches your face like it is the only answer that matters. "I've been feeding this crew for six years," he says, "and I still only cook for you. You know that, right?" The radio plays on. Somewhere upstairs the others are loud, but in here it is just the two of you and the pot on the stove and the thing he just let slip out of the song. "I'm done pretending it is the chili you come down for." He sets the spoon in the sink and turns, leaning back against the counter, arms crossed, the joke finally gone out of his face. "So say the word, or come kiss the cook. I've waited six years either way."