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Eliot had had this dinner planned for a while now. He’d carved some time out of his schedule to go to the fish market that morning, inspecting the clams and mussels individually and talking shop with a couple guys at the docks about fishing lanes before buying them. And he knew this seafood risotto was going to be spectacular, with the ginger and saffron working perfectly to offset the seafood and the chardonnay. Sometimes when he was going to make something he could taste it before he even started cooking it, and this tasted like something everyone would want thirds of.
But the problem with making a risotto was that you had to keep stirring it, which meant Eliot was stuck hearing it from the kitchen as Hardison told Parker, “now, if you hear someone sneeze in an elevator, you can ignore it, that’s exception 12B - yeah, that one right there.”
Eliot grit his teeth. The rice was getting nice and plump, soaking up the wine and the intermingling juices from the seafood. The whole thing smelled like heaven. It would only take five more minutes, tops, to be ready.
Five more minutes of hearing Parker say things like, “okay, but what if I’m in the elevator and I hear someone sneeze outside the doors?”
“Wh - no, babe, you probably shouldn’t say bless you then, that’s a little - okay, wait, let me make this a new sub-rule under section 12 - ”
Eliot stirred faster.
He was a professional, so he got two bowls of risotto plated up nicely with a parsley garnish and slid them in front of Parker and Hardison before snatching Hardison’s ridiculous flowchart up and plucking sticky notes off of it.
“Hey - hey, come on, I worked hard on that!” Hardison protested.
“It’s way too complicated, man!” Eliot said, whirling around to face him. “No one needs a hundred sub-rules per section, it defeats the purpose of a flowchart!” To Parker, he said, “just don’t talk to anyone who can’t see you or hasn’t acknowledged your presence except to make them know you’re there, and from there you can do the - ” he gestured vaguely at the somewhat cleaner flowchart, still dangling limply in his hand like it was some hired muscle he'd punched out. “You know, the rest of it.”
Parker rested her chin on one hand, shoveling risotto into her mouth with the other. “Hmmm,” she said, chewing laboriously, though she at least had the decency to swallow before saying, “okay, but let’s say I’m pretending to be a stewardess again, and I’m inside the airplane, and someone else is outside the airplane - ”
“You don’t say bless you!” Eliot said.
“This is really good,” Hardison said. “Could I get a beer to go with it?”
“Get your own beer!”
“ - but the person outside the plane is like, super super old,” Parker continued as Hardison got up. She rose up far enough to tap the arrow on the flowchart labeled are they old? Yes decisively, like it was a critical piece of evidence. “And I can tell by the sound that they’re wearing a really nice watch - ”
“You can tell what kind of watch it is from outside a plane?” Hardison shouted from the kitchen, followed by the sound of the fridge closing. “For real?”
“It’s a very distinctive ticking noise,” Eliot conceded, while Parker nodded vigorously. “But those airplane doors are pretty thick.”
“It’s like listening to a safe with a cement wall between you and it!” Parker said, waving her hand dismissively. “A baby could do it.”
Hardison came back with two beers in one hand and a bowl of risotto in the other. Eliot took the bowl with a wordless nod of thanks - he’d gotten a little too caught up in arguing to go back for it - though he left the second beer for Parker to snatch right out of Hardison’s hand.
“We’ve got to do another con on a plane,” Hardison said, pointing at Parker with his beer. “I want to know what your bat ears can hear through the side of an airplane.”
“I always thought it was kind of weird that we did that job where Nate said ‘let’s go steal a plane’ and then we didn’t steal the plane,” Parker said thoughtfully. “We should do a job where we keep it.”
“Wasn’t there that one airline CEO who had a pyramid scheme going,” Hardison said, waving expansively, “like lying about new planes and then using that to get money to subcontract someone to buy these older planes, and then - wait, I think I’m thinking of like three different guys.”
While Hardison pulled out his phone to check, Eliot finally sank his fork into his risotto and took a bite.
Fluffy, salty, umami perfection, with just the right amount of fat from the parmesan and cream to bring the salty taste of the seafood to the next level. The scallops all but melted in his mouth.
“Let’s do a job in Miami,” Eliot said, still savoring that perfect first bite.
Hardison lowered his phone. “So is there a specific plane guy in Miami, or - ”
“It’s Miami, we’ll find someone,” Eliot said dismissively, taking another bite.
“Let’s go steal a plane from Miami International!” Parker cheered, taking another bite. Then she paused. “But wait, if I’m flying the plane, and someone sneezes - ”
“No,” Hardison and Eliot said together.