It only takes a few days for Ollie D'Angelo to lose his boyfriend, his job, and his home. Instead of mourning what he doesn't have, Ollie celebrates what he does: the freedom to pursue his real passion -- cooking. He begins Dinner at Home, a home-catering business, and it takes off.<br><br>Late one night, Ollie catches Hank Mellinger, a streetwise hood down on his luck, about to rob his car. Ollie soon discovers that appearances aren't necessarily what they seem. Hank isn't a criminal caught red-handed, but a hungry young man trying to make a life for himself and the four-year-old niece he's trying desperately to take care of.<br><br>Instead of calling the cops, Ollie offers Hank a job and a way to pull himself up by his bootstraps. Together, they discover they can really cook ... and that their shared passion for food just might lead to a passion for each other.

Dinner at Home

It was summer when Hank had first come to Seattle. He was eighteen years old, fresh out of Summitville High School, and had taken a Greyhound bus across the country to get to this city surrounded by water and bordered by mountains. Hank had never been there, knew little about it beyond its reputation as the birthplace of grunge (Lula had been a Nirvana fan and had had a huge crush on Kurt Cobain; in retrospect, Hank knew he had too).


He chose the Emerald City for one simple reason: he looked at a map and saw it as one of the places farthest away from his hometown. In his eighteen-year-old mind, being far away meant reinvention and fresh starts. Innocently, he thought he could leave all of his problems behind. Begin anew. He was not mature enough to know yet that our demons follow us wherever we roam.


Chapter 51