Dan had perfected his method over several winters. The immersion blender was essential. Without it, one could not achieve the proper saturation of chocolate powder, and Dan used a great deal of powder. Perhaps more than was strictly economical, but economy in hot chocolate struck him as a false saving.
When Oliver arrived on Friday evening, Dan offered to make him one. Oliver, who was twenty-four and possessed the easy confidence of someone who had never seriously questioned how things ought to be done, accepted with the vague politeness of a guest who does not expect much from instant beverages.
Dan set about his work. The saucepan, the generous mounds of powder, the milk measured in the mugs themselves. Oliver watched from the kitchen doorway with the studied casualness of someone pretending not to judge. When Dan reached for the immersion blender, there was a definite flicker. Scepticism, presenting itself as worldly restraint.
The blender whirred. The mixture darkened and thickened precisely as it should. Dan transferred it to the pan to heat, then placed the dampened mugs in the microwave. Oliver's silence acquired a texture. It was the silence of someone witnessing a small tragedy they had predicted.
When Dan handed him the finished cup, Oliver sipped. His eyebrows rose. He sipped again, rather urgently.
"This is exceptional," he said, with genuine surprise that ought to have been gratifying but somehow was not.
"I'm almost reluctant to admit it," he added, laughing.
Dan paused. "What do you mean?"
"Well, your method looked so odd. The blender especially. I thought you were overcomplicating it."
There it was. Reluctant to admit it. Oliver had wanted the hot chocolate to fail. Not consciously, perhaps, but he had constructed a tidy narrative in which Dan's fussiness would be gently ridiculous and the result merely adequate. The excellence of the drink had sabotaged this story. It had required Oliver to revise his assumptions, and he had found this distinctly inconvenient.
But it was more than inconvenience. To admit Dan's method was superior was to cede authority, the authority of knowing how things are properly done. Dan had violated the script. The hot chocolate was delicious, undeniably so, but Oliver could not quite forgive the violation. He must acknowledge the success, for the evidence was warming his hands, but he must also register his original scepticism. The narrative required it.
Thus: reluctant.
How extraordinary, Dan thought, that people wanted outcomes but resented the methods that produced them, if those methods were not their own. Oliver had got his excellent hot chocolate. He simply wished it had not been made that way.
Dan sipped his own drink. It was, as he had known it would be, perfect.
