So right after Gilpatrick dropped his bomb about Achilles apparently having been a functionally static entity for ten thousand years, Denise arrived with our food.

Two big burgers, a brisket melt, a bowl with a thick yellowy-brown cheesy crust sealing whatever lurked beneath into the bowl, a basket practically overflowing with onion rings, plus four different ramekins full of sauce; one with some kind of orange horseradish smelling sauce for the onion rings, another of marinara, one that looked like beef, and one of cheese.

"Do these normally come with this stuff?"

Denise shook her head, grinning like an idiot while she deadpanned, "oh, absolutely." I must have looked a little guilty, because she leaned over toward us and whispered, "don't worry about it, guys. there's some stuff we sell so much of the owner has us break it out of the freezer at the start of the day, and some of it doesn't really re-freeze well. So Carlos and I may have maybe messed up a tiny little bit on purpose, but we can't eat all of it, and it'll just wind up in the trash if we don't."

I couldn't help but ask, "does the owner let you guys have the leftovers?"

She shrugged. "We each get one free meal per six hours we work in a day. He's never really looked real close at what we put in that 'meal'. If it's stuff going in the trash anyway, I figure he's less likely to get pissed if he ever does start going over the books real close."

"Sounds like a decent guy for a suit," said Gilpatrick.

She tilted her head, held out a hand and waggled it back and forth. "He's not corporate or anything, just some guy with enough money to buy this franchise, then sit at home and let us make him money. I've only met him in person twice. Other than that? I just talk to him over the phone once in a while. Half the time when he's calling to have us Uber some food over to him."

"Fair enough. I've worked for worse." That said, Gilpatrick slid the cheese-domed bowl over in front of him a tiny bit at a time by tapping it with his fingertips, making little 'hot, hot, hot' noises while he did. Once he had it in position, he poked a hole in the crust with his fork, and while Denise and I watched, speared up some of the macaroni, made sure to scoop up some of the clearly molten cheese and get some of that cheesy brûlée crust on top, then blew on it a couple times before putting it in his mouth. I swore right there that if the man's O face was any more intense than his mac and cheese bliss face? It ought to be registered as some kind of mind control power. I'm not even that into mac and cheese and I wanted some of whatever he was having.

That's right about when he said, "oh. Oh, Nelson. You have absolutely got to try this." He pointed at my fork with his, but then went straight back to knocking off another bit of that crust and scooping up more cheesy pasta. I figured if he wanted me to try it that much, I might as well, so I grabbed my fork, leaned over, and imitated the way he'd scooped up a little bit of each layer into one forkful. While I blew on mine to avoid terminal hot pizza cheese mouth, he scooped up a third bite, cramming it into his mouth in utter, joyous gustatory bliss. "Don' leh geh col!" he admonished, his mouth mostly full of mac and cheese. He wasn't just cramming it in and swallowing, he had like two forkfuls in his mouth, clearly savoring them, working them from cheek to cheek. He swallowed, looked up at Denise and said, "has he ever made this for you?" When she smirked, he said, "I absolutely have to meet the man who made this. Seriously, anybody who could make this is kinda wasted as a franchise line cook. Seriously."

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Denise leaned in and whispered, "I think he's working on his own recipes and saving up for a food truck, but don't tell him I told you, okay hon?"

"My lips are sealed. Otherwise some of this mac might get out."

Right about then I braved putting the still steaming forkful into my mouth, and after a moment spent wincing as my mouth adjusted to the heat, the flavors hit me. Cheese, but not the harsh over-sweetened cheddar powder that was all I could usually afford. This wasn't even the simple diner mac and cheese you'd expect at a place like this, or even, like, good home made mac and cheese where somebody had gone to the trouble of shredding up two or three kinds of cheddar and turning it into real cheese sauce on the stove before baking it with the pasta. This was the kind of thing where if Carlos came out and he wasn't an overweight grandma of eight, or more likely a wizened old crone with mystical mac and cheese powers, my tongue would rebel and march off on a crusade to fix whatever oddity put god tier mac and cheese ability into some dude named Carlos.

Yeah, cheddar was in there. Something softer and milder, too. Provolone, mozzarella, maybe something just a little smokier like muenster? Had to be some kind of cream in the sauce too, it had too much weight, too much richness for milk. Out of reflex I chewed at it, and the textures. Lord, the textures hit just as hard as the tastes. The pasta had just enough firmness to hold the whole thing together. The sauce wasn't just one smooth texture, either. All of it was smooth, mind you, somehow Carlos had managed to blend a smooth sauce not unlike well made box mac and cheese, which wove it's way around another deeper, richer, thicker cheese sauce that felt like a thick bisque, and an actual cheese mixture that at one moment had the mouth feel of super-cheesy pasta, the next was a deeper, thicker version of that bisque; like some kind of a warm version of soft serve. Finally, that crust across the top managed to hit the initial crunch of the crust of a really good baguette, followed by the chew of the interior of one, all while still somehow remaining distinctly cheesy.

The textures were a delight in and of themselves, but the flavors. Oh, the flavors. Not just cheese, but something else savory, salty, maybe even a little spicy backing all those up, doing exactly what harmony flavors were supposed to, hinting at themselves while calling out the main flavors, the cheeses and, amazingly, the pasta. I mean, anybody who has ever had to survive on plain pasta knows it's got some flavor, and that you can maybe add a little more with judicious salt and olive oil in the boiling water, but this? Oh, god on high whatever he'd put into this stuff brought out both the eggy savor and the floury sweetness in the pasta. Not, like, sugary sweet, but the sweet of a really well made bread.

I almost regretted swallowing that bite, but then the after taste hit. Something cheesy. Something sweet. Something smoky. Meat? I hadn't really tasted any meat, and nothing I'd chewed felt like meat, but the savor hit like an undertow, drawing me back into it. I just closed my eyes until the flavors died down until I could vaguely think straight. I reached for my water, but Gilpatrick intercepted my hand with his iced tea. "Trust me."

Screw it, he's the one that ordered that little bowl of nirvana, I'd trust him on what to wash it down with. The bitterness of the tea hit just right, too, giving me one last flashback of everything. I handed him his tea back. "Thanks." I looked up at Denise. "Is Carlos straight?"

She shook her head and smiled. "Sorry, hon, but as far as I know, yeah. Though honestly I think he's too into his cooking to really look too hard in either direction, if you take my drift."

"Damn. I really hope he won't take it the wrong way when I ask him to marry me. Even if he is a eighty year old Black great gramma badly disguised as a young Hispanic dude. That is some god-tier Mac and Cheese."

Gilpatrick, sucking in air to cool the molten cheese he'd crammed into his mouth, hooted out, "Ah noo, rah?" then went back to eating.

Right about then my phone rang. I glanced down and recognized the number. I guess I wouldn't get a chance to seduce the local culinary god over to my side of the fence, because given Gilpatrick's obvious distaste for Achilles, I figured I ought not take the call from him while sitting at Gilpatrick's table.