"It's... um...." Maddy probed the little disc with her tongue, flipping it over in her mouth and feeling another burst of the strange, funky flavor hit her tastebuds. "It's kind of strong," she finished weakly, trying to find a way to describe the confection that wouldn't hurt Peter's feelings. "Kind of a strong, um, salty taste. It, uh, it could maybe be sweeter?" Maddy knew she was making the understatement of a lifetime there, but she didn't want to trash Peter's very first effort at making homemade candy. Not when she knew how hard he'd been working at it the last few weeks.
He didn't seem upset, thankfully. A little too intent, perhaps--he kept staring at her with those bright blue eyes of his, his piercing gaze only slightly softened by the tiny smile that quirked at the corners of his thin, sensuous lips. "I didn't want it to be too sweet," he replied, the condescension in his voice just below the threshold of what Maddy felt she could actually call him on. Not for the first time, she wondered if she'd even be friends with Peter if not for the geographical happenstance that left them growing up next door to one another in a neighborhood full of mostly childless couples; the blond-haired young man with the chiseled alabaster jaw had a bad habit of pretending his defensiveness was a purely rational stance, while any criticism Maddy had of his behavior was a foolish emotional response.
Sure enough, he kept going, hammering at her opinion just that little bit more than strictly necessary. "Sweet and salty is all the rage these days," he continued, lecturing her as though they weren't both going to the same culinary school and taking many of the same classes. "It's one of those flavor combinations that naturally balances each other and gives you a little contrast to prevent your tongue from getting too used to the taste. It's a candy for sophisticated adults, not kids who just want to fill their mouths with sugar, you know?"
Maddy smiled, trying hard not to make it seem forced or strained. She knew Peter wouldn't get angry with her if she pushed her arguments too far, at least not deliberately. But he was one of those men who'd never really learned how to understand his own emotions, let alone manage them, and if she hurt his feelings she'd probably be in for days of passive-aggressive sulking that would get on her nerves and make the daily experience of interacting with her roommate strained and frustrating. She'd much rather find ways of expressing her criticism constructively.
"I understand what you're saying," she began, tentatively feeling her way into the topic by finding ways to tuck the negative parts of her opinion between two positives. "And it's certainly got a, a tang to it. Kind of like saltwater taffy. But there's a lot of salty notes that are throwing off the balance, and some... some kind of funky undertastes? It's not to say I don't like it," she continued hurriedly, wanting to make sure she got to the back half of the praise sandwich she was constructing. "It's definitely a sophisticated kind of dessert. It just might wind up being an acquired taste."
The reaction was anything but what she expected. "Oh, you noticed the undertastes?" he said, his smile widening as he looked at her as if trying to peer into her brain and see the flavors she was experiencing. "I thought it might be a while before those came out. Kind of a floral note, right? With a little bit of musk to it? Almost with some of that chlorophyll tang. I had a feeling you might like that part best." Maddy tried not to wince; if anything, that weird, funky residue on her tongue was exactly what she liked the least about Peter's candy, but he was so obviously proud of it. A part of her wanted to just give him some bland, non-committal praise and go to the bathroom so she could spit it out into the sink.
But Peter had told her this was for a class project, and that meant he needed honest feedback before he fed this to an instructor who had absolutely no motive or interest in sparing his feelings. Underneath his slightly prickly exterior, Maddy knew he was really incredibly sensitive--if someone really took a Gordon Ramsey attitude to him, he'd be miserable for weeks. And even though school and its attendant competition had strained their friendship a little these last few years, she didn't want that for him. She had to press on, even if it meant denting his pride just a little.
"I... I mean, they're interesting," she mumbled, giving the candy an experimental suck to really saturate her mouth with the flavors she was trying to describe. "It's just, I think, without the sweetness to really balance it out, it tastes... um, I...." Maddy blushed beet red, suddenly recognizing the exact taste on her tongue and really, really wishing she hadn't. "Um." She gulped, very nearly swallowing the candy in her struggle to avoid letting her obvious embarrassment show any more than it already had. The conversation, awkward enough as it was, would get ten times worse if she was forced to explain to Peter that he'd accidentally made a blowjob bon-bon.
