every day when I walked into the club after work, if Miles was at the piano, he’d stop whatever he was doing and play “She Don’t Know She’s Beautiful.” It was clearly for me, and I decided to hear them all that way, as if each song contained the words he meant to say to me.
“You excited?” I asked Chloe when she walked into our living room two days later. Tonight was the first chef showcase.
“Low-key excited,” she said. “I do this a lot, so...”
“But how many times do you get to influence which chef a restaurant will hire?”
“I’m one of a bunch of votes tonight, Ellie. It’s not like they know I’m the Kitchen Saint. I’m sure Dylan’s opinion will count more.”
Miss Mary and Mr. Douglas were still off “gallivanting,” as she liked to hashtag her pictures, but Jerome had agreed to come. With Dylan, Chloe, Jordan and his wife, plus Aaron—unfortunately—there was a good-sized crew with trained New Orleans tastebuds.
“If only they did know,” I said. “Then your opinion would be the only one that mattered.”
“I would hate that,” she said, leading the way out of the apartment. “I value my anonymity like you value...”
“My what?”
“I’m trying to think of something you love as much as I love keeping my identity a secret.” I followed her down the stairs, and at the bottom, she announced, “Miles.”
“Miles what?”
“I love keeping my identity secret as much as you love Miles.”
“I don’t—”
But she held up her hand to cut off my half-hearted denial. “Don’t even try it. I won’t believe you. Now let’s get our grub on.”
We went in through the main entrance to give the auditioning chef her space. Everyone but Dylan was there. Tanya, the no-nonsense middle-aged restaurant manager they’d hired, had set up two tables for dining.
“This looks so good,” I said to Miles when he came to hug me. “I can’t believe how good it all looks together.” Tanya had used the linens and settings they’d be using for real when they opened for business.
“It does, doesn’t it?” He ran his eyes over everything. “I think this is going to work.”
“You better hope so,” Aaron said, passing us to get to his seat.
I shot Miles a questioning look, but he just shook his head. “I think we’re starting with apps,” he said.
“That means appetizers and aperitifs,” Jordan added. “Let’s get this started.”
I was about to text Dylan when he walked in. “Hey,” he said. Normally, he walked in with a touch of swagger, but tonight his shoulders were stiff.
“Everything okay?” I asked.
“Yeah, fine. Just some friction at work.”
I could almost see Chloe’s story antennae go up. “Trouble at Redbird?” she asked.
“It’s nothing,” he mumbled. “Did someone mention drinks?”
“Coming up,” I told him, leading him over to our table. Tanya had arranged the tables for two separate dinner groupings, but they were close enough that we could talk back and forth easily. “Before we start, I wanted to tell you—”
But before I could give him a heads up that Miles and I were dating now, Miles slid an arm around me and held his hand out to Dylan for a shake. “Good to see you, man.”
Dylan’s eyebrow went up, and he returned Miles’s handshake. “So you’re with my sister now?”
Miles looked down at me. “You didn’t tell him?”
“I was about to.”
“You don’t tell me a lot of stuff,” Dylan said, his face losing some of its animation again.
I had no idea what he was talking about. I loved my brother, but we weren’t close. It wasn’t like I knew what was going on in his dating life in any given week. “Did I do something wrong?” I asked, trying to figure out his weird mood.
“Nothing. It’s fine. Forget it. Which one is my seat?”
Miles pulled out my chair and waved Dylan into the one across from me. Miles sat next to me with Chloe across from him.
“Hey, Clo,” Dylan said, sounding a tiny bit less grumpy.
We settled into small talk until Tanya emerged from the kitchen to announce that dinner service would begin. “Tonight, we’re eating from Chef Le’s take on refined classics. We begin with a shrimp starter.”
The servers brought us small plates, each with a gorgeous piece of Gulf shrimp in Cajun pesto resting on a triangle of toast.
“Points for the plating,” Chloe said. Dylan nodded.
It proved to taste good too. So did every other dish she sent out. After the two dessert tastings—a coffee crème brulee and a torta ricotta—Tanya brought Chef Le Anh out