I choke on my wine. Lark giggles. And that annoying voice in the back of my head, the one who has been insisting for days that I have a crush and who I have been diligently ignoring, perks up like a dog who just heard a treat bag open.Oh good,she says.Someone else noticed. How validating.
"Nothing's going on," I manage, wiping my mouth. "He's been surprisingly helpful and didn't backstab me to my father, which is a low bar but one that most men in my life have failed to clear."
"Mm-hm." Mia takes a slow sip of her pisco sour, her eyes never leaving my face. "But you slept with him, right?"
"What?" It comes out louder than I intend and Alex glances over from the other end of the table, eyebrows raised in question. I plaster on a smile and give him a small wave and he turns back to Jack. I lean in closer to Mia and Lark, dropping my voice. "How would you possibly know that?"
Mia looks absolutely delighted, practically bouncing in her seat. “Because I'm very intuitive. Borderline psychic, actually. I can pick up on sexual tension from a mile away and you two are radiating it like a space heater."
Lark's eyes go wide. "Wait, seriously? You slept with him?"
They're both looking at me with identical expressions of gleeful expectation, leaning so far forward they're practically in my lap, and my resolve—which has survived Jean-Pierre Beaumont and Michelin inspectors and a legitimate kitchen fire in Lyon—crumbles in approximately two seconds.
"Okay, yes," I say, surrendering completely. "But it was a one-time thing. We both agreed."
Mia squeals a bit, and Lark sits back, smiling.
"For what it's worth,” Lark says. “Dating a Midnight man is pretty damn great. And Alex is a good egg."
"I'm more of a casual person myself," Mia says, waving her hand, "but I love love. And flirting. And good sex. Honestly I just support all forms of human connection."
"Well, I'm more of a solo-with-my-vibrator type of person," I say, and they both burst out laughing.
Lark wipes her eyes. "God, I like you."
"The feeling is mutual," I say. Then I make the mistake of glancing down the table at Alex, who's mid-story about something, gesturing with his hands, and Jack is laughing so hard he's nearly choking on his drink.
And there’s a warmth spreading through my chest that has nothing to do with the pisco sours.
But a crush is the enemy of the plan, and the plan is New York and the flagship restaurant and the career I've been building since I was nineteen. A crush on a man who lives in Washington and works for my father is not part ofanyversion of the plan.
But the wine and the warmth of this table are making honesty dangerously easy tonight, and if I'm being honest with myself—which I'm trying very hard not to be—this is the most fun I've had in longer than I want to admit.
It was just a one-time thing, I remind myself.Out of our systems.
The voice in my head snorts. She doesn't believe me. I'm starting not to believe me either.
Just when I think the evening might be dying down, Lark announces that she wants to go see a musician she's been dying to catch live, an indie artist playing at a venue in the Fillmoredistrict. She pulls up the listing on her phone and holds it out to the table, eyes bright.
"He's only in San Francisco tonight," Lark says, looking around the table earnestly. "I will literally not forgive myself if I miss this."
"Done," Jack says, already signaling for the check.
"I'm in," Mia says, grabbing her jacket off the back of her chair. "I don't know who this person is but I trust Lark's taste implicitly and I'm not ready for tonight to be over."
Alex leans toward me, his shoulder brushing mine, and his voice drops lower. "No pressure if you want to head back to the hotel..."
"Let's go," I say, and his face breaks into a grin that does unfortunate things to my heart rate.
I should say no. I should go back to the hotel and sleep because tomorrow is prep day and I haven't had more than five hours of sleep in a week. Responsible Isabelle, the one with the color-coded notebooks and the laminated timeline on her wall, would be appalled at the idea of going to a club at eleven at night when there's a menu to finalize.
Responsible Isabelle can go to hell.
We pay the bill and pile out onto the sidewalk in a laughing, chaotic mass. The fog has come in while we were eating, turning the streetlights into soft halos and putting a chill in the air that cuts right through my blouse. I shiver involuntarily and Alex notices immediately, starting to shrug out of his jacket, but I wave him off before he can finish the gesture because accepting his jacket feels like crossing a line I'm not ready to acknowledge exists.
The venue is tucked on a side street in the Fillmore, the kind of place you'd walk right past if you didn't know it was there. But tonight you'd hear it from half a block away—bass thumping through the walls, the muffled roar of a crowd, warmlight spilling from the door every time someone pushes through.
There's a line snaking down the sidewalk, maybe forty people deep, all of them looking cold and impatient. But Jack says something to the guy at the door, who's built like a linebacker and wearing all black. The guy glances at him, does a visible double take, and waves us through immediately without checking IDs or asking questions.