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Chapter One
Cecily
I admit it. I started this foodie assignment with an attitude.
I roll up to this new eatery with a chip firmly planted on my shoulder about the Michelin-starred chef Milo St. Germaine.
The valet takes the keys to my rattletrap Chevy, and I wince as I remember that about six gas-station coffee cups litter my floorboards. Oops. I wasn’t expecting valet parking.
This repurposed tobacco warehouse now houses St. Germaine’s latest pet project, Urban Fruit, a chic, organic, farm-to-table pilot restaurant. That playboy gourmand must have money to burn.
The hostess seats me at a table by the window and hands me the one-sheet menu. The prices instantly send me diving for my pen and reporter’s spiral notepad.
I scribble in my chicken-scratch: “If St. Germaine expects customers in this town to pay $22 for a smallish breast of a free-range chicken that was hand-fed juicy grubs before being snuggled to death, then in return his customers may expect table linens instead of being forced to endure splinters from reclaimed barn wood. And perhaps they will expect their $15 cocktails to arrive in something that doesn’t resemble a jelly jar.”
Satisfied at my own snark, I set down my pen and sip my lemon water. Sure enough, I dribble some down my front. Damn jelly jars and their threaded tops were not meant for beverages. The food world is out of control.
I know. I’m taking this whole restaurant review assignment a little too seriously. And, okay, I am salivating over the idea of writing something genuinely entertaining about this rock star of the food world.
As editor of the Meadows Community College newspaper in my senior year, I could have assigned this article to a number of different staffers. But if I’d done that? It would be yet another glowing review for the worshiped kitchen deity. Who wants to read a rave?
I’d seen the looks on the faces of all of the other writers on my staff. I knew right away none of them would be able to pen an impartial critique of Urban Fruit or of St. Germaine himself. All of them came down with a severe case of heart-eyes as soon as I posted the assignment on the whiteboard in the newsroom.
So, I took it on myself. Not going to lie; the collective “aw, come ons” from the Milo stans felt pretty awesome. Yeah. I’m that bitch, and I don’t give a fuck. I didn’t spend four years writing about the snooze-fest state board of college trustees just to hand off a fun story to a cub reporter.
I run my hands over the parchment menu and marvel at the audacity of offering three entree choices in a neighborhood teeming with fast food, pizzerias, and mom-and-pop restaurants. On the back of the menu is a sketch of Chef Milo, so beefy and smug in his Nirvana tee-shirt and tattoos and salt-and-pepper scruff. He could have fit at least three more affordable salad choices on the menu if he’d skipped putting his face on there. I mean it; where’s the Cobb salad?
As I wait for the server to bring me my overpriced cocktail, I scan the room.
And there he is, the man himself. Leaning on the bar, cracking jokes with the blonde bombshell bartender, he’s larger than life. Often, television is produced to make celebrities look taller. That is not the case with St. Germaine. He’s even taller and takes up more space in person than I’d imagined. Physical space, but also he’s hogging all the personality with that booming laugh. Save some oxygen for the rest of us, pal.
I continue to stare. Sure, he’s easy to look at. But also, maybe observing him will be relevant to the story, somehow. He must be six foot four inches, at least. He’s slightly heavier than I had imagined, with a black concert tee-shirt stretched over a broad chest and a delightfully soft tummy that just barely protrudes over the top of his belted Levi’s. I can see why he attracts the ladies; he’s got the kind of body that makes a woman get the nibbles. Not me. But women in general. Women who don’t mind being a notch on a bedpost.
The word “bedpost” is benign enough on its own, but when it floats through my brain in the context of staring at Milo St. Germaine, I feel an itch I can’t scratch.
Forget it, Cecily. He’s too old, too experienced, too rich, too everything.
I take long sip of ice water as my eyes rake over the man’s forearms. I have a weakness for sinewy limbs, and I can’t help but stare. That man could bench press me and all four of my sisters plus their dogs, I’ll bet. He could probably lift those bar kegs, one in each hand. Wow.
Not that it matters how hard he works. He’s still a playboy, lapping up attention from women everywhere with that thick dad bod that everyone appreciates these days, loud laugh, more money than god, and the ability to cook.
The bartender has said something funny, and St. Germaine barks a laugh, the kind you can hear a block over. He sounds ridiculous but also kind of sexy in how much he doesn’t care. The bartender must be flirting with him. Who wouldn’t? I can answer that: me. I would never.
I slice into the chicken the second it arrives. I’m starving, h
aving been subsisting on ramen and peanut M&Ms during the ramp-up to college finals. I can’t wait to go home for winter break; I’m going to eat so much good food that the family will have to roll me back to school when my vacation ends in January.
A group of young starstruck customers approaches Milo to ask to pose for selfies. I nibble on my chicken and observe. Of course, he accommodates them with that boyish charm, flashing that brilliant smile and making comments that have everyone in stitches.
Oh brother. And then, I relax my hands; I hadn’t noticed until now that I’d been gripping my fork and knife while watching the selfie moment.
Chill, Cecily. His flirty ways are not part of the story.
I have no intention of letting Milo’s reported romantic escapades affect my review. And yet, I can’t stop thinking about the TMZ clip about the nude sunbathing on his yacht in the South Pacific with a princess. An actual princess. The yacht thing pissed me off more than the nude thing. A modicum of talent in the kitchen has earned him the status of someone who hangs out on yachts with royalty. It rubs me the wrong way. Especially when my educated sister, Cherise, struggles to make ends meet as a kitchen dishwasher.
That thought gives me fodder for the next paragraph of my review. I click my pen as I sip my beverage and continue writing: “Please tell us how a man who never attended culinary school is allowed to charge $27 for locally raised prime rib? Is it because women are expected to do all the real work while men, when they make the slightest effort in the kitchen, are the ones who get undue attention? These are questions that nag at me the longer I am forced to chew through this dry bird.”
That last part is sincere. Because this bird? Is dry.
Still, I’m feeling generous. Milo could earn one star back with the dessert course. But when I see the dessert menu, I scoff immediately. Chocolate cake. Creme brûlée. A summer berry tart. That’s it? Points for keeping it simple, but it better be the best goddamn chocolate cake I’ve ever eaten in my life, at $16 per slice.
I am quickly disappointed when the cake appears. I can tell right away that it’s going to be dry, and there’s not enough chocolate ganache icing.
I’ve been spoiled by my mother and at least two of my supremely talented older sisters, who make desserts from scratch. I mutter under my breath as I scribble out another negative paragraph in my notebook.
And suddenly there appears next to my table a pair of motorcycle boots. Above those boots? Long, thick legs in worn Levi’s.
A man’s deep voice resonates louder than any of the chatter and clatter in the crowded room.
“May I sit down?”
Oh. Shit.
Chapter Two
Milo
