Can't Stand The Heat

by Louisa Edwards

  This cook has four illegitimate kids, that one has been in rehab six times. The servers are all screwing each other in the locker room except the ones who are screwing the cooks in the walk-in cooler.

  Miranda’s eyes went automatically to Jess, joking around with Grant and the others, fencing with the tasting forks, and generally acting like the kid he was. Just looking at Jess, Miranda knew that not everything Rob had told her was the absolute truth. Even if Jess had been unaccountably busy for days, out late and up early, she was sure he wasn’t here at Market messing around with one of the pretty hostesses or that exotic-looking bartender.

  But absolute truth wasn’t the point, she reminded herself. Having a source willing to go on record was enough for a trashy tell-all book like the one she was writing. The very thought turned her stomach again. God, what was she doing?

  The words she’d written every night this week after getting home from her shift at the restaurant burned in her brain in letters two inches high.

  Why not picture them flaming, with red devils and pitchforks cavorting around them? she mocked herself silently, but the shame refused to ease up.

  She hadn’t been lying when she told Adam she’d learned a lot from him. Not all of those lessons centered around the stove. She was beginning to understand and appreciate Adam’s hedonistic love of life, as well. That ability to live so fully and truly that every action, every sensation, was magnified a hundredfold. Miranda had taken many short, exhilarating dips in the incandescent river of energy that poured through Adam, and she thought she could learn to navigate it pretty well, if she had the time. But time was running out. She had a due date looming—her editor wanted the rough draft of the book on Monday.

  Miranda didn’t fool herself that there would be any more lessons in fun and food with Adam once the truth about her book came out. He’d hate her guts, and rightly so. It was why she hadn’t let herself go as far as she wanted to with him. As if keeping her hands off him for the last week would make that damn book forgivable.

  She looked at Jess again. It was all for him, when it came right down to it. She needed money for his tuition. Period. The move into book publishing was something she’d always wanted, sure, but she’d never imagined it being like this. She’d pictured a serious, almost scholarly work of investigative journalism—not the horrible, tacky scandal sheet she’d come up with. Between Rob’s vicious stories and a looming deadline, Miranda had been shocked at how easy it was to slap words onto paper. Or type them into the computer, as the case may be.

  If it were any good, if it had required any sort of thoughtful consideration, it would’ve taken longer to write.

  The question now became, was it worth it? She was in pretty deep, yes. But not over her head. There was still time to get out of it, even if it meant she’d have to sacrifice the advance money she’d been paid on spec. The advance money she’d earmarked for Jess’s future.

  Watching Jess pass his fork to the next server with a sunny smile and an appreciative sidelong look at Frankie, who’d dreamed up this particular dish, Miranda was pretty sure she knew what her brother’s answer to that question would be.

  Since it was Frankie’s show, his special, Adam seemed to have left the gaggle of wait staff to make one of his tours of the kitchen. He did that periodically throughout every service, doling out compliments and critiques in equal measure. She hadn’t heard him raise his voice since that first day, when they’d almost served slimy soup to a customer—until now.

  “Christ Almighty! What is it with you?”

  Every head in the kitchen swiveled to see who was the hapless object of Adam’s aggravated snarl, and Miranda’s heart gave a stressed squeeze when she saw that it was Rob Meeks.

  He’d been giving Miranda see-what-did-I-tell-you looks ever since they hit the kitchen, and she’d passed jumpy about an hour ago. Now, watching her secret source get chewed out, Miranda couldn’t help but shrink back a little. Even knowing that a true journalist would have whipped out her notebook at the first sign of conflict.

  The struggle had to do with her own totally inappropriate and intensely inconvenient feelings for Adam.

  Hard-nosed journalist or not, Miranda defied anyone to withstand days of unfairly adorable banter, sweetly earnest one-on-one cooking lessons, and the onslaught of Adam’s powerful, immensely attractive body, without falling a teensy bit under the guy’s spell. If it was all a con to get her to puff him up in the book, it was a masterful one—but, thinking rationally, Miranda was nearly positive Adam was completely on the level. He wasn’t a terribly complicated man: what you saw was what you got. His overriding characteristic was passion, which could be a lovely, lovely thing to be on the receiving end of. Miranda’s skin tingled just thinking about it.

  Or, depending on the situation, Adam’s passion could explode in a far less pleasant manner, all over the person unlucky enough to have trifled with his search for perfection.

  Poor Rob. Even if she didn’t like him very much—a week of clandestine meetings in sleazy bars hadn’t improved on Miranda’s initial impressions of Rob Meeks as a slippery little suck-up with a gigantic sense of entitlement—she had to cringe at the absolute frenzy of disbelieving fury Adam was whipping himself into at Rob’s expense.

  Over . . . what was it? Miranda attempted to pick up the thread of the tongue-lashing.

  “What is it with you, kid?” Adam was asking. “I mean, seriously, I want to know. What the fuck is it with you that every single day you come here and screw something up?”

  He paused as if waiting for an answer, but when the red-faced Meeks opened his mouth Adam steamrolled right over him.

  “No, I know what it is. I’ve seen it before. You just don’t care. You don’t care if the veg is diced fine and even, you don’t care if the stock simmers long enough, you don’t care if the parsley’s wilted, you don’t care if the leftover roast gets wrapped up and put in the walk-in before it cools down all the way.”

  Adam’s voice rose to thunderous on that last one. For the first time, Meeks looked scared and belligerent instead of just belligerent.

  “Do you have any idea how dangerously unsanitary that is?” Adam asked, dropping his voice to a lethal near-whisper that was no less frightening than the yell. “The bacteria that breeds, the sickness we could spread to our customers if we used that meat?” Adam narrowed his eyes. “Of course you do. You’re an Academy of Culinary Arts student, as you love to remind us all. I know for a fact this gets covered in Basic Principles of Sanitation. So why the hell am I looking at a sheet of plastic wrap around a warm end of veal roast?”

  This time Rob didn’t even bother. He hung his head in silence, his mouth a sullen line.

  Adam shook his head in disgust.

  “Get out.”

  That brought Rob’s head up.

  “What?”

  “You heard me. Get out of my kitchen. And don’t come back, you piece of shit excuse for a cook. I won’t have you slopping around here day after day, dragging down the whole crew with that chip on your shoulder. You’ve never been satisfied with the way we’ve treated you—so fine. Go.”

  Rob’s mouth dropped open, his narrow face blotched with shock. He looked around the kitchen and zeroed in on Miranda as if he wanted her to speak up in his defense.

  Which Adam, of course, noticed. Miranda cursed inwardly and tried to look innocent. Her heart beat out a fast tattoo against her ribs.

  Rob’s imploring of Miranda only seemed to further enrage Adam, who roared, “Get out!” one last time and accompanied it with a quick shake of the hapless extern by the scruff of his neck.

  Gasping and flopping like a landed trout, Rob shook himself free of Adam’s big paw and hurried for the back alley door.

  “Haven’t seen him move that fast in days,” Frankie drawled, and everyone laughed, more out of relief at the broken tension than anything else.

  Adam blew out a breath and shook himself like a dog coming out of the water. “Okay, that’s o
ver. Kick ass at tonight’s service and drinks are on me at Chapel tonight!”

  He’s inviting us all to church?

  The crew cheered long and loud, sounding like a gaggle of pirates straight out of an old Errol Flynn movie. Miranda caught her breath as her heart started to pound out of control.

  Everything was happening so fast! One minute she was agonizing over her use of a cranky employee’s insider info and the next minute that crank was out the door. She hardly knew how to feel. But when Adam caught her gaze and lifted his brows slightly, Miranda couldn’t stop herself from smiling back at him and making the line of his shoulders relax away from the tense set of the last few minutes.

  She supposed that might be her answer, right there.

  Adam made his way back over to the pass as activity in the kitchen spun up into controlled chaos once more.

  “Feel better?” Miranda asked him.

  “Surprisingly, I do, yeah,” Adam responded, laughing and running his hands through his hair. It was all messed up, sort of endearingly bedheadish, and it made Miranda long to smooth it down.

  “You’re not fooling around, are you?” she said, shaking her head. “That poor kid.”

  Adam scrunched up his face. “That poor kid, nothing! He cocked up everything he touched for weeks.”

  Ignoring the exaggeration—Rob Meeks wasn’t a culinary genius, but he wasn’t a total moron, either—Miranda said, “It doesn’t look like he’ll be much missed.” She gestured to the steadily humming kitchen where ex-dishwasher Billy Perez was skimming the top of the stock like he’d been born to it.

  “Meeks never fit in here. I thought it would be okay, since it was just an externship from the ACA, a temporary thing, but no. He had to go. Why?” He peered at her suspiciously. “You gonna miss him?”

  And then it hit her.

  Rob Meeks’s departure from Market was the perfect excuse to cancel the book deal. Her heart beat faster, pulling enough blood from her head to make her dizzy with elation at the thought.

  She didn’t have to do the book. She could throw out the manuscript—so what if it was half done already?—and tell the publisher she was out. She’d lose the advance money, sure, but Jess was happy with his job at Market. He’d mentioned taking a year off school and working full-time to save up. Or Miranda could go back to doing freelance reviews in addition to her job at Délicieux. She’d scrape together collateral and get a loan. They’d make it work.

  Miranda felt lighter than she had in days, as if fate had just handed her a big bunch of helium balloons. She smiled up at Adam, who was still watching her expectantly.

  “I really won’t miss him at all.”

  “Good,” he said, a bit more firmly than Miranda thought the situation warranted.

  Before she could do more than raise a brow, Grant pushed into the kitchen. He spared Miranda a quick hello before dragging Adam into an intense, low-voiced conference a few feet away.

  By this point, Miranda knew better than to be offended. Around four forty-five every evening, as it got closer and closer to the moment when Market’s doors opened, Grant got ratcheted tighter and tighter in the flurry to get everything ready for the night’s service. And she supposed, as restaurant manager, it was understandable he’d be freaking a little right now about Adam’s summary firing of their extern.

  In fact, that’s exactly what Grant was upset about. Miranda wandered closer to get a better listen—just because she was no longer writing the book, it didn’t mean her journalistic instincts were suddenly comatose.

  “You couldn’t have waited until after tonight’s service?” Grant wanted to know. His voice was a tad shrill and Miranda saw Adam’s mouth twitch at the corners as if he were hiding a grin.

  “Sorry, man, but no. He was bringing down the whole kitchen vibe with his attitude.”

  Grant huffed.

  “Fine, but you know this is going to cause problems. The ACA is going to want to send another extern, since we committed to a full semester, and who knows what barrel bottom they’ll be scraping this late in the game.”

  “Worry about tomorrow when it happens,” Adam advised, nodding his head sagely. “We’ve got enough going on today.”

  “Right, like who’s going to take over Rob’s station.”

  “Already covered.” Adam pointed to Billy Perez like a proud papa at Little League. “He’s a champ.”

  Grant did not appear to share Adam’s enthusiasm. “Is that our dishwasher?” he asked through gritted teeth.

  “Yup,” Adam said. “He’s working his way up, just like I did.”

  “That’s a beautiful story, boss, and I’m so pleased we could help Billy’s career, but who the hell is going to wash the dishes tonight!”

  Adam’s eyes widened, then went shifty. He clearly hadn’t considered that yet.

  Miranda stepped in. “May I make a suggestion?”

  “Please do,” Grant moaned, one hand on his forehead.

  Adam appeared highly entertained, but swept a generous hand in front of her as if inviting her to do her worst.

  “First of all, stop panicking,” she told Grant. “If worse comes to worst, I’ll wash the dishes. Second of all, you’ve got resources at your fingertips. Frankie knows every kitchen worker in town. See if he can think of anyone to replace Billy.”

  Adam looked impressed and Miranda felt an instantaneous glow of satisfaction. There was really nothing in the world like solving a problem.

  “Hey, not bad. Thanks, Miranda. Yo, Frankie!”

  “Yeah?” Frankie shouted from his hunched position over the grill as he gathered his nightly mise en place, little bowls of garnishes, marinade, and dry rubs with brushes, and different kinds of infused oils, all arranged precisely to be ready to hand when it came time to assemble his orders.

  “C’mere a minute, we need your expertise.”

  Frankie loped over, wiping his hands on a towel tucked into his pants.

  “Go through your mental Rolodex,” Adam told him. “Who do we know that can pinch-hit some dirties for us tonight?”

  Frankie squinted. “Didn’t Finnigan’s just close on Eighty-third? Should be some blokes looking for work right about now. I’ll make a couple calls.”

  Adam clapped him on the shoulder and gave Grant a look. “See? All taken care of.”

  “Sure, thanks to Miranda,” he replied tartly. “If it were up to you we’d be buried in crusty dishes before the second turn.”

  “Yes,” Adam said, “but the stock would be perfect.”

  Service was a breeze. Okay, fine, more like a gale-force wind, but smoother. And the energy in the kitchen! Adam couldn’t quantify the change, but he felt it. Heard it in the increased communication between cooks as they worked to get their plates up to the pass simultaneously. Tasted it in the silky white-asparagus soup and caramelized fennel jus for the pan-roasted chicken.

  Even Miranda seemed less like a stress case than usual. Not that she was ever annoyingly neurotic or anything. Mostly she was a little tightly wound, in an endearing way.

  But up at the pass with Adam, instead of working stocks and filling in where needed with Rob Meeks, Miranda nearly bubbled over with good cheer. It was moderately distracting.

  Make that maximally distracting, he thought, as she reached across Adam to place a newly sauced and dressed chicken entrée on the waiting tray. Her sweetly rounded upper arm brushed his chest and Adam felt the jolt zing from his nipple straight to his cock. Fucking ridiculous.

  Kinda like the way he probably looked, standing motionless at the pass while both Miranda and the waiter—Christ, it’s her kid brother—waited for him to release the tray.

  What table is this?

  “Table twenty-eight, go,” he pulled out of his ass, and the kid went. So his voice was a little hoarse, who’d notice in all the commotion, right?

  “Are you okay?” Miranda asked, all wide-eyed concern. She even put her dainty little hand on his bicep, which, okay. So not helping the situation with Adam
Jr.

  “Fine,” he croaked. “Ahem. Good job on the plates. You’ve got a real touch for it, they look excellent.”

  Score! Pretty pink suffused her cheeks. “It’s fun,” she said, ducking her head a bit. “It feels artistic, like painting or something. That probably sounds lame to you.”

  “No, no. Not at all. I don’t like to think of myself as an artist—in my experience, chefs who talk about food as art are all douches—but presentation on the plate is highly key. You experience food through all your senses, which is what makes it so powerful. How it looks is your very first sensual contact with it, so it’s gotta look perfect. Enticing. And there’s definitely a kind of artistry to that.”

  “Do you ever worry . . . ?” She paused and pursed her lips.

  “What?” he prompted her, wanting to take advantage of this short, unexpected lull between tables to talk to Miranda as much as possible. Working the pass with her was exhilarating, but not so much with the communication and getting to know each other.

  Something Adam found himself unexpectedly but completely interested in.

  “Well,” she said reluctantly. “You use the word ‘perfect’ quite a bit—doesn’t it ever bother you that perfection is ultimately unattainable? As a goal, it’s not very practical.”

  That’s my little pragmatist, he thought fondly. He knew better than to say it out loud—outside his head, it was sure to sound patronizing.

  “I guess you’re right,” he said instead. “But perfection isn’t really my goal.”

  “No?”

  “Nah.” He grinned at her, aware with his sixth sense, his kitchen sense, that the cooks were about to start running hot vegetables and meat up to the pass for plating.

  “Perfection isn’t the goal—the pursuit of perfection, though.” Adam reached for words, wanting her to understand. “Striving for perfection, to be better all the time, to be flawless; that’s the goal.”