Can't Stand The Heat

by Louisa Edwards

  She looked utterly bewildered for a moment, which was such an adorable look on her that he almost lost the thread of the conversation for a minute before her brow cleared.

  “I get it,” Miranda said, like she’d just unraveled the Fibonacci sequence or something.

  “You do?”

  She nodded. “Perfection isn’t your goal; ceaseless struggle is your goal. Never losing the drive to be perfect is your goal. And taking it all seriously—like you said that first night, it’s always life-or-death to you.”

  Miranda was maybe the most brilliant person Adam had ever known. “That’s it exactly,” he crowed. “I think I’m gonna keep you around to write the Market mission statement and stuff. You put it all into words so much better than I do.”

  “That’s my job.”

  The reminder sobered him and he paused to search her face. Miranda usually sort of seized up when she talked about her work, like it stressed her out even to think about it. Not that she ever liked to discuss personal things. But tonight she mentioned her job with a funny little half-smile that Adam couldn’t read at all.

  He puzzled for a moment, unease filling him. He’d made his peace with the idea that she was writing a book about him, mostly by putting the entire issue out of his mind. But there were moments when he couldn’t ignore that it made him nervous. He’d bared his soul to Miranda lots of times, but there was still so much he didn’t know about her.

  This wasn’t the moment for angsty soul-searching, though. The cooks were swarming the pass and servers were waiting to take plates to their tables, and he didn’t have time to think about anything but getting the food out.

  NINETEEN

  Music throbbed in the thick, smoky air of the underground bar, loud and nasty and utterly exhilarating. Miranda was shocked at herself for finding it all so exciting—but heck, she was pretty shocked at everything she did lately.

  For once, though, for once ever in her life she was going to live in the moment and not second-guess every damn thing. Somehow she suspected this cramped dive bar had seen more than its share of rebellious moment-to-moment-living devotees.

  “Earlier, I thought you said something about going to chapel,” she shouted in Adam’s ear.

  He bent closer so they wouldn’t have to scream the whole conversation. “Chapel,” he clarified. “It’s the name of the bar. We came in the back way, so maybe you couldn’t tell, but we’re actually in the basement of an abandoned church that was turned into an avant-garde theater decades ago.”

  “A theater, huh? We must be at least thirty blocks from Times Square.”

  “Yeah.” Adam laughed. “It’s way Off Off Off Off Broadway. The director’s a real nutbar, has the actors do stuff with bats and glassblowing and feathers onstage.”

  “Really?”

  “It’s not as kinky as it sounds,” he assured her with a grin.

  That smile of his, those deep dimpled creases in his cheeks—Miranda had to firm up her knees. It was ludicrous, she wasn’t some swoony teenager.

  “And I suppose no one here got the memo about New York’s new smoking laws?”

  The bar smelled like . . . well, like a bar. The way they all used to smell before New York outlawed smoking in public places. Miranda didn’t smoke, had never smoked, so it had really surprised her how much she’d missed that tobaccoy taint when out at night. It just didn’t feel like a bar without that haze of blue-gray stinging her eyes.

  Chapel was a serious bar.

  And apparently very well known to the entire kitchen and front-of-house crew, every single one of whom had taken Adam up on his offer of a free round. She’d lost Jess the instant they arrived. She thought he was up near the stage someplace with the other servers and a few of the cooks.

  “Does it look like anyone in here is about to call the cops?” Adam asked, gesturing to the eclectic bunch of patrons propping up the bar.

  “If I were a cop, I’d be scared to come down here,” she shot back.

  “Aw, we’re not that bad,” Adam protested. “This is our place, we don’t let shit get too out of hand. But it’s a true after-hours joint—no one even shows up to unlock the door until around eleven. Isn’t that right, my man?”

  He reached over her shoulder to bump fists with the bartender, a compactly muscled man with shoulder-length brown hair and denim-blue eyes.

  “Miranda, meet Christian Colby, the owner of this fine establishment. Chris, this is Miranda. My new kitchen slave.”

  Christian looked her up and down. “Nice work. And Temple’s right. This place ain’t no tourist attraction; nobody comes here but folks crazy enough to be getting off work right about now. Cooks, actors, reporters, musicians.”

  “Sounds very . . . artsy,” Miranda said.

  The bartender smiled, wide and white against his tanned skin. “ ‘Artsy’? With that racket onstage?”

  He shouted that last loudly enough to be heard over the din of a drum solo that seemed to involve a very excited bald, shirtless man banging away at his cymbals with more enthusiasm than musicality. Frankie was up there, too, she noticed. Playing bass and grinning like a maniac.

  “Brought your whole brigade tonight, huh?” Christian asked casually, his intense blue eyes on the crowd by the stage.

  “Every last one, so be nice,” Adam said.

  “I won’t rile Grant, so long as he doesn’t rile me.”

  Before Miranda could ask what that was all about, the barman changed the subject with a breezy: “So you want a drink, or what?”

  “Gimme something with gin,” Adam said. “The good stuff. And Miranda likes . . . actually, I don’t know. What’s your drink, sweetheart?”

  “Don’t call me sweetheart,” she said automatically. “And what sort of drink do you recommend?” She surveyed the back of the bar, haphazardly piled with an astonishing assortment of liquors.

  “My boy Christian, here, is a master mixologist,” said Adam. “Any cocktail you can think of, he can make. And probably tell you the history of it, too.”

  “Then I’ll let him surprise me.”

  “How about I give you what Adam’s getting, then? My own creation, called a Ginger Lemonade.”

  “That sounds perfect,” Miranda said. “Thanks.” She reached for her purse, but Adam stayed her hand.

  “Nuh-uh. Tonight’s on me, remember?”

  “For the crew,” Miranda argued, shaking her wallet at him.

  “You’re part of the crew,” Adam said, and the world around Miranda seemed to stop.

  That cemented it. There was no way she could publish that book now. She’d gotten too close, lost all objectivity. Maybe it was weak of her, maybe it meant she’d never be a serious journalist, but the relief that flooded her system when she thought of backing out of her publishing contract convinced her it was the right decision.

  Adam glanced over and gave her that long, slow smile, the one that lit him from within. Miranda smiled back with no guilty secrets pressing on her heart. It felt so damned good.

  While Christian mixed, stirred, shook, and strained, Adam squinted down the bar, checking out the other patrons.

  “I think I’ve worked with at least half the guys in here.”

  “Cooking is a very incestuous business,” Miranda observed.

  Adam whistled low and pointed to the far corner of the bar where a man sat hunched and alone.

  “Speaking of guys I’ve worked with,” he said. “Yo, Dev!”

  Miranda felt a chill tighten the hair at the nape of her neck. Crap, if this was who she thought it was . . .

  With a sense of inevitability, Miranda watched as megastar superchef Devon Sparks raised his head.

  He looked strained and exhausted as he scanned the bar, but when his eyes lit on Adam, and Miranda next to him, one sardonic eyebrow rose almost to his hairline. He stood up and Miranda clenched her teeth against a reflexive Oh, shit.

  Devon sauntered over, a vision of movie-star handsomeness with his artfully tousled mink-brown
hair, ice-blue eyes, and overly articulated bone structure. The collar of his black sport coat was turned up, as if against a cold gusting wind, giving his already dramatic visage a boost of gothic mystery.

  “What have we here?” he asked in that smooth, TV-perfect voice. “Two of my favorite people having a cozy little drink in the best bar in town.”

  “You ready for another, Dev?” Christian asked, sliding Adam’s and Miranda’s drinks across the bar.

  “I’ll have whatever they’re drinking,” Devon said without taking his eyes off Miranda.

  There was nothing objectionable in any of his comments or even his manner, but somehow the entire interaction reeked of Devon Sparks’s contempt for Miranda and everything she stood for.

  “Chef Sparks,” she said, keeping it as cordial as possible. “I’d never have expected you to frequent a place like this.”

  “Oh, Devon’s an old regular at Chapel,” Adam said easily. Was he oblivious to the undercurrents of tension throbbing between his ex-boss and Miranda?

  “Yes. And I still enjoy slumming occasionally.” Devon’s lip curled slightly and Miranda revised her opinion of him from Overrated Asshole Chef to just plain Asshole.

  “Fuck you.” Adam chuckled. “You can’t go a week without this place. We remind you where you came from.”

  “Yeah, before you got all high and mighty,” Christian put in, handing Devon a Ginger Lemonade.

  In all the tension, Miranda had neglected to taste her cocktail and the glass was starting to get slippery with condensation. She took a sip and nearly gasped as concentrated spicy ginger burst over her tongue. The sweet, hot ginger and the cool, tart lemon contrasted beautifully with the subtly herbal flavor of the gin, and Miranda knew she was going to have to watch out.

  She couldn’t afford a repeat of the rose-berry-vodka incident.

  “This is a winner, man,” Adam was saying to Christian. “Perfect for summer. I could drink these all damn night.”

  Devon’s attention was still riveted on Miranda.

  “I so enjoyed your review of Appetite Vegas,” he said silkily. “You have quite a way with words.”

  “Thank you,” she replied. It was usually better not to engage. Sometimes the incensed chef got bored if she didn’t provide any opposition.

  “The part where you called the restaurant . . . what was it? Oh, yes. ‘A romper room of highbrow hackery.’ That was simply inspired. My publicist particularly enjoyed the passage that described me as a past-his-prime heartthrob with pretensions of culinary mastery, only interested in catering to the rich and tasteless.”

  Miranda pressed her lips together. “Yes, Simon Woolf called the magazine to express his displeasure. I’m sorry if you didn’t like the review, but I gave my honest opinion.”

  “Honest,” Devon scoffed. “Who gives a shit about your honest opinion? Certainly not your readers. All they care about is that you reliably skewer any chef who dares to make a success of himself.”

  She shrugged. What could she say? It was no more than the truth, something that she’d thought herself many times in moments of discouragement. Still, it wasn’t pleasant to hear it out loud, hurled as an accusation by that too-perfect, multimillion-dollar mouth.

  “It’s not my fault your ‘successful’ restaurants have lost the integrity they started out with.”

  “And it’s not my fault you make your living by exposing your bitterness to the world. You need to get laid.”

  Adam tuned back into the conversation just in time to catch that last salvo. The deep brown gaze flashed dark and angry for a moment, but Adam was the picture of calm and casual as he looped a friendly arm around Miranda’s neck.

  “Now, kiddies, play nice. Or I’m going to have to separate you.”

  “Don’t bother,” Devon sneered, slamming his untouched cocktail down on the bar. “I’m leaving. It’s a little too crowded in here tonight for me.” Pinpointing Adam with a narrow glare, he tossed out, “And don’t come sobbing to me when this one plays you for the idiot you are. I know all about your little bet, and trust me, brother, Miranda Wake will screw you as soon as look at you.”

  “But not in the fun way. Is that what you’re saying?”

  Miranda felt Adam’s tension in the rigidity of his arm across her shoulders. She wanted to jump in and tell them both off for talking about her as if she weren’t in the room, but part of her was too busy reveling in the feeling of leaning into Adam’s solid strength and letting him stand up for her. It was a novel experience. Not one she thought she could ever truly grow accustomed to, but it was fun for a change.

  Devon snorted and turned on his heel. He strode out of the bar without a backward glance, leaving poor Christian shaking his head and mopping up the Ginger Lemonade that had sloshed from Devon’s glass.

  “Thanks,” Miranda said. “I could’ve handled him on my own, but it was nice not to have to.”

  “Anytime, sweetheart,” he replied with a lazy sideways smile. “Devon’s not a bad guy at heart but he can get kind of intense. And you really did a number on Sparks Las Vegas. Yowza.”

  “It was appalling,” she protested, feeling defensive all over again. “The food was bad, the service was worse, and the whole restaurant was decorated like Ivana Trump’s boudoir.”

  Adam snickered. “I’m not sure why he cares so much, anyway. It’s not like he cooked the food. He hasn’t run one of his own kitchens in years.” He shuddered theatrically. “I could never live like that.”

  He still hadn’t removed his arm and Miranda found herself trusting more of her weight to him with every second that passed. The ginger cocktail was filling her with a warm, sleepy contentment despite the eardrum-piercing old-school punk music thrashing down from the stage across the room. It was as if Adam and Miranda were in their own world, a protected bubble that shielded them from harsh reality.

  Until reality burst that bubble with a final clash of cymbals followed by a shrill note of microphone feedback.

  Frankie’s rough Cockney accent filled the room.

  “I don’t know about you lot, but I think it’s time for a change of pace. Adam, mate, you up for it?”

  The crowd right in front of the stage, which was made up mostly of Adam’s crew, sent up a huge cheer.

  Miranda blinked up at Adam and started to smile.

  “You?”

  He cringed playfully. “Yeah. Not real seriously or anything, but yeah.” He raised his voice to be heard over the catcalling brigade. “Not tonight, guys.”

  A chorus of jeers and taunts rang out as Miranda turned under Adam’s arm.

  “Why on earth not tonight? I’d pay good money to see you up on that stage.”

  “That sounds like another dare. What, you think I’ll suck? I’ll have you know, lady, that I played Curly in Stuyvesant High’s production of Oklahoma!, with full-on guitar during that square-dance scene.”

  Miranda giggled before she could stop herself. “Oh, I can so picture you in overalls and a cowboy hat, with maybe a piece of straw sticking out of your mouth. You’re the citiest city boy who ever lived.”

  “Don’t knock the overalls, lady,” Adam mock-growled before becoming marginally more serious. He actually ducked his head a bit and it suddenly made him look so vulnerable that Miranda’s smile faded.

  “So you want to hear me sing? I promise not to pull an Ozzy and bite the head off a bat or anything,” he said.

  Something about the way he was so obviously uncertain but trying to brazen his way through it made Miranda melt.

  “Come on, Curly,” she said, reaching up to run her fingers once through his wavy dark hair. “Play me something nice.”

  His smile down at her was just-finished-the-Sunday-Times-crossword big. She got lost in it for a moment, the nearness of him, the weight of his arm still holding her close, and the room did that thing where it faded away, leaving just the two of them. So when he dipped his head to take her mouth, Miranda wasn’t thinking about the other people in the bar, the
kitchen crew, her brother, or anyone else who might be watching.

  All she could think was, Yes. Now. More.

  The kiss was hard and fast, slanting pressure of lips and stubble-rough chin against hers. Adam’s tongue stroked rough and sweet into her mouth, and Miranda opened herself up to it helplessly.

  A series of wolf whistles finally penetrated the cloud of lust around her head, and Miranda felt the heat rise to her cheeks as she pushed Adam away and settled back on her barstool. She couldn’t stop smiling, though, and when he threw her one last jubilant grin over his shoulder before vaulting up onto the stage, her heart expanded inside her chest until it seemed to press against the walls of her rib cage.

  The band members left the stage to Adam, and Miranda couldn’t help noticing that it was Jess who held up a hand to steady Frankie’s jump down. There was something there that made her uncomfortable, but she kept dismissing it. After years of being told by Jess that she was a paranoid worrywart, perhaps it was finally starting to sink in. And her new campaign to let Jess grow up and be independent wasn’t really helped by obsessive worrying over and analysis of every person who befriended him.

  Still, she noticed when Jess immediately engaged Frankie in animated conversation, pulling him away from the brightly lit stage and into the shadows beyond.

  Before she could get too involved in wondering about that, she was distracted by Adam’s low, husky voice amplified by the microphone.

  “I’m going to play a little song for you guys,” he said, looping the strap of an acoustic guitar over his head. The strap brushed through his hair, disordering the curls crazily, and Miranda imagined she could hear the increased heart rate from every woman in the bar. He just looked so damn sexy.

  Adam’s warm brown eyes caught hers across the room. Miranda felt the force of his gaze like a physical caress; it made her back arch slightly against the mahogany edge of the bar, her breath coming slow and deep.

  “This is for Miranda,” Adam said.

  He started to play. And as Miranda recognized the opening chords to a song she’d heard before, she experienced a weird moment of perfect alignment between life and art. Adam’s voice roughed over the familiar lyrics to the Buzzcocks’ biggest hit and Miranda felt every word resonate right down to her bones.