Chapter One #2
“Yes, Chef,” Miles answered respectfully, but didn’t glance up from his work.
“Good,” René said, and then lingered in front of his station, which made Miles nervous. René lingering didn’t usually mean good things; it usually meant a great deal of unexpected work, and Miles was already tired.
“Your new video,” René said, and Miles couldn’t help but tense. René knew about the videos but he’d never imagined René might watch one.
He’d had to tell René, and René’s boss, Chef Aquino, what he was doing with Pastry by Miles, because he figured it was better to beg permission now than to be fired later.
Chef Aquino hadn’t cared, because it wasn’t about him, and René had only insisted that the desserts he created be Miles’ ideas and Miles’ ideas alone.
That was perfectly fine by him, because the site had originally been created because he’d been creatively stymied at work, so he had zero intention of ever posting a white chocolate lemon mousse pyramid to Pastry by Miles.
“Yes, Chef?” Miles said, glancing up when René didn’t spit it out right away. His dark beady eyes seemed to grow even beadier. Or maybe Miles had just been up three quarters of the night baking. It was hard to say exactly.
“It was good.” René’s voice was gruff, like he could barely bring himself to say anything positive. “An innovative concept.”
So much of his job was biting his tongue, and Miles kept right on biting it. “Thank you.”
“I might mention to Chef Aquino that we could use it as a special next weekend.”
Miles had to tamp down his excitement so it wouldn’t show. It wouldn’t be a surprise to see Chef taking some poor sous apart for not cooking the scallops to perfection, but celebrating in the Terroir kitchen? Out of the question.
“That would be good,” Miles said, and because he was too tired not to, took a risk. “I didn’t even realize you watched the videos, sir.”
René had turned to move on, but looked back at Miles’ question. “I don’t,” he said. “Chef Aquino recommended I watch it. Apparently he really enjoyed it. He said he was seeing it all over his Twitter feed.”
Miles couldn’t hold back his smile at that.
He might not enjoy the reign of Chef René but he very much respected Chef Aquino.
And all over Chef’s Twitter feed? He knew his videos were popular, but he’d never heard of them spreading that quickly before.
He wished he could put his pastry bag down and look at his phone, but he still had a good hour left and these pyramids needed to chill before the dinner service started.
He’d check his phone on his break.
When he finally finished the white chocolate lemon mousse pyramids, and they were nestled in the blast chiller, the crick in his neck was much worse than it had been that morning.
Trying to stretch it out, he detoured into the tiny locker room next to the dishwashers.
Grabbing his phone out of his locker, he was floored by how many notifications he had—and he’d anticipated having a ton.
Chef Aquino hearing about his video and seeing it on his timeline had been a pretty good hint that his video had gone viral. The avalanche of notifications he was trying to sort through proved it.
After fifteen minutes, Miles felt overwhelmed and for the first time ever, he was relieved his break was over. It felt like he’d barely touched the growing mountain of comments and shares and likes.
He couldn’t put his finger on why the sudden flash of white hot popularity bothered him, but as he was dusting the mousse pyramids with edible gold, it hit him.
Pastry by Miles had never been about becoming popular.
It had been an expression of his creative side that had been stifled at Terroir—a necessary outlet that he paid attention to in fits and starts.
He didn’t post videos weekly, or even regularly, but he must have hit a nerve because each video he posted seemed to exponentially increase his social media reach.
It was, Miles decided, a serendipitous symptom of something he enjoyed doing. He’d still record the videos if nobody but his little sister watched them.
“Costa,” a voice bellowed across the kitchen. Miles glanced up and tensed. It was Xander, his short brown hair covered by a bandana festooned with chili peppers, and he had his phone in his hand.
“What do you want?” he asked shortly, and far more quietly than Xander. It was just like Xander to believe that even in another chef’s kitchen—even in Chef Aquino’s kitchen—he could do whatever the fuck he wanted.
Sometimes Xander pushed his buttons, and all Miles wanted to do was push them back. But Miles always remembered he was a roommate and a friend, and even worse a co-worker, before he punched Xander in the face.
“You didn’t tell me you were famous,” he said, coming to stand over by the tray of pyramids. Miles set his brush on the lid of the gold dust with a steady hand.
“I’m not famous,” Miles said, even though the notifications blowing up his phone might argue otherwise.
“I don’t know,” Xander said skeptically, “when my aunt in New Jersey texts me to say she thinks our kitchen is a pit, I sorta feel like you are.”
Miles stared at his friend. “You don’t have an aunt in New Jersey.”
“But I could,” Xander said blithely.
“You’re an asshole,” Miles said, scowling as he picked his brush back up. “Now go away, I have to finish these. Don’t you have about a thousand artichokes to break down?”
“Roughly two thousand,” Xander announced cheerfully.
Miles shook his head in disbelief. Not at the artichokes—that didn’t surprise him at all because Chef Aquino was a famous perfectionist and a closet sadist—but at how happy Xander seemed to be about them.
“Did you have sex?” Miles demanded quietly. “Is that what this obnoxious cheerfulness is about?”
Xander just laughed. “You look tired. You should get some sleep, Costa.” He sauntered away without ever answering Miles’ question.
“You shouldn’t let him get to you,” Kian said. Kian was Miles’ third roommate—Napa was insanely expensive and the only way Miles could afford a halfway decent kitchen with halfway decent light was to split the rent four ways.
“Easy for you to say,” Miles retorted.
“I had a tart. Actually two,” Kian confessed. “They were awesome.”
Miles had a soft spot for Kian. He reminded him a lot of his little sister, Gina.
Except that Kian was male and tough as nails because he was the bottom of the food chain in Terroir’s kitchen.
Miles had no idea how Kian even survived the diabolical tasks Chef Aquino put on his plate.
Miles usually thought women were usually way tougher than men, but what Kian put up with put Gina to shame regularly. And Gina was a freshman in college.
“Thank you,” Miles acknowledged. Kian was way more respectful than Xander, and had kept his distance so Miles could pick his brush up and get back to his careful, artful dusting of the pyramids.
Chef René might not make crazily innovative desserts, but he was a stickler for presentation.
Every single one of his desserts was a work of art.
“Xander’s just jealous, you know. He has a secret, desperate yearning to be famous.”
“It’s not so secret,” Miles said darkly. “In fact, it’s hard to miss.”
Kian burst out laughing. “True.”
“You’re too nice to him.”
“I’m too nice to everyone,” Kian said, which was also true. “I’ll leave you alone to your geometric wonders.”
When Miles finally finished the dinner service, he had gold dust under his fingernails and a shit ton of sleepy grit in his eyes. He tossed his bike into the back of Kian’s little hatchback, and barely remembered his head hitting the pillow.
His phone blared shrilly, interrupting Miles’ deep dreamless sleep.
His hand shot out of the covers and grabbed what he thought might be the shape of his phone. Not bothering to look at the screen, he blindly pressed the answer button.
“What,” he barked. It better not be Xander, waking him up to go for a jog. Or Kian, trying to be cute and failing.
“You’re famous!” his little sister Gina sang into the speaker, sounding even brighter than she normally did.
Miles groaned and fell back to his pillow. “What time is it?”
“I waited until nine, at least,” Gina said. “I’ve got a class in five, I just wanted to tell you that you’re famous, in case you missed it somehow.”
“You’d be surprised,” Miles told her wryly, because he’d pulled an extra-long shift and then fallen asleep. He hadn’t exactly had time in the last twenty-four hours to wrap his head around his sudden, inexplicable fame.
“What class?” he asked before she could tell him the breadth of what he’d neglected by choosing sleep. He didn’t get a lot of time to talk to Gina since she’d started at Cal in the fall, and he’d missed their chats.
“Philosophy 101,” Gina said, and he could hear her eye roll.
“Not enjoying it?” he asked. He’d chosen to go to culinary school instead of college, and it had absolutely been the right choice for him, but he was thrilled at the brave step Gina was taking.
She was one of his favorite people—smart and funny and bright as the sun—and she was the first of his family to go to college.
He couldn’t think of anyone better suited to fight for what she deserved.
“Oh, it’s plenty dumb at points,” Gina said. “Like whether we’re actually not here, but figments of someone’s imagination. Of course we’re actually here. It’s just . . .”
Miles heard her pause, and he was still wiping the sleepy cobwebs from his brain so it took him a long second to catch up to why she was hesitating. “What is it?” he finally asked. “What happened?” He was still, and would always be, a big brother.
“There’s this guy,” she said, frustration evident in her voice. “He argues with everything I say. I’m not sure he even agrees with what he’s saying, but it doesn’t seem to matter.”