Chapter One #3
“He sounds like an ass.” What he sounded like was a guy with a crush on Miles’ baby sister, and no idea how to go about getting her attention like an adult. Miles wanted to punch him in the face.
“He definitely is,” Gina said, and though she didn’t say it, Miles could hear the hesitation in her tone.
She didn’t think he was an ass at all. And just like that, Miles realized that she probably wouldn’t be his baby sister for much longer.
At least not in her mind. She was eighteen and in college and discovering the world.
“I’ve got to go,” Gina continued, “but don’t think I didn’t notice you changed the subject. We still need to talk about you, big bro.”
“Someday,” Miles said.
“Sooner rather than later,” Gina insisted.
After she hung up, Miles hesitated before unlocking his phone again. Did he even want to look? When he finally did, he grimaced. If the avalanche of notifications yesterday had been daunting, the pile this morning was insurmountable.
He wasn’t sure if it was a good or a bad thing that René had told him he wouldn’t need to be in until four today.
He debated whether he wanted coffee or not—not a real debate, more like whether Miles wanted to pull on pants and stumble into the kitchen—and he’d just about made up his mind that coffee was required if he was going to slog through his phone when there was a knock on the door.
Miles pushed his hair back and grabbed a pair of loose sweats on the floor by the bed. Pulling them on, he opened the door to Kian’s way too bright smile.
It was hard to scowl at all that cheerfulness, but Miles was a pro and managed it just fine.
“I brought you coffee,” Kian said, extending a cup filled to the brim. “Two sugars, dark as sludge.”
Miles eyed his roommate suspiciously. “Why are you being so nice to me?”
“I’m always nice.” This was partly true. Kian was definitely the nicest of his roommates. Xander and Wyatt could be assholes on a good day. But Kian had a sort of apprehensive puppy dog thing going on this morning, and Miles was naturally suspicious, but he wasn’t usually wrong.
“Have you looked at your phone?” Kian asked, sounding way too much like Gina for Miles’ peace of mind. If Kian hadn’t emphatically expressed his preference for the male sex, Miles might have thought about introducing them.
“Sort of.”
Kian shot him a frank look. “Take a closer look,” was all he said. “Last I saw, Martha Stewart retweeted it, and then Snoop Dogg picked it up too.”
Miles’ jaw dropped open. “Snoop Dogg retweeted my video?”
“I mean, have you even watched that cooking show he hosts with Martha?” Kian rambled, as Miles clumsily unlocked his phone after three tries and sat down on the bed, coffee abandoned to the bedside table as he scrolled through some of his notifications.
“I don’t get it,” Miles finally said, looking up and realizing that Kian was still expectantly standing in the doorway. “Most viral stuff has a good hook. This was a video of me . . . baking tarts.”
“But you’ve never showed yourself as much as you did in this one,” Kian pointed out. “And, honestly, you looked pretty cute and intense, hair falling in your face, and I think at one point you might’ve had some raspberry puree smeared across your cheek.”
Miles stared at his friend.
“You did watch it before you posted it, didn’t you?” Kian asked awkwardly. He was so young—okay, not that much younger than Miles, but in your twenties, sometimes three years felt like an eternity—and sort of na?ve. Very na?ve, depending on the moment.
“Technically yes.” Miles thought back to the morning two days ago when he’d gotten approximately three hours of sleep on a marble slab and decided he might not have been entirely coherent enough to do the editing justice.
“But I was a little tired at the time. I probably thought the raspberry puree gave me a sort of rakish charm.”
“It totally did,” Kian said, very loyally.
Kian was much nicer than Xander. Since Xander had yet to give him shit over the puree that must mean he hadn’t seen it yet.
Miles hoped that state continued for a long time, though considering the way the video was spreading, he probably wouldn’t get that lucky.
“So I looked . . . funny?” Miles asked, unable to keep the desperation out of his tone.
“No, no,” Kian corrected quickly. “You just look really intense and cute and driven. It’s a good video, and people like it for the right reasons, I promise. Plus, the tarts look delicious—and they tasted even better, by the way.”
“Okay.” Miles took a deep breath. “Is it totally weird if I didn’t want this to happen?”
Kian’s gaze grew sympathetic. “Uh, no. It’s a lot of scrutiny. I’m not sure Chef Aquino will like it, if I’m being totally honest.”
That was something Miles had not even considered. Chef Aquino was notoriously driven by his gigantic ego. Where Terroir was concerned, he didn’t like anybody else stealing the spotlight. Especially a lowly pastry assistant.
“He seemed okay with it two days ago,” Miles said.
“Miles,” Kian said, “Snoop Dogg retweeted it. He’s probably not okay with it now.”
Miles had difficulty wrapping his head around Chef Aquino even knowing who Snoop Dogg was, never mind caring what he thought of the video, but Kian was almost always right when it came to Chef Aquino.
Chef had handpicked Kian from his culinary school’s graduating class and had taken him on as a special assistant.
From what Miles could figure out, that mostly meant that Kian got to bear the brunt of their overbearing boss.
But no matter how many times Chef yelled at Kian, or generally embarrassed him in front of the rest of the staff, Kian still worshipped him.
Personally, Miles thought there might be a little more than hero worship going on there, but he wasn’t going to open that bag of worms anytime soon.
If Kian was smart, he’d get over it and move on.
If Kian wasn’t smart, he’d eventually get chewed up and spit out by their illustrious leader.
Miles liked Kian a lot, and hoped the kid could keep his head on straight.
“Well, I’ll find out tonight,” Miles said.
“I don’t have to go in ’til four though.
” He already knew what he’d be doing the rest of the day, and even though he knew he should be celebrating his success, all he felt was a mild dread.
He hadn’t set out to become popular or famous, and he wasn’t sure how this video would ultimately impact his fairly simple life. A life he liked because it was simple.
“Drink your coffee,” Kian ordered. “I’ll see you tonight.”
Miles slunk into the staff entrance at Terroir at fifteen minutes to four. He’d drunk three cups of Kian’s excellent coffee, almost fully cleared out his notifications, and had even had a little time to start wrapping his head around what had just happened to him.
With a decent night’s sleep and some high-quality caffeine in him, Miles found he could actually enjoy the really positive comments to the video.
Especially flattering, though bordering on creepy in some moments, were the many people who seemed to want to pick him up.
Men and women both, and Miles realized that he’d never outright stated on his Pastry by Miles page that he was gay.
Oh well, it wasn’t like he was taking anybody up on any of the offers—even the ones that seemed particularly attractive.
And there had been more than a few of those.
His only real concern remained Chef Aquino’s developing reaction to the video’s unexpected success.
Kian hadn’t texted him any red alerts during the afternoon, so Miles could only pray that Chef Aquino was still okay with it.
He was even harboring a secret hope that the popularity of the video had only made Chef more determined to feature the tart as a special dessert.
“Costa,” Chef René barked out as he caught sight of him slinking into the break room to put his bag in his locker.
“Yes, Chef?” Miles asked.
“There’s someone to see you,” he said.
“Chef Aquino?” Miles began to sweat a little under his whites.
Chef René shook his head. “No, someone else. They’re on the terrace, waiting for you.”
Miles definitely was sweating now. Was he going to be fired?
He’d done good work here—nothing innovative, because Chef René wasn’t that kind of chef—but he’d created solid and consistent product.
He’d never even explicitly stated in his videos that he worked at Terroir, though a few commenters had voiced their suspicions that he did when he’d mentioned working at a famous restaurant.
He’d never confirmed anything, but even though there were a lot of top-notch restaurants in Napa, there was only one with Michelin stars, and that was Terroir.
He walked through the empty restaurant, the tables already sparkling with glassware and silver, out the side door, and onto the terrace.
Terroir overlooked some of the vineyards Napa was famous for, and the terrace was one of the most prized dining areas in California—probably in the whole United States.
Trellised ivy and grapevines wound around the brick stonework of the building, and even though the terrace was technically outside, every inch was swept and pristine.
Miles thought Chef Aquino probably even frightened the bugs away.
There was a man on the end of the terrace, sampling a cheese platter, with a glass of sparkling wine at his elbow. He had dark hair, shaved close, and a broad set of muscular shoulders that his white t-shirt only seemed to emphasize. He looked up with dark, intense eyes as Miles approached.