Page 25 of Best Served Hot

I wrinkled my nose. “He tried out the cheesiest line on me at the bar before you got here. I don’t think he remembered me from the food festival.”

Bennett laughed, taking a sip of his drink. I couldn’t tell exactly what it was, but it was pale brown and in a small square glass, meaning it was probably something fancy. Should I have brought my drink up here, too? I suddenly wished I had something to do with my hands. “He can be a bit of an ass. I know. We were roommates freshman year at Dartmouth, and he was one of the only people I knew when I moved here. Besides Penny, of course. Though she practically pushed me out here tonight.”

Curiosity nibbled. “Why?”

“Why did she push me?” He scratched the back of his neck. Maybe he was sweating, too. He had gone awfully red. “She says I need more friends here to take out dining since most of my friends live elsewhere.” His lips twitched self-consciously. “She was not amused when I said I had her. I think she’s a little wary of going out with me ever since somebody doused us in wine.”

“I hope you told her I apologized for it. And that it was an accident.”

Before he could answer, the announcer interrupted, “Sorry, guys. I’m having trouble finding my files. It’s been so long since I did one of these in this category.” He squinted down at his tablet. “Be right back. I’m going to go see if I can find a printout in my office.”

Bennett sighed as the announcer walked away. “Is it extremely hot up here, or is it just me?”

“If I were Ryan, I’d make some kind of double entendre with that,” I said. “But I’m not. So I won’t.”

Bennett snorted, taking another sip of his drink. “Okay.” His high swoosh of hair was beginning to wilt. Bar noise, chattering and clinking and laughing, swelled around us. “Well, can I go get you something to cool down while we wait? Maybe a glass of wine? This place has surprisingly good—”

“Seriously?” I bristled. Almost like he’d attacked me. It felt kind of like he had, actually. We’d been getting along so well. I’d even thought I might be starting to kind of a little bit like him. And now here he was, back with the wine. “Again with the wine?” I deflated, shaking my head. “Never mind. Let’s just wait for the guy to come back. Quietly.”

I waited for him to smirk, but his face twisted into a storm of confusion. “ ‘Again with the wine’? What are you talking about?”

I glared at him. “You know I hate . . .” I trailed off, because I couldn’t exactly say aloud that I hated wine, even if he already knew. What if somebody overheard? Or what if he told somebody exactly what I said, and they leaked it online? “I don’t like the wines they have here. Or the kind you sent me at Calabaza.”

His mouth gaped, big enough to fit a whole fist in there. “Oh, sorry. I didn’t realize.” He closed his mouth. “I didn’t like that we got off to such a bad start. Penny convinced me to send you something as a peace offering, and I thought a nice glass of wine would be a good way to show you I didn’t want war.”

So . . . he hadn’t overheard me at the food festival. He didn’t realize I didn’t like wine.

Well, now I felt terrible. My shoulders softened from where they were bunched high around my neck. “I didn’t know.”

“Now you do.” He stared down at me. I stared up at him. I swallowed, and it was like all the bar noise quieted down around us and all I could hear was the sound.

“I guess I should apologize,” I said. I expected the words to be harder coming out, more reluctant, but they actually felt . . . good? “I’m sorry I jumped to conclusions like that. Maybe I could”—I scrunched up my forehead, mentally calculating how much I could spend tonight—“buy you a glass of apology wine? Once you’ve finished whatever you’ve got there?”

Bennett took a step back. “Not if it’s going to be that painful.”

It took me a moment to realize what he was talking about. “No, my face isn’t like this because it’s painful! It’s because . . . well . . .” I couldn’t exactly tell someone like Bennett Richard Macalester Wright that a fifteen-dollar glass of wine might very well tip me over the edge into insolvency. “It’s something else,” I finished lamely. “But trust me, nothing to do with you.” I raised an eyebrow. “Maybe we’re both reading too much into what the other says.”

He shrugged. But then he cracked a tiny smile. “Sounds like what you’re really saying is that you care about what I say.”

“Definitely not,” I replied automatically, but . . . well.

He wasn’t wrong.

The announcer chose that moment to come bustling back up, a crumpled packet in his hands. “Sorry it took so long,” he said. “Let’s begin.”

The sudden death tiebreaker round would consist of a series of clues given to us one at a time, all pertaining to a celebrity chef. “Shout out the answer when you know it,” the announcer directed. “The first one to say the correct name—full name, first and last—wins. Is that clear?”

When I nodded, it was at Bennett. And he was nodding at me, too. We were at war again.

Only this time I didn’t hate him. As if he could read my thoughts, his lips quirked in a small smile. I felt my own lips smile back.

“Clue Number One: this chef began as a dishwasher at the famous Chez Dupont,” the announcer said. Chez Dupont had been in Midtown Manhattan before its much heralded closing a few years ago. I’d never been; my chief knowledge of it was that it was extremely fancy and even more extremely expensive. “Within five years, they were running the kitchen.”

Think, Julie, think. Who did I know who had classical French training? I had no idea who this chef might be, but I threw out some names anyway. “Lenore Smith. Geoffrey Zakarian.”

Bennett clearly had the same idea. “Thomas Keller. Tyler Florence.”

The announcer cleared his throat. “Clue Number Two: this chef has been married three times, though they may be most famous for their affair with movie star Naomi Kriss.”