Page 26 of Best Served Hot

“Bobby Flay,” I called.

The announcer shook his head. Bennett tried, “Daniel Boulud?”

“Daniel Boulud is French, like from France,” I said. “Why would he have gotten his start at a restaurant in New York?”

Bennett shrugged sheepishly. “Because he really loved Broadway?”

The announcer didn’t even dignify that with a response. “Clue Number Three: this chef’s signature dish is a crepe filled with—”

“John Waterford!” Bennett and I shouted at the same time. We caught each other’s eye and, for the first time, I grinned free, with abandon. Almost forgetting that we were in competition, I raised my hand for a high five. He raised his to me, too, but it was the one with the drink. Something I didn’t fully register until my own hand was hitting it.

“Sorry!” I yelped before the drink had even spilled. Which it did: all over him. The jump he made when the liquid hit his shirt didn’t help matters, either. What was left of the drink sloshed over the rim and drenched his button-down, turning the green and yellow into olive and mustard. “Sorry, sorry!”

Bennett cracked a smile. “You didn’t have to attack me just because I said it first.”

“One, I didn’t attack you, and two, I definitely said it first,” I said, but I did feel bad. He was totally soaked and now stank of whatever strong alcohol had been in that glass. Bourbon? Whiskey? I had no idea.

The announcer disagreed with me, sadly. “I heard the gentleman start a split second first, so I’m going to give this one to Very Stable Geniuses,” he proclaimed. A chorus of cheers went up from Ryan’s table, and boos erupted from Alice’s, but none of them were very serious. The announcer leaned closer to us. “I have some extra bar T-shirts in the back office if you want one, man. I’ll even give you a discount.”

Bennett looked down on himself, lips twitching as he set the empty glass on the nearest bar. “Yes, I think that’s a good idea.”

“I’ll be right back with a round on literature!” the announcer called over his shoulder before motioning for Bennett to follow him.

I probably should have just gone back to my seat, but my feet didn’t want to move. Bennett had been kidding about me attacking him, right? He didn’t think this was a repeat of the wine throwing at Calabaza, or that I was some kind of serial thrower of alcohol when the mood hit me. Right? I mean, he hadn’t acknowledged my apology, but surely he knew I’d made one?

Something inside me needed to be sure he knew this was an accident. That I didn’t hate him or anything. I could wait for him to come back, but what if the T-shirt was so hideous that he felt the need to leave through the back, unable to bear the thought of going to the bathroom to change into it? I couldn’t picture the man in a Dead Squirrel T-shirt. He might be too embarrassed to show his face to his friends in anything that pulled over his head.

My feet scurried after him, back behind the bar, the bartender too busy to notice. Then down a long, dim hallway, closed doors on either side, and to the end, where the announcer was backing out of the room. He gripped a handful of cash, which he was tucking into his pocket as he noticed me. “Oh, hey, your boyfriend should be out in a sec.”

“Thanks,” I said, moving past him and stepping inside the dark room cluttered with file cabinets, where I found Bennett without a shirt.

Bennett. Without. A shirt.

My breath hitched in my throat, jaw dropping the way Bennett had dropped his wet button-down on the scuffed linoleum floor. He had his arms over his head, preparing to put them through the sleeves of the T-shirt, which left his long, lean torso on full display. A thin coating of soft brown-blond hair dusted his pecs and traveled down his stomach in a line. At least it looked soft. Obviously, I wouldn’t know without running my fingers over it, following the line it made down his stomach and into his jeans, over his . . .

My jaw was still open. I shut it with a snap as Bennett finished pulling the T-shirt over his head. He blinked at me, glasses askew. I had to hold my hands down at my sides to keep myself from reaching out and fixing them. “Julie?”

“Sorry,” I said hastily, then realized it was unclear what exactly I was apologizing for. “I mean, sorry for surprising you here like this. I didn’t realize you were changing. I assumed you were just coming back here to get the shirt and that you’d be changing it in the bathroom or something. I didn’t mean to walk in on you like that. On your naked torso.”

His cheeks went red again, or maybe it was just because it was so hot in this room. Had it been this hot all along? “We’re good,” he said. “I mean, not we. Us. It’s fine. I mean, I don’t mind. It’s okay. I’m not mad. Or anything. Am I making sense?”

“Yes!” I shouted. I would’ve shouted anything in response just to stop the awkward rambling. I couldn’t believe I’d said naked torso. Naked torso. It made the whole thing sound so dirty, which it definitely was not. My mind was certainly not still with the soft-looking trail of brown-blond hair and how it would brush against my fingers as I unbuttoned his jeans and—“And sorry again!” For what my mind was doing to him. “Um, for spilling the drink on you! It was an accident!”

He pulled the front of the T-shirt down. It was slightly too small on him, clinging tight to his shoulders and making them look even more wide and square. “There seem to be an awful lot of drink-spilling accidents around you, Julie.”

I swallowed. My throat was dry. “It’s just a coincidence. I—” Focused in on his shirt and let out a surprised laugh. “I can spill another drink on you to get you out of that if you want.”

Bennett stared down his front with a wry grin. “Can you believe he charged me thirty-five dollars for this?”

Upon the black cotton background was printed a drawing of a dead squirrel that appeared to have been created on Microsoft Paint by a below-average seven-year-old. In case anyone might have trouble discerning that the squirrel was dead, the artist had helpfully replaced the squirrel’s eyes with Xs.

I could not believe that the shirt was worth anything more than the cost of materials. I could, however, be grateful for it distracting me from that naked torso. My mind began to clear. I took a deep breath. “Our friends are probably missing us,” I said. “Especially yours. It’s the literature round, right? Can your friends even read?”

“Good point.”

Back into the crowded bar, the air thick and sweaty. I followed closely behind him until we got to the juncture of our tables. “Well, congratulations for winning our round, I guess,” I said.

“Thanks,” he said. “It was close. I don’t know if I would’ve gotten it without your priming me at the food festival to think about crepes and John Waterford together.”