“What can I carry?”I asked as I moved to standing again.
Vera handed me abasket of rolls and an uncorked bottle of wine. “We’re probably going to needmore of that.”
I contemplateddrinking straight from it. “Yes, we are.”
She turned back tothe stove and I headed for the dining room. Ezra and Vann had already takentheir seats, Vann at the head of the table and Ezra on one side. I took my timesetting the rolls in the middle of the table and filling up wine glasses andpassing them out.
It shouldn’t bethis troublesome to pick a chair, but I couldn’t decide where to go. Finally,Killian and Vera came in carrying the most amazing smelling dishes with them. Igrabbed the other seat at the head of the table. Killian could fight me for it.
“We’re eatingfamily style tonight,” Killian smiled, steam wafting in front of his face.“This is the best rib roast you will ever eat. You can all thank me later.”
Vera set her dishesdown and added, “To accompany, we have Brussels sprouts braised with bacon andcranberries with some shredded Pecorino to finish. And then we’ve got a lobstermac and cheese that honestly is probably better than Killian’s prime rib. Butdon’t tell him that. He gets sulky when I outcook him.” She shot him a saucysmile. He just shook his head at her.
“Don’t get anyideas, Ezra,” Killian warned his friend. “If this pops up onLilou’smenu next week, I’ll find out.”
“Oh, you’re one totalk!” Vera laughed.
“Hey, when I didit, it was flirting,” Killian defended himself.
Vera turned to me.“I had not realized until just now that he was flirting with me when he stolemy recipes and served them atLilou. This is breakingnews.”
I snorted. “Only toyou, my friend. Pretty sure the rest of us knew exactly what was going on.”
Vann and Ezraagreed with me causing Vera to protest loudly, officially launching us intomore comfortable territory. Killian continued to give Ezra a hard time aboutthe car while Vera and I discussed wedding details. Vann jumped back and forthbetween conversations never really landing, although he didn’t seem to mind.
By the second glassof wine, I’d started regretting my decision to wear skinny jeans. I should havepicked an outfit with more room. Like sweatpants. Or a muumuu.
“Don’t get toofull!” Vera warned. “There’s still dessert.”
The rest of usgroaned. Having dinner at Killian and Vera’s was basically like eatingThanksgiving supper, only the dishes were the kind that shaped modern Americancuisine and there was no watery Jell-O salad.
“Molly, I haven’thad a chance to thank you for the painting,” Killian said, nodding toward acanvas I’d painted at Vera’s request. It was a smaller version of the Foodielogo I’d hand-painted on her Airstream turned food truck. Since Foodie hadrelaunched her culinary career and led her to Killian, she’d wanted somethingfor their house. I’d painted Foodie the same way I’d done on the side of hertruck, but added the top half of a silver Airstream in the right corner andLilou’ssimple silhouette in the top left corner. “It looksawesome. You did a really great job.”
I pushed a leftoverBrussels sprout around my plate. “Oh, thanks. It wasn’t a big deal.”
“Vera and I weretalking and we’d love for you to create some originals for the restaurant.”
Vera grinned at me,but all I could do was shake my head at her. She was always pushing me to paintmore, make it public, sell pieces. I knew it was hard for her to understand whyI didn’t want to. She was all about following your dreams and going hard afterthe things you loved most in life.
But that wasbecause she had turned her dream into a career.
There wasn’t astable future in painting. Painting was way harder to make lucrative thancooking. Plus, Vera was an exceptional chef. She wasn’t just good at what shedid, she was the best. And now with Killian by her side, they were totallyunstoppable.
It wasn’t the samefor me. I wasn’t interested in turning the thing I loved most into a job. Itwas my escape from reality. It was my therapy and sanity and hope all wrappedup in one, selfish activity. I didn’t want to give that away to everyone. Ididn’t want to cheapen what I loved so very much by putting a price tag on it.
“What are youthinking?” I asked Killian just to be polite. I would talk to Vera about heroverstepping later. Much later. When we weren’t surrounded by three supersuccessful men that would have no idea how to relate to my non-ambitions.
“Maybe six originals?Four? You can look at the space and decide for yourself what we need.” Killiansuggested. “They can be all different sizes. We’d like a longer one above thebar and a really big one along the back wall.”
Immediately, ideasstarted popping into my head. It wasn’t that I had tried to feel inspired orintended to conceptualize a series. It just happened. Creativity was like that.She wasn’t careful or well-timed or convenient. She was a selfish hag thatwithheld her muse when you had time and made you drunk with inspiration thesecond you couldn’t do anything about it. “Portraits? Abstracts? Do you have afeeling or color scheme in mind?”
“Er, abstracts with meaning?” Killian answered. “We don’twant straight portraits, but we also want something that captures what we’reall about.”
“You mean food?” Iasked with a straight face.
Killian looked atVera, reaching over to grab her hand. “And love. And passion for both of thosethings. We just want like this really cool, urban feel. More gallery than hotelart if you know what I mean.”
“Killian, she’s notgoing to paint hotel art,” Vera groaned. “That’s so rude.”
