mise en place: /?mez än 'pläs/: noun
1: French for “everything in its place”; the culinary practice of preparing and organizing all ingredients before cooking.
2: when all the pieces come together—and the show begins.
“Die, you camper-ass bitch! I saw you behind that wall!”
“Language, Sage,” I call out, dropping my keys in the bowl by the penthouse elevator.
“Blow me, Bastian,” my little brother replies cheerfully without taking his eyes off the massive television where animated soldiers are murdering each other in alarmingly realistic high definition. “I’m sixteen, not six. Besides, Zeke’s been cursing like a sailor all afternoon. I don’t see you lecturing him.”
I round the corner to find Sage sprawled across the leather sectional in his wheelchair, controller in hand, dark hair falling into eyes that are the same blue as mine but somehow warmer, more forgiving.
Across from him, Zeke Bautista—my best friend since culinary school and current head chef at Nova, one of Hale Hospitality’s crown jewel locations—lounges in the armchair with his own controller, a bottle of beer balanced precariously on the arm.
“Don’t drag me into your disciplinary issues,” Zeke says without looking up. His Filipino accent carries just the faintest trace of his grandmother’s Tagalog. “I’m a guest here.”
“You’re here four nights a week. You’re more of a barnacle than a guest.”
“A barnacle who brings you the good beer, though.” Zeke finally glances up and frowns when he sees me. “Speaking of which, you look like you need about six of them. Rough day at the office, honey?”
Sage pauses the game and swivels to face me. I can see him taking inventory, too. They both have this annoying ability to read my moods, and an even more annoying inclination to harass me until I give up at least some emotional breadcrumb to satisfy them.
Fucking jackals.
“Let me guess,” Sage says with a wicked grin. “Another employee quit and told you to shove a meat cleaver up your ass on the way out the door?”
“No one quit.”
Technically, that’s true. I didn’t accept her resignation.
“Ah.” Zeke’s eyebrows climb toward his hairline. “So someonetriedto quit. Interesting plot twist. Anyone we know?”
I move to the kitchen, which is not the safe haven I wish it was. Really, it’s just an extension of the living room, mostly untouched marble and steel. It’s designed less for actual cooking than it is for aesthetics, and it’s used more for drinking than it is for actual cooking, too. Especially when my little brother and best friend conspire to give me shit on what’s already been a weird-ass day.
I pour myself three fingers of Macallan 25 and seriously consider making it four. “Probably not. Eliana Hunter. Project manager.”
Sage thumbs at his controller, squinting intently toward the screen. “She hot?”
“She’s not sixteen, so it’s irrelevant to you.”
“That’s a yes,” mumbles Zeke.
“Definitely a yes,” Sage agrees.
“Smoking, I bet.”
“Scorching.”
“Radiant.”
“Electric.”
“Are you two done jerking each other off yet?” I interrupt. I go ahead and add the fourth finger of whiskey, because the first one and a half are already gone and my mood is nowhere near improved.
Sage and Zeke look at each other, then at me. “So what’d you do to her?” Z asks.
I scowl. “What makes you say I did anything?”
