“My fiancé is the sous chef.” Cami snags the truck keys from Will’s hand. “We’ll get in.”
He stares at her. “Your fiancé is David Ortega?”
Cami grins. “The one and only. Are you a foodie?”
Will blinks. “In a sense.”
“In what sense?”
He rubs the back of his neck. That tell again. “I like… to cook.”
She laughs. “Him, too. Want to meet us there?”
Will nods, his stoic, surly masculine aura temporarily deserting him, replaced with a boyish curiosity. He disappears to his car. I smile and take my final swig of prosecco, then shove the empty bottle into my purse. Cami and I climb into the high seats of the rental truck and thunder our way down the road toward Agricole in East Austin. It’s just about the only meal in the world that could make this terrible day any better.
David’s been working here for five years—about the same length of time he and Camila have been together. They met during his first month on the job when he was fresh out of culinary school and newly returned to the Austin restaurant scene from New York.
When the three of us walk in, Cami makes pleading eyes at the host. He throws her a stern look and a mutteredCould’ve warned me,but then he sets us up at the chef’s bar on stools that materialize out of a secret closet. We’ve got a view of half the kitchen—the salsa station, the garnishing station, a wood-fired oven for meats and breads.
Cami leans over me to shout at Will above the clank of hot pans. “This is the best seat in the house!”
“Camila!” One of the staging chefs blinks at her. “What the fuck you doing here?”
“I had a bad day.”
“David!” the chef shouts toward the back of the kitchen.
“WHAT!”
“Your fiancée is here!”
“Did she have a bad day?”
“David!” Cami shouts, leaning onto the bar top. “I’m up here!”
David Ortega materializes from around the corner in his chef whites, eyes locked on his fiancée. In Spanish he says to her, “You’re still so pretty even when you’re sad.”
“Make me happy again.”
He smirks, something romantic andjust for thembehind his eyes, and then turns to me and Will. “Hey, J.”
“Hey,” I say. “This is Will Grant.”
David reaches across the bar to shake Will’s hand, just as the chef at the garnish station shouts, “Will fucking Grant?!” He’s a man roughly our age with a very petite beer belly and short red hair.
“Brooks?” Will says.
“Yeah, it’s fucking Brooks!” says fucking Brooks. He’s holding a pair of tongs toward the sky, a stem of cilantro still in its claws. “We went to high school together!” Brooks says to David. Then to Will: “You still living in New York, man?”
“Yep. It’s great to see you.”
The staging chef sets warm tortillas, mole, and corn salsa in front of us. Will looks overwhelmed. His eyes are darting between the food, his old friend, David, and me.
“Eat,” Brooks says. “We’ll catch up later!” He turns back to his garnishes, smiling to himself as he shakes his head. “Will fucking Grant!”
David leans his elbows against the bar. “Any dietary restrictions?” he asks Will.
“I’ll eat anything you put in front of me.”
