“What’s that?” I asked, reaching for the bundle.
“Uh-uh.” Miles slapped my hand. “Don’t touch that, that’s dessert and it’s a secret.” Taking care not to displace the rest, he gently edged it out and carried it to the kitchen. The fridge door squeaked open and he stuck it inside, tea towels and all.
He returned with cutlery while I unstacked the actual, genuinerestaurant plates this place of his had sent our food on. “Do we have to return the plates?” I asked.
“No idea. I’ll find out later.” He lifted one of the half-boxes doing duty as a lid, uncovering what had to be the greatest looking pair of steaks I had ever seen. The fancy chefs had probably cringed as they plated them up for delivery, but my mouth watered. They were even still warm.
The other two plates contained an even greater crime against fancy cooking – a collection of all different sides plated together into two great vegetable mounds that threatened to spill onto the table. And to complete the chefs’ pain, they’d had to stuff undressed salad into plastic containers, and provide little baby containers of dressing. Somewhere, the gods of fine dining were hiding in a pantry crying into their aprons.
“This looks amazing,” I said as we spread the plates and containers over the coffee table. “But I feel a little sorry for the chefs who had to fill this order.”
As he settled cross-legged on the floor, Miles threw me a grin. “Knowing the guy who runs the place, wanting to torture his staff was probably at least half the reason he agreed.”
“Oh, so not because you’re rich and famous?”
“Well, perhaps I also promised to visit during Wimbledon and post about it.” He pointed his fork at me. “That has to be outside the budget too, since I only have to go so I could get you steak.”
I raised my hands in surrender. “All right, go to your fancy restaurant. Only once, mind. The rest of the time you’re stuck eating what I’m eating.”
He gave me a look as he cut into his steak, the meat so tender he could slice it with a goddamn butter knife. “I’ve seen your food budget and it’s not pretty. I figure I can shift more into mine since I don’t spend as much on my gear—thank you, sponsors—but it’s stillgoing to be rough. And what if I make it to the second week of the slam? You haven’t budgeted for that.”
“Because it hasn’t happened before.” I stuck a piece of steak into my mouth, the sheer perfection of it mixing oddly with my bitter words.
Miles paused in the act of scooping asparagus onto his plate. “What do you mean it hasn’t happened before? You made the fourth round of the US Open when you were nineteen. And at least the third at Wimbledon.”
I stopped chewing to stare at him, before swallowing a mouthful that suddenly tasted of nothing. “You remember that?”
“Yes, because it pissed me off. Because you did everything so effortlessly while just winning matches on tour was a struggle for me back then. You went from star junior to star pro without a blink and I felt like . . . like that was always going to be my life, you know, living in your shadow.”
For the second time that day, his words stole the air from my lungs, leaving me hollowed out and staring.
He turned his frowning attention to the task of prising open the salad containers. “Had you actually forgotten you did that?”
“No,” I said, managing to swallow a lump of unexpected grief. “It just . . . belongs to another time. To another me. To a Matteo Russo who didn’t have his whole life derailed. I imagine, unlike me, he went on to have a pretty nice career.”
I snatched up my beer and skulled what remained in the aftermath of those words, wishing them unsaid and not with equal fervour. When I set the empty bottle down, I found Miles watching me. He had an intent way of looking that held one present, like he was waiting, reading, studying, nothing else in the room as important as the problem in front of him.
“I don’t know what to say to that,” he said at last.
“Then don’t say anything. Just get me another of your terrible beers.”
He complied, cracking open another bottle for each of us.
Thankfully, I’d never been much of a drinker. So, by the end of the second beer, I’d lost the most overwhelming emotions to a pleasant buzz and the satisfying feeling of eating food that not only filled my body but fuelled it.
Despite the ridiculous size of our appetites, there was still leftovers when we slowed to picking at the last few bites. I nodded at the nearest plate. “Do you want any more capsicum? Or can I finish it?”
“Capsiwhat?” Miles said, his eyes widening.
“The capsicum. Oh, right, you call them bell peppers.”
“I call them bell peppers because they’re bell peppers. You don’t call them bell peppers?”
“Stop sayingbell peppers. And no, we call them capsicums in Australia.”
He screwed up his nose. “That’s weird. But no, you can have them.”
I scooped up what remained of the finely-sliced capsicum and dropped it onto my plate. “Surely, you’ve travelled enough to notice that in other places some foods have different names.”
