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“Do you think it would be too much to ask the kitchen for a cleaver?” I asked, and before I knew it, the two of us were snorting with laughter. “Just kidding. I’m kind of afraid of cleavers. I feel like I’d pick one up and it would immediately animate itself and chop off one of my hands.”

“A common cause of injury,” Bennett said seriously. “I myself have done away with some of my competition through mysterious cleaver accidents. The police didn’t so much as bat an eye.”

The alpaca only looked more menacing as our appetizers arrived. “I’m not so sure about this one,” Bennett said, looking down into the salad that had landed before him.

“I know, me neither,” I said. “But pretty much every review online called it out, so I figured we should give it a try.”

We both went in for a bite, our spoons clinking against each other over the wide blue bowl. I understood his hesitation because the combination of ingredients inside just seemed so bizarre: soft pearls of earthy quinoa formed the base, mixed with chewy bits of slab bacon, avocado, bananas, and Brazil nuts. I popped the spoonful into my mouth and chewed, expecting these ingredients to clash with one another.

But they didn’t. They sang together, the saltiness and chew of the bacon mixing with the sweet, silky banana and grassy, buttery avocado. The salty crunch of the Brazil nuts gave the dish texture, and the quinoa was a fairly neutral stage for all the rest to shine. The whole effect was unique, something I wasn’t quite sure how to write about. How to put it all into words. But, I thought as I cocked my head, it’ll speak really well in a photo, where you can see all these different things mashed up against one another. It’ll be beautiful, like its taste.

I’d have no problem describing the ceviche in words. Raw sea bass, firm and gleaming and presenting just a little resistance to my teeth, marinated in an explosion of sour citrus and ripe garlic and crunchy onion, chile peppers sparking heat on my tongue. The fierce citrus cooked the fish in a way that allowed the essence of the fish to shine through along with the marinade, untouched by fire. To soothe the intense flavors of the ceviche, it was served alongside a simple mashed sweet potato and crunchy pieces of giant corn that tasted like a purer corn chip.

We also noshed on maki rolls filled with eel and cream cheese, a strange combo of fat and fat that somehow worked, a salad of pickled sunchokes, some charred octopus with yucca root. I pushed away the appetizer plates with a groan. Somehow we’d picked them all clean. “Okay, I’m full. Time to go home.”

His eyes widened with alarm. “You don’t mean that.”

“Of course I don’t mean that.” Again, my superpower: I never really got full. I could probably eat forever, though I’d never actually tried. My stomach might explode, like a goldfish. “I’ll fight you for the last fry.”

“I’m a formidable opponent,” he warned.

“Yeah, but I’ve got the alpaca on my side.” I glanced over at the cartoony mural, where the alpaca was still staring greedily at our empty plates. “You might not have noticed, but I’ve been sneaking him pieces of ceviche.”

Bennett smacked his forehead with his palm. “How could I have missed that?”

We both laughed as the waitress came to take our plates away. “So,” Bennett said, steepling his fingers on the table. “I assume this won’t be the last time I see you.”

A giddiness filled me, like I’d breathed in something other than air. “Oh? You do?”

“I mean, you’re going to Emerson Leigh’s party, right?”

The giddiness leaked out of me. “Oh. Yes.” Of course he’d be going, too. I cringed at the thought of him there in his nice suit, chatting with the guests while I walked around with trays of champagne and hors d’oeuvres. “She asked me to help out. Work it.” I tossed my hair so that I didn’t have to look right at him, already feeling self-conscious. Imagine how much worse it was going to be when I was wearing yellow, the world’s least flattering color on me. “Hard to turn down the overtime pay, you know?”

Of course he wouldn’t, but he nodded anyway. “It should still be fun,” he said. “I’m looking forward to hearing about her business. I’m sure it’s going to be a great success.”

I couldn’t hold back a snort. Or maybe it was that I could have, I just didn’t want to. Because thinking about working that party while Bennett was there as a guest, and knowing that Emerson Leigh had put me in that position, made me both careless and mean. Not the best combination. “Emerson Leigh’s pet yoga business is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard of in my entire life. How do you even get a fish to do yoga?”

Once it came out of my mouth, I immediately felt bad. But Bennett’s lips quirked up in a smile. “All right, it is a little far-fetched. Maybe even ridiculous. I think she’s only booked her sister so far.”

A switch flipped in me from careless and mean to protective. It was like how my brothers would make fun of me nonstop for being smelly and ugly and stupid, but when the kid next door mocked me for having a mustache, all three of them swarmed him and beat him up (even though kid me totally did have a mustache). “I don’t know, I guess it could be worse. Like, she’s trying to do good,” I said. “And it might just be that I don’t ‘get’ the concept of pet yoga. Like, I’m not a part of your world.”

Bennett’s eyebrows raised so high they lifted above the rim of his glasses. “My world?”

Curse the English language for no longer having a plural second person pronoun. “Like, yours and Emerson Leigh’s and Maisie’s and, you know, the rest of your circle’s.”

Bennett laughed softly, which sounded the way rubbing velvet between your fingers felt. “It’s not like we live on another planet. We’re still here on the same world as everyone else.”

This time I could absolutely control my snort, and I made it as loud and obnoxious as I possibly could. “The wealthy might as well live in a different world. Like, I’ve been to your apartment. You’re definitely not paying for that apartment on a food writer’s salary.”

“That’s true,” he acknowledged. “That apartment’s one of my dad’s holdings. Penny lives in another.”

There it was. I couldn’t stop the words from coming out along with a self-conscious laugh. “It’s all just as well that you wanted to keep things professional after that kiss. That way you’ll never have to come down and see where I live. It’s nothing like your place, I can tell you that.”

Before he could answer, but not before I could start to regret putting myself out there like that, the waitress popped back up with our entrées. Bennett and I didn’t speak as we rearranged everything on the table so that it all fit, and then I had to take all my photos, which he no longer complained about, so by the time we were ready to eat, I thought he might have forgotten what we’d been talking about. I hoped, anyway.

Then he began, “Julie, listen—” and I knew he hadn’t. I cut him off.

“We’ve got french fries on the table,” I said. “In my experience, french fries need to be eaten immediately. Crispiness waits for no man.”