“Did you get your smile from your mama?” she asks him, tilting her head and admiring him. “Because I don’t think your dad knows how to.”
“Funny.”
“I’ll pretend that wasn’t sarcastic and you actually have a sense of humor.”
“He doesn’t have a mom.”
The space goes eerily silent the way it typically does when I say those five words. Most people are concerned they crossed a line because his mom passed away tragically, not because she didn’t tell me she was pregnant then showed up six months post-partum to flip my world upside down before leaving.
Her teasing tone immediately shifts. “Oh God, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean—”
“She’s alive. She just isn’t around.”
I can physically see the relief wash over her. “Oh, well that’s good. I mean, that’s not good. Or maybe it is good? Who am I to say? Goddamn, this elevator is taking forever.” She slaps a palm over her mouth, her eyes darting to Max. “I mean, gosh dang it.”
That finally makes me chuckle, a small grin sliding across my lips.
She softens a bit. “He does smile.”
“He smiles a whole lot more when he’s not being berated by a stranger in an elevator while she’s double fisting beers first thing after she wakes up.”
“Maybe she never went to sleep.” Another casual pop of her shoulders.
Dear God.
“Maybe they should stop talking about themselves in the third person like a couple of pretentious a-holes.”
The elevator finally opens on the floor she needs.
“Maybe he should loosen up every once in a while. He’s got a cute-ass kid and an even cuter smile when he shows it.” She lifts her Corona to me before chugging the rest and exiting the elevator. “Thanks for the ride, Baby Daddy. It was . . . interesting.”
That it was.
Chapter 2
Miller
I love butter. Imagine being the person who created God’s greatest gift to mankind. I could kiss them for their discovery. With bread? Perfection. Melted onto a baked potato? Heaven sent. Or my personal favorite, baked into my famous chocolate chip cookies.
Now, you might be thinking it’s a chocolate chip cookie, they’re all the same. Wrong. Dead wrong. I might be known throughout the country for my ability to fix a Michelin star-seeking restaurant’s underperforming dessert program, but I wish one of these fancy restaurants would say “fuck it” and let me bake them a goddamn chocolate chip cookie for their menu.
They’d sell out. Every night.
But even if they’d let me fancy up a classic like that, that recipe is mine. I’ll lend out my creativity and my tips and techniques. Hell, I’ll even create an entire fresh and inspiring dessert menu for a restaurant that has a yearlong waitlist for a table. But the classic recipes, the ones I’ve honed for the last fifteen years, the ones that make your body melt into a sigh as soon as the sugar touches your tongue, reminding you of home, those are mine.
No one is asking for those recipes anyway. They aren’t what I’m known for.
But I’m fairly certain that the only thing I’m going to be known for is the mental breakdown I’m about to have in the middle of this Miami kitchen, simply because for the past three weeks, I haven’t been able to create a single new dessert.
“Montgomery,” one of the line cooks calls out. He, for some reason, doesn’t feel the need to call me by my title, so I haven’t concerned myself with learning his name. “Are you coming out with us after our shift tonight?”
I don’t honor him with eye contact as I clean up my workstation and pray that the soufflé in the oven makes it through without sinking. “I’m going to assume you forgot my title is Chef,” I say over my shoulder.
“Sweetie. You just bake cakes. I’m not calling you Chef.”
As if a record scratched, the entire kitchen goes silent, every prep cook freezing with their tools in hand.
It’s been a while since I’ve been disrespected in my profession. I’m young, and at twenty-five, it’s not easy to stand in a kitchen of adults, typically men, and tell them what they’re doing wrong. But over the last couple of years, I’ve earned a reputation, one that demands respect.
Three weeks ago, I won the James Beard Award, the highest honor in my industry, and since being named Outstanding Pastry Chef of the Year, my consultation services have been booked solid. I’m now sitting at a three-year-long list of kitchens I’ll be spending a season at, including this Miami stint, fixing their dessert programs and giving them a shot at earning themselves a Michelin star.