Twentysomething Allie Simon is used to playing by the rules—until Chicago’s most sought-after, up-and-coming culinary genius, Benji Zane, walks into her world and pulls her into his. The only thing more renowned than Benji’s mouthwatering masterpieces and equally luscious good looks? His struggle with addiction and his reckless tendency to live life on the edge, no matter the havoc he wreaks along the way. But loving someone means supporting him no matter what, or so Allie tells herself. That’s why, when Benji’s offered the chance to light up foodie hot spot Randolph Street with a high-profile new restaurant, Allie takes the ultimate risk and invests her life savings in his dream.

Then one day Benji disappears, relapsing to a place where Allie can’t reach him. Left with nothing but a massive withdrawal slip and a restaurant that absolutely must open in a matter of weeks, Allie finds herself thrust into a world of luxury and greed, cutthroat business and sensory delight. Lost in the mess of it all, she can either crumble completely or fight like hell for the life she wants and the love she deserves.

With razor-sharp wit and searing insight, Emily Belden serves up a deliciously dishy look behind the kitchen doors of a hot foodie town, perfect for fans of Sweetbitter and The Devil Wears Prada.

About the Author

EMILY BELDEN is a journalist, social media marketer, and storyteller. In addition to her debut novel, Hot Mess, she is also the author of Eightysixed: A Memoir about Unforgettable Men, Mistakes, and Meals and the forthcoming novel Husband Material. She lives with her rescue dog in Chicago’s West Loop, conveniently close to many of the city’s best restaurants. Visit her website at www.emilybelden.comor follow her on Twitter and Instagram, @emilybelden.

Look for Emily Belden’s next novel

Husband Material

Hot Mess

Emily Belden

An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

First published in Great Britain by HQ in 2018

Copyright © Emily Belden 2018

Emily Belden asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Ebook Edition © March 2018 ISBN: 9781474083645

Version: 2018-04-05

Advance Praise for Hot Mess

“[F]ull of fire and fury....Belden's excellent tell-it-like-it-is read is perfect for foodies and entrepreneurs alike.”

—Library Journal (starred review)

“Combining the wit and insight of Stephanie Danler's Sweetbitter with the drama of Jessica Tom's Food Whore, Belden's first novel is a glimpse into the fast-paced fine-dining industry....Full of heart, heat, and passion, this restaurant rom-com in novel form is an exhilarating debut.”

—Booklist

“[A]n engrossing, slow-burn read that yields a very satisfying emotional payoff.... Rich with perfect details, balanced between the various different relationships and presented in a well-crafted narrative, this novel is meant to be savored.”

—RT Book Reviews (Top Pick)

“A fun romp through the world of food, love, and luxury.”

—PopSugar

For my grandmother, Jane.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

About the Author

Booklist

Title Page

Copyright

Praise

Dedication

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Acknowledgments

About the Publisher

1

“Are you going to be okay?”

His question gives me pause. Will I be okay? Was “okay” a hypothetical three exits ago?

All things considered, I’m hurtling through time and space with a guy whose recovery from a serious cocaine addiction matters as much as the rise of his chocolate soufflé tonight. So I answer honestly.

“I don’t know.” My voice sounds far away.

“Well, if you’re not sure, change. You’ll be walking at least five miles between ushering people to tables and the bathroom and running back and forth from the kitchen.”

“Oh, shoes. You’re asking if I’m going to be okay in these shoes.” I glance down at my black platform wedges.

“Yeah, babe. What the hell else would I be talking about?”

He grabs the bottom of my chin and plants a quick kiss on my lips before he rinses a whisk in the sink.

The shells of seventy-five hard-boiled eggs are in the trunk of a car I rented to shuttle all the shit required for tonight’s guests, I took an unpaid day off from work to be here to help and my parents are about an hour away from arriving to this special “comeback dinner,” which will be the first time they’ve seen Benji somewhere other than the headlines in the last thirty days.

And he’s worried about my shoes?

“I’ll be fine,” I say sweetly, knowing now is not the time for a true audit of my emotional well-being. Tonight is about Benji’s big return and my confidence that all—including my shoe choice—will go as smoothly as the house-made butter at room temp that he’s just whipped up.

I find my reflection in a nearby Cryovac machine and take out a tube of my go-to matte pale pink lipstick from my makeup bag. I sweep it across my bottom lip, then fill in just above my lip line on the top for the illusion of a slightly fuller mouth. After all, I know at least half the guest list is here to see what the woman behind the man looks like.

Speaking of lists, I can see Benji in the reflection as well, leaning over a stainless-steel counter consulting the prep list for tonight’s dinner service. He takes a black Sharpie from the pocket of his apron and puts a quick slash through each item as he recites them out loud to himself.

I come up behind him and cast my arms around him slowly; my touch puts him at ease. He curls his left arm up to hold my arms in place and continues to mouth ingredients one by one to make sure he hasn’t forgotten anything. It sounds like sweet nothings being whispered to me in a romance language I barely understand.

Benji crumples the list, a sign he’s successfully on track with everything from the dehydrated goat’s milk to emulsified caramel, and I snap out of my schoolgirl daydream. He turns to face me, shuffles a few steps back in his worn kitchen clogs and bends down to shake out his longish dark hair.

I know what he’s about to do. And for as ordinary as it is, especially to girls like me who routinely wear their hair like this, watching Benji shimmy a hair tie—my hair tie—off his right wrist to tie his mane into a disheveled topknot is like the start of an exotic dance. For anyone who says the man-bun trend isn’t their thing, they’re lying.

The hair tie snaps when Benji tries to take it for a third lap around his voluminous bun.

“Goddamn it!”

“Relax, babe,” I tell him as I zip open my makeup bag and pull out a spare. Crisis averted, I think to myself as I put another mental tally in the “Saves the Day” column.

He reties his white apron for the umpteenth time over a tight black T-shirt that shows off his tattooed-solid arms. I know for a fact he doesn’t work out (unless you consider lifting fifty-pound boxes of pork and beef off the back of a pickup truck getting your reps in) but somehow he’s been blessed with the body of a lumberjack. The only thing missing is the ax, which has been appropriately swapped out for an expensive Santoku knife custom-engraved with some filigree and his initials: BZ.

No doubt he’s got the “hot and up-and-coming chef” thing down: tattooed, confident, exhausted and exhilarated. Hard to believe this isn’t a casting event for Top Chef.

Harder to believe this is the man I get to take home every night.

“FUCK! Are you kidding me, Sebastian? Where the fuck is the lid to that thing?” Benji’s words effectively snap me out of the trance I was in danger of being lulled into. It takes me a minute to realize what happened: his sous chef, Sebastian, has pressed Start on a Vitamix full of would-be avocado aioli, except the lid to the blender is nowhere to be found. Green schmutz has gone flying, marking up Benji’s pristine apron like the start of a Jackson Pollock piece.

“Sorry, chef. I got it on now.” Tail between his legs, Sebastian gets back to work as Benji furiously wipes at the streak with his bare hand. He’s making it worse.

“Benji. Breathe.” I grab his half-drunk can of LaCroix and pour a little onto a clean kitchen rag. While tending to the stain in the hot kitchen, I look directly into those deep brown eyes and give him a reassuring smile. He smells of cigarettes and sweat, garlic and onions. It’s intoxicating.

“I know, Allie. This is just...huge for me. Huge for us. The press is going to be here tonight.” He wipes some sweat off his brow.

“And my parents,” I whisper.

“Oh god, them, too.” He releases the tension by cracking the bones in his neck. A poor substitute, I imagine, for his true preference: a shot of whiskey.

But even a slug of 120 proof wouldn’t take the edge off the fact that Benji’s pop-up dinners are the new It Thing. People salivate at their screens just waiting for him to tweet out the next time and place he’ll be cooking. Why? Because he’s the hottest chef in Chicago and you can’t taste his food at any restaurant. So when he announces a dinner, it’s a mad, server-crashing race to claim one of only twelve spots at the table. And when everyone wants to see how the reformed addict is faring, they’ll cancel all their plans for the day on the off chance they’ll be one of the first to submit a reservation request, followed by prompt prepayment—which all goes to me, the fan-favorite girlfriend of Benji Zane.

I can’t blame his followers for the obsession. Our flash-in-the-pan love story was covered by the most-read food blog earlier this spring, and since then, there have been myriad articles chronicling his love-hate relationship with hard drugs and high-end cooking. Between his unlikely relationship with me, his checkered past and his unmatched kitchen skills, Benji’s managed to divide people like we’re talking about health-care reform or immigration.

Half see him as a prodigy in the kitchen who was given a second chance when some no-name poster child of millennial living suddenly inspired him to get clean. The other half of Chicago views him as an all-hype hack who uses the media attention to rob his patrons of their hard-earned money so he can get his next score.

Fuck those people. Because the Benji that I know, that I live with...well, he’s a stand-up guy whose brunch—and bedroom—game happens to be on point.

“Listen, babe,” I say. “What did I tell you? I’m not going to let you down tonight, okay? I’ll pace the seating however you need me to. I’ll greet the press and spot the critics, too. We got this, okay? I believe in you.” And I do.

I don’t always agree to help Benji at his pop-ups—usually I just accept the reservation requests and keep the books straight. But tonight is different. Benji told me yesterday that he’s got an outstanding dealer debt to pay off and so he’s oversold the dining room by about twenty-five chairs to try to make a little extra cash. Without me here to help host a guest list of this size, this highly publicized dinner would look and feel more like a dysfunctional family reunion. Something I’m sure the piranha-like press would love to write about.

I wanted to be pissed about this little “oops” moment. How careless could he be? Now, by over-inviting a horde of geeked-out foodies, and in the past, by racking up a $2,000 coke bill. But he assured me it’s just one of those things that needs to be handled in order for him to move on with his sobriety. And that’s what I signed up for by being his girlfriend: unconditional support and a back that would never turn on him.

He’s even arranged for Sebastian to be the one to hand over the cash tonight after the last diner goes home. Consider it just another example of how hungry people are to work alongside Mr. Zane. The same set of hands is willing to debone fifty squab and pay off gangbanging drug dealers from the South Side, all in the same night.

I don’t blame Sebastian, though. There’s something about Benji that makes you want to strap in for the ride. It’s like rushing a sorority: you’ll do what you need to do to get in, because ultimately, you end up part of something bigger than yourself. I just don’t think any of us know what that something is yet.

At least that’s the way I see it from my vantage point, which is currently the groin area of a brand-new apron that was marked with an unsightly stain until I stepped in.

“See, babe?” I say. “All clean.”

Benji pulls me in for a kiss, his hand cupped around the back of my neck. With my French twist fragile in his palm, I feel the stress in the kitchen disintegrate. I’m no superhero, but if I were, my power would surely be managing to make it all okay for him, every time. It doesn’t even matter that there’s garlic burning in a sauté pan, my lipstick is now smeared, or that my work email is probably blowing up with a hundred notifications an hour.

“You’re my rock, babe,” he tells me, tucking a few strands of loose hair behind my ears. I love hearing that I’m doing a good job, because it’s not always easy.

“Okay, so here’s the final guest list,” he says, getting back to business. Benji hands me a piece of paper from the back pocket of his charcoal gray skinny jeans. At the top, Aug. 20 Pop-Up is underlined in black marker. I give the list a quick once-over.

“So seating begins at seven, tables are set as rounds and the largest group is a party of six. Simple enough,” I say.

“Well, it’s more than just ushering people to their chairs.” He tenses back up. “After everyone’s seated, I’ll need you to run food and bus tables if we get in the weeds.”

“Weeds?”

“Busy as shit.”

“Ah. Okay.”

“And water. Constantly. You should be carrying the pitcher and filling any glass that’s lower than two-thirds.”

“Got it.”

“Pay attention to what people are saying. Any issues, come find me immediately.”

“Obviously.”

“And as we’re wrapping, make sure you call a cab for anyone who’s too drunk to drive. The last thing I need is bad press about a deadly DUI from someone I fed.”

“Anything else, your highness?” I jest to lighten the mood. I get that he’s on edge, and rightfully so. So am I, to be frank. This mini-romper won’t be forgiving in the derriere area should anyone drop a fork while I’m rehydrating them. I also barely know the difference between kale and spinach, and am about to play hostess to a room full of people who are jonesing to fire off a photo or two of this year’s culinary celeb couple to their judgmental social sphere. It’s a lot.

“Very funny. And yes, there is one more thing. Mark and Rita just texted me. They can’t make it tonight. Couldn’t find a sitter for Maverick or something.”

While it would be great to finally meet Benji’s sponsor, Mark—and his wife, Rita—I’m okay with the last-minute cancellation. Two less comp seats means more profit and less work for Benji. It also means two less people who I need to impress on the spot. Especially people whose job it is to spot bullshit. They’ll be missed by Benji, I’m sure, since they’re basically the parents he never had from what I gather. But hopefully he’ll just shake it off.

“I’m sorry, that sucks. It’s tough with kids,” I say, like I know.

“Yeah, it’s whatever. I told them we’ll see them next weekend. Anyway, can you just promise me something?”

“Of course.”

He looks me dead in the eye and says: “Promise that you’ll fuck me after this is all done.”

Blood rushes to places it hasn’t since I lost my virginity on Valentine’s night my freshman year of college. I know, I know. That’s totally cliché. But what was your first time like? Okay then, let’s not judge.

Speaking of clichés, now would be a good time to mention that I fell for the bad boy. And being “that girl” doesn’t end there: just imagine a more basic version of Selena Gomez with a day-old blowout, tucking her leggings into Uggs when the temperature falls below seventy degrees. Give or take a Pumpkin Spiced Latte and a Real Housewives viewing party, and you’ve just about got me—Allie Simon—pegged. I’m the last person someone like Benji Zane would want to date and the first person the food blogosphere has been able to confirm he actually is dating. I give him a wink and turn toward the dining room. I’ve got a little time before our first guests are set to arrive and I need to get my game face on. I need to feel less like someone whose superhot boyfriend wants to ravish her across the very counter the amuse-bouches are being prepped on and more like someone who knows on what side of the plate the fork goes.

Tonight’s pop-up is in a small ballroom on the forty-fifth floor of a high-rise luxury apartment building way up on the North Side. For a Friday night, it’ll be a bit of a clusterfuck for anyone who lives in the heart of Chicago, the Loop, or out in the suburbs like my parents, to get up here, but the views of the boats on Lake Michigan and the sunset reflecting off the buildings in the skyline will be so worth it. This summer evening is the kind of night Instagram was made for.

How Benji secured the venue this time is a doozy. He put an ad on Craigslist: “Party Room Needed.” Said he couldn’t pay money for the space, but would leave all his leftovers behind and the secret to “a roasted chicken guaranteed to get you laid.” Thirty minutes later, some teenager whose parents live in the building dropped off the keys to the penthouse floor. It never ceases to amaze me the things people will do just to feel like they have a personal connection to the Steven Tyler of the food world. Alas, here we are.

I push on the balcony door handles fully expecting they’d be locked. But they pop down with ease and the warm summer wind hits me in the face. I grab the railing, close my eyes and suck in that city air.

I don’t breathe enough. Not like this, deep and alone. I have to admit that being Benji’s girlfriend sometimes feels like sitting in the passenger seat as he drives 110 miles per hour on the freeway in a jalopy with no seat belts. It’s easy to get overwhelmed, but I remind myself that Benji came into my life for a reason. Every douchey, going-nowhere guy I dated before him was worth it because they led me to him: a beautiful genius who knows exactly who he is and what he wants. A guy with talent, charisma and nothing but pure adoration for me. So what if he had a flawed start? All that matters is that I stopped the top from spinning out of control and now we’re good. We’re really fucking good.

Just then my phone, which I have stashed in my bra (hey, no pockets, okay?), buzzes with a text. I dig around in my cleavage and read the message from Benji.

2-top off elevator. It’s time, babe.

* * *

My feet are aching and I’m sweating, but as far as everyone can tell by the smile on my face, I’m having a grand old time filling water glasses. By now, we’re more than halfway through the service and so far, Benji’s only used the bottle of bourbon in the back for a caramel-y glaze on the dessert course, not to ease the kitchen chaos. In fact, in the ten or so times I’ve popped my head in to check on him, he appeared to be keeping his cool entirely.

“And how are you two enjoying your evening?” I say, hovering over a couple at a round-top table I haven’t checked on yet.

“There she is.” My dad wipes his mouth as he stands up to give me a hug. My god, he’s wearing a wool suit and a silk tie. Overdress much?

“What do you think of the food?” I ask.

“It’s outstanding, Allie. Say, can we get another one of those Sriracha Jell-O cubes?”

“Goodness, Bill, don’t embarrass me like that. Just ignore him, Allie. Although, yes, the Sriracha cube was...” My mom, Patty, closes her eyes, puckers her lips and explodes an air-kiss off the tips of her fingers. I think that’s mom code for amaze-balls.

“I’m really glad you guys could make it,” I say. And I mean that. It’s not easy to accept the fact that your daughter is dating the most talked-about, tattooed chef in the Midwest, let alone show your support by attending a BYOB makeshift dinner party on the far North Side.

“Wouldn’t miss it for the world. And hey, I couldn’t figure out how to get the flash on this dang iPhone to work, but I took a bunch of pictures,” my dad says. “You’ll have to explain later how I’m supposed to send them to you.”

I’m positive they will all be blurry, but it’s the thought that counts.

“Is Benji going to come out?” my mom asks, playing with the pearls on her necklace. Her question captures the attention of strangers sitting across the table and now everyone’s eyes are on me.

“We’ll see,” I say, knowing that answer isn’t good enough. Not for anyone in the room who paid to be here. “You’ll have to excuse me. I’ve got to keep checking on other tables. Love you guys.”

As I make my rounds, everyone seems to be gushing over the fifth and final course of the night: grilled fig panna cotta with a bourbon, honeycomb drizzle over vanilla bean gelato. I hear one person whisper it was better than Alinea’s dessert. Another says she just had a foodgasm. At that, I set down the water pitcher and offer to clear a few dirty plates back to the kitchen. When no one is looking, I dip my pinky into some melted gelato and run it through a glob of the bourbon honey before quickly licking it off my manicured finger.

Heaven. Pure heaven.

Even though there’s no negative feedback to report to the kitchen and everyone is stuffed, I can tell people are saving room for one more culinary delight.

They want to see Benji Zane.

Put it this way: sure, the tenderness on the squab was on point. And yes, the scoop of gelato was spherical as fuck. But as rock-star as his dishes may be, these people are here for something else entirely. They’ve ponied up to get up close and personal with Benji Zane and not just because he’s easy on the eyes. To them, this is the Reformed Addict Show. It’s their chance to witness firsthand if he’s turned over a real leaf this time, or if he’s just moments away from the downfall more than a few food bloggers think is coming.

My money is on the former.

Does that make me a naive idiot? Maybe. But these people don’t know Benji like I do. The one thing I’m sure of is that I am Benji’s number one supporter. If I waver from that, I know the chances of a slip are greater, so it’s not something I’m willing to do. Especially not since we live together. I mean, you try staying ahead of the curve when your roommate has a kinky past with cocaine.

“Benji?” I say, cracking the kitchen door open a few inches. “Can you come here a sec?”

He puts down his knife roll and heads to the doorway, tapping Sebastian on the way over and telling him to take five.

“What is it? Everything good?” I can see the anxiety in his eyes. Whether it’s an audience of one or a roomful of skeptical diners, Benji cuts zero corners when it comes to his cooking. He wants tonight to go seamlessly and if he’s not pulling a huge profit in the end because of some dealer drama, well, then, his reputation among these unsuspecting people needs to be the thing that comes out on top.

“Everything’s great,” I whisper. “But are you going to step out? I think people want to applaud you. They loved everything. Honestly, it was the perfect night.”

Benji’s not shy. Not by a long shot. But I can tell he’s delayed making his cameo until I offered up the reinforcement that people really are waiting in the wings like Bono’s groupies.

“Really?” he asks.

“Really. Look at table eight. Bunch of food bloggers who wet their panties when they ate the deconstructed squash blossoms. I’m pretty sure they’ll have a full-blown orgasm if you just come out and wave to them.”

He peers over me to check out the guests. Table eight is all attractive blondes with hot-pink cell phone cases who must have taken a thousand photos so far. I’d worry, but when your reckless love story has been chronicled on every social media platform since its hot and heavy start, that makes it pretty official: Benji Zane is off the market, folks. Has been since the middle of May.

“Alright, fine. Give me a sec.”

Benji ditches his apron and grabs my hand. Together, we walk into the dining room and all chairs turn toward us. I feel a bit like the First Lady, just with a trendier outfit and a more tattooed Mr. President by my side. I bite back the urge to wave to our adoring fans.

“I just want to thank everyone for coming out tonight. I hope you enjoyed the food. It was my pleasure feeding you. Feel free to stick around and enjoy the view or see Allie for a cab if you need one. Good night, everyone.” Benji holds our interlocked hands up and bows his head.

The crowd goes wild—well, as wild as forty diners who have all just slipped into a serious food coma can go. It’s a happy state, the place Benji’s food sends you. Kind of like how you feel after a long, passionate sex session. When done, you’ve got a slight smile and glow on your face, but just want to lie down for the foreseeable future and possibly smoke a cigarette.

I spot my father standing in the back, filming on his phone as my mother claps so hard, her Tiffany charm bracelet looks like it’s about to unhinge and fall into what’s left of her dessert. Seeing them both smile proudly across the room at who their daughter has wound up with warms my heart. It’s been an uphill battle, but I’m confident we’ve won them over.

Benji whisks me back to the kitchen and before I can congratulate him on a successful evening, he pushes me up against the walk-in fridge. His tongue teases my mouth open and I am putty in his hands. With his right hand, he pulls down the collar of my romper, exposing my black lace bra. He frees my breast and kisses my nipple. My neck turns to rubber and my eyes roll back.

“Benji,” I pathetically protest, very aware that all that separates us from a roomful of people who are currently picking a filter for a photo of the two of us holding hands is a swinging door that doesn’t lock.

He continues kissing my neck, my breast still exposed. “I couldn’t have done any of this without you, Allie.”

“Oh, really?” I say, recognizing that the natural high he’s on is most certainly fueling whatever is happening here. He slips a hand up my thigh.

“You made everyone out there have a good time tonight.”

“I know,” I playfully agree. He pulls my panties to the side. I know where this is going.

“And now it’s my turn to get in on it.”

Before I know it, he’s inside of me and we’re officially having sex against a cooler with forty people standing fifteen feet away, two of whom are my doting parents.

Sex between me and Benji has always been explosive. It’s like he knows exactly what I need and where to touch me without me having to give a lick of instruction. Sex has never been like this in my entire life. Granted, I’ve only got about five solid years of experience, but nothing rivals what Benji has introduced me to in the last three months. There’s virtually nothing I’ll say no to with him. Pornos, toys and now public places. Who am I?

I’ll figure it out after I get off. A few hushed moans later, and I’m there.

“You did so good tonight,” he whispers in my ear as he helps adjust my outfit. “Now I need you to go back out there and get everyone to leave so I can fuck you again over that balcony with the view of the lake in the background. Okay?”

I come back down to earth and reply, “Yes, sir.”

Back in the dining room, I brush shoulders with Benji’s sous chef, who’s on his way back to his station. I give Sebastian a nod and return to my post, trusty water pitcher in hand.

There are a few stragglers left in the dining room, including my parents, finishing the last sips of their BYO selections. From what I can tell as I clear empty dishes and put the tips in a billfold, people liked dinner. They really liked it. The average gratuity being left on the prepaid meal is about fifty dollars cash per person.

After subtracting the dealer’s cut, it’s looking like we’ll walk with about $2,000 cash for ourselves and I can’t help but feel like a bit of cheat. I know nothing about this world—this high-end foodie club that I got inducted into overnight—yet people are emptying their wallets of their hard-earned cash to show their gratitude for what we’ve done. Do they realize just hours ago, the black squid ink from course two was being stored on ice in my bathtub? Regardless, we need the money. Benji may have kicked his expensive habit, but I’m the only one with a steady job right now and being a social media manager for Daxa—yes, the organic cotton swab brand made famous by Katy Perry’s makeup artist on Snapchat—isn’t exactly like being the CEO of Morgan Stanley.

“Excuse me, where is the ladies’ room?” a tipsy guest asks. Benji might not have taught me how to sous vide a filet mignon, but he did tell me you always walk a guest to the bathroom when they ask. I promptly put down the dirty glasses and the wad of tips and walk the boozy babe to the loo.

Upon my return, I nearly collide with another guest, this one quite a bit soberer.

“Allie.” The prim-looking thirtysomething woman with a bleached-blond pixie cut says my name matter-of-factly. I stand up straight; this chick has CRITIC written all over her face.

“Yes, ma’am. Can I help you? Do you need a taxi?”

“No, thank you. I just wanted to give you a tip.”

“Oh, that’s so kind of you. You can actually just leave a gratuity on the table.”

“No, I meant, like, some advice.”

I tilt my head to the side and try not to lose my grip on my smiley service. She’s five foot nothing, but her demeanor is as bold as her bright red lipstick.

“I’m not sure Benji would be cool with you leaving a billfold with what I’d guess is about $2,000 in it just sitting on a table in a room full of drunk people who don’t know that it’s time to go home. It would behoove you to keep an eye on your shit.”

She jams the billfold into my chest and proceeds to walk right past me to the elevator bank.

And just like that, I’ve officially been felt up twice in one night.

2

It’s been two days since the pop-up and I’m meeting my girlfriends, Jazzy and Maya, for a very belated birthday celebration they arranged at Tavern on Rush, a glitzy Gold Coast eatery whose only meal I can afford is this one: Sunday brunch.

I’ve known Jazzy and Maya since high school. We ended up going our separate ways for college, but stayed in touch through thousands of group texts and visits home over the holidays. The four years flew by and it was no surprise that we would all wind up back in the city after graduation. The two of them live together in a cute two-bed-plus-den walk-up in Bucktown. They asked me if I wanted in on the lease but the could-be third bedroom was more like a Harry Potter closet and by that point I had determined my days of trying to hook up with a guy on a twin-size mattress ended the moment I was handed my bachelor’s degree. So that’s how I wound up solo in a studio in Lincoln Park, but it’s all good—especially given how things shook out with Benji.

Admittedly, it’s taken longer than it should for our little friend group to get together and celebrate my big quarter-of-a-century milestone, but I’ve been...well, I’ve been with Benji. Regardless, today we’ve got reserved patio seats looking out onto an area of town called “The Viagra Triangle” and the change of scenery, no matter how perverse, is welcome.

There’s no direct route from Lincoln Park to this part of town, but the people-watching is worth the public transportation shortcomings. Everywhere we look, there are men sixty years and older valeting drop-top Bentley convertibles and ushering around girls my age with tight bodycon dresses and fake tits. What these ladies will do for a Chanel purse the size of a dog crate is...well, come to think of it, pretty similar to what people do to get near Benji. I just hope no one petitions us for a foursome while we’re sitting out here.

“Thanks for putting this together, you guys,” I say as a montage of mimosa flutes and Bloody Mary tumblers connect in the center of our table.

“Cheers to twenty-five!!” they harmonize back.

“Oh, wait. Keep your glasses like that,” I say. “This is a great Instagram.”

I pull out my phone to get the bird’s-eye shot: Jazzy’s champagne flute angled slightly toward Maya’s Bloody Mary tumbler. Fresh pastel-colored gel manicures and just a hint of the robust bread basket overflowing in the lower left corner. It’s perfect for my Sunday morning social streams.

Too bad I’m not actually taking the picture. I’m really just checking my phone to see if Benji has tried to reach me. I know if I pull it out at the table and start texting, the girls will give me major shit about the fact I can’t go two hours without looking at it.

But what they don’t understand is how tough it really is to leave Benji alone knowing he doesn’t have a pop-up to prepare for this week or a bank of trustworthy friends of his own to hang with at the moment. I worry that the boredom may lead to something more sinister. Alas, there are no new messages from him, which could actually mean he’s at an NA meeting. I take a calming breath at the thought and strive to be a little more present at my special birthday brunch.

“Did you get it? My arm’s getting tired,” Maya says.

“Oh, damn, my storage is full. Let me delete some photos and we’ll try again when our food comes.”

The three-egg veggie omelet on the menu catches my eye. Sometimes, the simpler the dish, the better when Benji isn’t around. Because when he is, it’s always something like evaporated pancake mix with bacon jam. Delicious? Yes. Swoon-worthy? Totally. But filling? Hardly. And even though gourmet is my new normal, I enjoy the simple throwbacks, especially when they come with a side of home-style hash browns. When it’s time to order, I make a game-time decision to go sweet instead of savory, locking in the cinnamon brioche French toast and a promise to go for a jog by the lake later.

“I feel like I haven’t seen you in forever,” Jazzy says as she hands her menu back to the server, who trots off to put in our orders. I can’t tell if she’s peeved that I’ve dropped off the radar a bit, or just stating a fact. “I have bangs now.”

I love how Jazzy is using her bold hair choices as a milestone for our hangouts. From now on, I wouldn’t be surprised if we refer to things as “BB”—Before Bangs—and “AB”—After Bangs—which coincidentally aligns with Before Benji and After Benji. Either way, they suit her well. But when you look like Padma Lakshmi’s little sister and work as a buyer for Nordstrom, how could a trendy haircut betray your already perfect sense of style?

I think back on when the last time we all got together actually was and realize it was for our book club meeting a few months ago. It was my turn to host and Benji was only about a week sober at that point. I hadn’t yet told the girls he was living with me, nor had I filled them in on any of the gory details about his addiction, but I couldn’t cancel on them the day of. I also couldn’t tell Benji to get lost for a couple hours while we girls drank half a crate of wine and discussed periods, recent blow-job mishaps and a little bit about the book Gone Girl. So I explained that I was having friends over to talk about a book we were all reading and would try to hurry it up.

“You don’t have to rush because of me,” he immediately said. “If these girls are important to you, they’re important to me.”

“I know, but there will be wine. A lot of wine.”

“There will always be wine, babe. It doesn’t tempt me anymore, though. So why don’t you just sit down, relax and let me make you ladies some canapés.”

Before I had a chance to answer, my doorman was calling up to my unit to let me know my first guests had arrived.

As they filed in, I glossed over the introduction and explanation of Benji. He waved and smiled and looked hot in his apron while whipping up some hors d’oeuvres in the kitchen. The girls took their seats around the coffee table in my living room as I fetched a wine key from the utensil drawer.

“Sorry, babe,” I whispered as I grabbed the bottle opener from the drawer next to him.

“Stop apologizing, Al. Enjoy yourself. Please.”

On my tippy toes, I reached up to plant a kiss on his lips. That’s the first moment I realized I had it all.

A half hour later, Benji walked into the room with a tray of snacks. I know the girls were expecting some crackers and brie, but when he placed the canapés that could be on the cover of Plate magazine in front of us on the coffee table, everyone took their phones out and started Snapchatting like crazy.

“Holy shit. Does he cook like this all the time?”

“Oh my god, is this for real?”

“Did he just whip this up for us?”

Yes, yes and yes.

As the night went on, so did the culinary surprises from Benji. Deconstructed elotes featuring yellow corn, homemade mayo and parmesan cheese. Crispy cucumber slices with fresh-made garlic hummus and dehydrated cranberries. Mini toast points with guacamole made from avocadoes that were sitting on my countertop earlier that day. All of these treats came from ordinary groceries I happened to have in my fridge and pantry.

I soon recognized the infamous Benji Zane food coma coming over my girlfriends. At that, a few excused themselves by way of an Uber, leaving Jazzy, Maya and me to sit and chat while Benji cleaned up the kitchen and fixed himself dinner with the leftovers. That’s when I decided to tell them about my new living arrangement. I figured doing so after they’d experienced the Benji Effect firsthand would lessen the judgmental blowback that comes with telling people you’ve reached a major relationship milestone seemingly overnight.

Jazzy: “He’s living here now? God, you’re so lucky.”

Maya: “Agree. Maybe book club should morph into supper club, and permanently be at your place.”

Me: Mission accomplished.

“Sorry, it’s been crazy,” I say, returning to our brunch conversation. It’s minimal, but true.

“Speaking of crazy, can we talk about this?” Maya flips her wavy red hair over her shoulder and holds her phone my way. Her gap-toothed smile gets bigger by the second. I squint to see what’s lit up on her screen but before I can make it out, Jazzy grabs it from across the table for a better look of her own.

“‘Hot in the Kitchen,’” she reads. “‘Zane Stuns at North Side Pop-up.’”

“No way,” I say. “Gimme that.”

“Oh yeah, your face is all over FoodFeed,” Maya confirms, spiraling a curl around her pointer finger.

She’s right. FoodFeed—the quintessential dining-out blog of Chicago—has posted their review of Friday’s pop-up and chosen a photo of Benji holding my hand and bowing as the article’s hero image. Damn, we look good together.

Skimming the post, I see that FoodFeed approves of everything from the courtship to the courses. I scroll down to the comments and aside from one that says, “The fuck is she wearing?” in what I assume is in regards to my romper, it all seems positive. I text myself the link from Maya’s phone before giving it back to her.

I never used to care what FoodFeed had to say, mostly because I never knew what FoodFeed was. But since Benji’s name is as common on there as a photo of a doughnut on Instagram, I figured I had better familiarize myself. Not to mention, they’re the ones who broke the news we were dating in the first place.

When I hear the ding from inside my bag, the link to the article isn’t the only new message I’ve received. I’ve somehow missed five texts from Benji in the last few minutes.

Hi.

How’s brunch?

When R U coming home?

How do I go from TV to DVD with this remote?

Hello???

I picture him on the couch struggling to figure out how to put on Little Miss Sunshine but the directions are too much to type without being rude to Jazzy and Maya. So I quickly forward him the article in hopes that it distracts him long enough to realize he can probably just find the flick for free OnDemand.

Moments later, our brunch order arrives. The food runner places my French toast in front of me and our server follows behind him with a plate of ricotta pancakes.

“You’re Allie Simon, right?” he asks.

“Yes, why?”

“I knew it.” He puts the plate down and smiles proudly.

None of us ordered the short stack, but the fluffy pillows of perfection with their golden-blond hue look and smell delicious.

“I had the kitchen make these for you as a thank-you. I was at the pop-up Friday. My girlfriend got us tickets for my birthday.”

“Did you enjoy it?”

“Did I? Pardon my French, but holy shit, your boyfriend can cook. I mean, seriously, I have been dreaming about those squash blossoms ever since our Uber ride home. Do you know when his next dinner will be?”

“No, I’m sorry, I don’t. It all depends on securing a venue. But if you follow him on Twitter, he usually announces them there.”

“Oh, I already do. And on Instagram. And on Facebook. And I follow you, too, actually,” he says, completely fangirling out.

“Wow, thank you for...all your support. And for the pancakes.”

I can feel my face turn as red as Maya’s hair. I’m used to attention when out with him, but the fact I’m now being recognized on my own takes the reality of this high-profile relationship up a notch.

The server scampers away, looking like he just got laid. I’ve completely made this guy’s day and I’m not really sure how.

“Unreal,” Jazzy says.

“You literally have the craziest life,” Maya echoes.

Yeah, I guess this ain’t too shabby, I think to myself as I forklift the top pancake and plop it onto my plate.

* * *

So how does a girl like me wind up even crossing paths with a guy like Benji? We don’t hang with the same people. We don’t like the same things. Before him, the hardest drug I’d ever been around was pot smoked out of a water bottle at a frat party. On the food side of things, I never knew what a Michelin star was, nor could I fathom a world in which people paid $400 for a single meal. Before Benji, I could be found shopping the Nordstrom anniversary sale with Jazzy’s discount, hanging at some lawyer-laden soiree with some of Maya’s coworkers or out fulfilling my quest to collect as many punches as possible on my frozen yogurt loyalty card. None of that lent itself to meeting a guy like Benji.

Well, as it happens, while manning the social streams for Daxa-related news one day, I saw a chef tweet a video of plating a really beautiful dish of food using tweezers and our very own cotton swabs. I clicked on the guy’s profile and realized he was someone with some social media worth, 16,000+ followers. According to his bio, he was the executive chef of a restaurant I hadn’t heard of in the heart of downtown Chicago and seemed to enjoy chronicling his every moment in the kitchen online.

So I did what Daxa pays me to do: I “at-replied” him and retweeted his picture with a cheeky caption. Cleans your ears, cleans your eats.

In the moments that followed, my professional responsibilities combined with my personal curiosity and down the Google rabbit hole I went. I punched his name into a blank search bar and was blown away by what I found next.

One of the first hits back was a YouTube video of him sitting in front of a computer with his feet up on a desk looking remarkably cool. The cameraman sneaks up behind him to catch a glimpse of what Benji’s watching on the screen. Surprise! It’s a porno. “So what’s on the menu tonight, Chef Zane?” says the person filming. “Cream pie?” Benji jumps, lets out a loud “Fuck you...” and the room explodes in cackles. Thank god I had my headphones on.

I then clicked over to the Images tab and saw no shortage of eye candy there. Hell, there were entire Pinterest boards dedicated to his glorious man-bun. Most of the pictures were candid ones of him cooking, but there were definitely quite a few—some in color, some in black-and-white—of him hamming it up for the camera.

I got stuck on one photo in particular. It was connected to a write-up in GQ titled “Knife Fight.” He was pictured standing with his shirt off holding a butcher’s knife that was covered in red pepper puree meant to look like blood dripping off the blade. He was tatted up to his chin with everything from olive tree branches to a pig being roasted over an open flame. Over his left knuckles, the word RARE. Over his right, WELL. Kudos for having a theme, I thought. His face had a wicked, smug stare on it as if he was thinking, “You can’t tell because the photo is cropped, but I’m getting an awesome blow job right now.”

He was hot—at least, I guessed that’s the word you’d use to describe someone who’s both intimidating and alluring all at the same time. Even though he wasn’t my usual type, a small part of me wondered right then what it would be like to walk into his restaurant, sit alone at the bar with a view into the open kitchen and wait to see if a girl like me could catch the attention of a guy like him as I sipped on a glass of wine.

I hit on a few more links that day and caught myself reading what others were saying about him in the comments section of some blog.

“Just what the city needs. Another druggie chef.”

“He’s not on drugs, you idiot.”

“Doesn’t he only cook while super high?”

“He’s been clean for years. Get your facts straight.”

“I heard he powders their doughnut holes with cocaine.”

“I’d let him powder my doughnut hole with cocaine.”

Okay, so he may or may not be the Charlie Sheen of the culinary world, I thought to myself. But despite his sordid past, he clearly was a fan favorite. Whether people were loving or hating on him, the one thing that was inarguable across the board was that Benji Zane came with an obsessive following.

But at the first mention of a drug problem, I tightly closed the lid on my digital crush. There’s always a catch with guys in Chicago, right? Just as I finished x-ing out of all the tabs I had opened about him, he tweeted back at me—well, Daxa I mean.

See America? Even @DaxaSwabs knows I’m clean LOL

Yes, he went there. #Awkward.

I wanted to say I was shocked, but something about the frequency at which he was firing off random thoughts of 280 characters or less told me he wasn’t the kind of guy who’d ignore attention from a major brand—be it America’s favorite cotton swab or Calphalon—when he could spin it in his favor.

It was never my intention to allude to his could-be sobriety in a tweet, a subject that was well over my head for sure, but according to my job description I needed to continue to engage with him. Daxa’s social media policy states that when engaging with an influencer, we should never be the ones to drop the conversation—let them tire, get distracted or sign off. So I cracked my knuckles and got down to business trying to steer this conversation into more neutral territory.

Hey @BJZane, we got your back. But mostly your ears.

@DaxaSwabs if I can get your tongue, U R welcome 4 dinner at my resto anytime. #NotAPervyTweet #JustTryingToBeNice

As we bantered back and forth behind the safety of our respective avatars, I began to find him palatable. Where was the big, scary addict dude that everyone was gossiping about on the blogs?

That’s when the fantasy I had of meeting him got the best of me and I did something typically frowned upon in the Daxa social media handbook. I reached out to him from my personal account, introducing myself as the voice behind the cotton swab conversation.

He replied right away and said I was really funny. And hot. Funny and hot? I’ll take it.

We spent the rest of the day exchanging DMs. I even forwent a company lunch outing to stay back at my desk and keep the flirt fest going, telling everyone I had a mini crisis with a user who had a swab stuck in his ear. A couple hours later, he had to leave for a restaurant meeting. But not before he publicly tweeted, Everyone go follow my new friend @AllieSimon—she’s a real cool chick.

Wait. Really?

A few days later, Benji sent me a direct message. He said he had only one night off from the restaurant and if I wanted to meet him, now would be the time and a little dive bar in the Logan Square neighborhood would be the place.

I didn’t respond right away.

Did I want to meet him?

It’s not that I had other plans. It’s just that I hadn’t actually thought about crossing the IRL threshold with him. It’s a lot easier to converse with a tattooed guy who may or may not be addicted to drugs when you have the luxury of thinking about what you’ll say next as you hide behind your double monitors from the comfort of a cubicle.

So, for the time being, I resolved I’d table the in-person option and just ignore his ask.

Thirty minutes later, he sent another DM, one that couldn’t be ignored: It’s now or never. Are you meeting me tonight or not?

On one hand, he seemed aggressive. A little too intense for me. On the other, it was intoxicating that this quasi-celebrity chef dude wanted to hang out with me so badly, he had to wave a limited-time-only offer in front of my face to get me to act.

Another fact about me: I’m not one to pass up a good deal.

Yeah, I’m in, I coyly responded back, even though I was terrified at the thought of stepping out of my comfort zone.

Good choice, he typed back.

A few hours later, I put on some eyeliner and walked over to the meeting place with zero expectations. When I saw this rough and tough hottie sitting at the counter drinking a generous serving of neat whiskey, I knew I was in for more than I bargained for. I probably should have run before he had a chance to see me. I could have easily DM’d him, said my bus broke down or I got stuck at work. But I just couldn’t turn away.

“There she is, Miss Allie Simon, everybody,” he said along with a slow clap.

I looked around and there was no one else in the bar, which made his intro of me both silly and sweet. I could feel my nerves dialing down a notch.

“Hello, Benji,” I said, putting out my hand for a shake. He grabbed it, flipped it and kissed the top of my hand.

“Hi, Allie.”

“What can I get for you?” the bartender asked, putting a cocktail napkin down in front of me.

“Uh, how about a sauv blanc?”

“You’re at a whiskey and burger bar, babe,” the condescending bartender said back. “We don’t have sauv blanc.”

“The fuck you don’t.” Benji stepped in. “Go ask your chef what he puts in the mustard glaze. And bring an empty glass back there while you’re at it.”

The bartender gave us side-eye, realized it was Benji Zane shouting that order and grabbed a tumbler as he departed to the kitchen.

“Fucking idiots,” Benji whispered to himself as he took a sip of his drink. “So, how are you?”

He put his hand on my thigh as he asked the question—an action I would normally reject from a guy who wasn’t physically my type. After all, I was drawn to dudes who looked like they were sent home the first night on The Bachelorette. Clean-cut, maybe wearing a little concealer, just trying to be nice until we took things to the Fantasy Suite.

Like I said, walking, talking cliché.

Before I could answer, the bartender came back.

“Sorry, we don’t have wineglasses. But here’s your sauv blanc.”

“Well, cheers,” said Benji.

“How did you know...”

“It’s a burger place. They have mustard.”

“So?”

“I assume if they’re charging $15 for a basic hamburger, they probably make the mustard in-house, meaning there’s got to be a crisp white wine in the walk-in cooler back there or they wouldn’t be able to get the recipe right. He knew they had sauv blanc. He was just being a douchebag who was too lazy to walk ten feet and get it.”

I had been out with straitlaced stockbrokers sporting impeccably tousled hair who had held doors for me, brought me flowers for a first date and pushed in my chair for me at dinner. But no one in the last two months had ramped up my mojo as much as Benji had in that first five minutes. He stuck up for me—and my girlie drink order—all while showing off his culinary chops just a little bit.

From that point on, I knew he was going to be trouble. But I never imagined he’d become my trouble. Big difference.

Throughout the night, Benji excused himself a handful of times to go to the bathroom. Sure, a part of me wondered if he was doing coke in there, but I had to remember we both were drinking. I, too, would be in and out of the bathroom all night had I broken the seal earlier. Also, I had never done coke, nor did I know anyone in my social circle who had, so what was I looking for anyway? White powder to be coating his nostrils? A nagging itch at his nose? For what it was worth, neither of those things were happening, so I shrugged it off and stopped counting his trips to the bathroom. After all, I wasn’t in this for the long run, so what the guy did in the men’s room was none of my business. All that mattered was that he kept rejoining me back at the bar and picking up right where our scintillating conversation left off.

A one-night stand was inevitable. But by the time I realized the drug thing was real, and it was serious, we were way past just one night.

3

It’s late in the workday Monday when I get an email from my alma matter, Mizzou. It’s the quarterly journalism alumni update wherein they compile a list of about a hundred bullet points, all just quick mentions of who got hired where, which people have been promoted at their jobs and which of the former editors are now stay-at-home moms and freelance taste testers for Nabisco. Being three years post-grad and still happily working for an ear-cleaning company, this digest is basically my version of Page Six news.

Which is why I’m particularly shocked to see my name about a third of the way down the list.

Allie Simon is dating celebrity chef Benji Zane. They live together in Chicago.

Normally the chairman of the department solicits for these kinds of updates, and this is most certainly a blurb that I did not submit myself. So the fact that one of the best journalism schools in the country has scooped this intel straight from a popular food blog and finds my personal life newsworthy makes me feel like a goddamn celebrity, I must admit.

I don’t blame them for not including a word about my role at Daxa in the roundup. In fact, it’s kind of a shameful career choice considering I was at one point the managing editor of the school paper. But the truth is, I never wanted to be a reporter and by the time I pocketed my degree and moved back to Chicago, the way the world works had changed. People wanted to speak and read in bursts of 280 characters or less and Daxa, headquartered here in the River North neighborhood, was looking for someone to help them get in on a conversation of that caliber. Couple that with my need to pay bills and suddenly tweeting about cotton swabs became my calling. Or something like that.

It’s always a bit difficult to play catch-up on Monday mornings since we switch over to an automated community management system for nights and weekends. Unfortunately, the “NightHawk2000” has the personality of a bad first date and sometimes misses an influx of tweets if the system has to reboot itself—which it does, often. I want to say that today is no different, but it’s actually worse. Taking off last Friday for Benji’s pop-up set me back about 300 replies before 9:00 a.m.

I somehow make it through the day and am now standing outside my office waiting for the Route 22 bus up to Lincoln Park while group texting with Jazzy and Maya about tonight’s premiere of the new season of The Bachelor.

Maya: Starts @ 7. My Place?

Jazzy: Can BZ whip up some garlic hummus?

Suddenly, I’m interrupted by a tap on my shoulder.

“Babe! What are you doing here?” I pull my headphones out as Benji brings me in for a clammy hug. He clearly walked to my office, which is a good forty-five minutes at a brisk pace. He smells like a cigarette accompanied him and deodorant did not. Still, I’m happy to breathe him in, although I’m regretting the fact I haven’t touched up my makeup at all today. It may sound shallow, but in my defense, I’m not like Benji. I can’t just throw on a white Hanes V-neck with a sweaty man-bun and automatically look like I should be on the cover of People’s Sexiest Man Alive issue.

Plus, this is an ambush. He surprised me outside my work. Now, what for is the question.

“Remember how I told you there were a few VIPs on the dinner list at the pop-up? I circled their names on the sheet I gave you before service...” His eyes are big and intense. Kind of like how they always are, I guess.

I squint as I rack my brain. I don’t remember any one person in particular, but immediately panic wondering if they all got food poisoning or something.

Benji doesn’t wait for a reply.

“The guy who runs Republic, Ross Luca, invited us in tonight.”

Ross Luca is a Chicago restaurateur—an iconic one at that. I know this because FoodFeed loves Ross Luca. They seem to run a blog post about him daily. At first, I wanted to know who he was paying off for all the good press, but then I realized there’s a lot to cover about Ross. For one thing, he’s both a businessman and executive chef. In something like two short years, he’s managed to open everything from a kitschy Jewish deli to an over-the-top steak house and rotates cooking at them all, six days a week. It’s rare to find someone like that, who can fire from both sides of the brain. Who can be artistic in the kitchen and savvy in the boardroom. Everyone in the industry knows that Ross Luca is that prodigy. Hell, even a typically jealous Benji agrees Ross is the shit. Which is why his name was highlighted and starred on the VIP list—that I recall for sure.

While he may have just about every cuisine in this city cornered, Republic is Ross’s fine-dining spot. FoodFeed called it “an instant classic” when it opened about a year ago and the reservation list hasn’t dwindled one bit since then, despite the $150+ per person price tag. Which leads me to my next point: we can’t go.

“Well, that’s exciting. But...Republic is for very wealthy people.”

“Or for normal people pretending to be rich for the night,” he casually volleys back.

“Right. Either way, a $400 meal for two is pretty grotesque. Don’t you think?”

“I do.”

He’s not at all picking up what I am throwing down. The majority of our profit from the pop-up Friday has already been used for bills, groceries and drug debts, and I’ve set the rest aside for September’s rent since he hasn’t scheduled the next pop-up yet.

“Relax, Allie. It’s on the house. No charge for us.”

“Holy shit!” Yes, I’m a grown woman squealing in middle of the sidewalk. If people weren’t already staring at us, they are now.

“Wait, so let me get this straight,” I say. “Ross Luca invited you and me to eat free at Republic tonight? That’s so freaking awesome. What time’s the reso?”

“Eh, right now, actually. Sorry, I know it’s kind of early for multicourse dining but I expect we’ll be there awhile.”

The expression on my face sags a bit as I remember my plans to watch The Bachelor at Maya’s.

“Something wrong, babe?” he asks.

“No. Nothing.” I smile big to reassure him I’m so in for this.

“Great. Can I get the cash?”

Although having to ask your girlfriend for money to treat her may not feel like the most graceful display of chivalry, he knows the drill. That I’m the keeper of the cash. So I hand over a portion of the tips we made at the pop-up, our “fun money” as we like to call it, as discreetly as I can. In exchange, he grabs my chin and kisses me directly on the lips.

“Wait here, I’ll flag us a taxi,” he says, bolting to the curb.

I could call us an Uber from my phone. It would make trying to hail a cab during rush hour in River North a nonissue, but it’s linked to my credit card. And I can tell Benji wants full credit for this date so I let him hunt and gather while I text Maya that I won’t be able to make it to her place tonight.

Maya: It’s kind of tradition, A...

Me: Sry! Republic = MAJOR. Can we watch tmrw?

Maya: Jazzy’s already on her way. Can’t cancel.

Me: OK. Will watch online over my lunch tmrw. Next wk 4 sure!

I toss my phone back into my bag and cringe as I look down at my pencil skirt, flats and button-up shirt. I’m dressed like a district attorney. I dig around in my trusty Marc Jacobs tote for some lip gloss and a hair clip, then spend the rest of the ride over touching up my makeup and trying to pull my day-old hair into a decent-looking chignon. Before we get out of the cab, Benji uploads a selfie of the two of us to his Snapchat story, tagging Republic in the post. It’s been live for all of five seconds and I can already feel the notifications vibrating my bag.

“Welcome, Benji. Hello, Allie.” The hostess knows who we are without us having to introduce ourselves. I feel like a celebrity. “Follow me.”

As we trail the blonde hostess into the main dining area, I soak in the interior of the restaurant. Right away I see they run a silent kitchen—ten chefs, all with their heads down. Benji always says the quieter the kitchen, the more expensive the meal. Thank god this is getting comped.

We are led to a table in the middle of the dining room, close to the window nearest the entrance. It’s a strategic move on the restaurant’s part—so we can see everything and be seen by everyone. Once seated, we aren’t handed menus. When you’re a guest of the guy in charge, you eat what he cooks, end of story.

“Congrats on the FoodFeed review. Well done, Chef Zane,” the blonde says before walking back to her post.

It’s apparent she’s seen the article. Perhaps that’s how she knew exactly who I was.

The table attendant pours our water after ascertaining our preference for still. “Hey, nice going with the pop-up. FoodFeed said you killed it,” he whispers to Benji.

“So, has everyone in the industry seen this post?” I ask with a hint of sarcasm as I unfold my napkin and place it on my lap. Doing this promptly and coyly is something Benji once said separates the restaurant pros from the Friday-night novices. In fact, it’s a tactic I used while hosting the pop-up last week to measure the ratio of actual VIPs to slutty chef-chasers (1:5).

Benji takes a sip of his water and cracks his knuckles on the table. “Well, babe, we showed them what’s up. They fucking loved everything.”

He pulls out his phone, normally a faux pas at a fine-dining restaurant unless you’re quickly snapping a photo of some rare black truffles. I think it’s to check the number of views on our selfie, but he actually references the FoodFeed article for the hundredth time. I suspect he’s a little addicted to the good news, but that’s a vice I can handle.

“... From the high-end venue, to the bone-china soup bowls, it appeared that no corners were cut this time.”

“... Zane seemed remarkably poised despite a crowded dining room. Especially for someone who’s rumored to have a serious past with hard drugs...”

“... We’ll be dreaming of the bourbon honeycomb panna cotta dessert until the next pop-up is announced.”

As he reads the praise, I can’t stop staring at this man who I call mine.

“Don’t look at me like that...” He catches me.

“I can’t help it. You’re kind of incredible.”

“Only because of you, babe.” I smile at the credit given. “And I said don’t look at me like that or I’m not going to be able to wait until we’re home to fuck you.”

He may be blunt. He may be crass. But his matter-of-fact confidence in my feelings for him reinforces that we are working.

“Benji, Allie, good to see you both.” Ross graces us with his presence at the table. Did he hear Benji discuss his plans for me later? The thought causes my face to heat and Benji to smirk at me before getting up to shake Ross’s hand. I get up to do the same but Ross waves me back down. “Please, sit. Relax.”

All eyes in the restaurant turn like magnets in our direction. I remember Ross from the pop-up looking remarkably dapper for a fortysomething-year-old. His slicked-back brown hair contrasted his piercing blue eyes, not to be one-upped by the purple gingham shirt with a navy bow tie he was sporting. Tonight Ross is dialed down in a long, all-black apron and dressed to cook. It’s his turn to show off what he’s got.

I wonder if he feels like because he ate a good meal, he now owes us a favor—or if it’s more of a pissing match. A “you cook good, but I cook better” type of thing. Who knows? I’m just hungry.

“So, no allergies, right?” Ross asks.

“Nope, just...three months sober,” Benji says with a nervous laugh. Has it been three months already? Damn, now that’s something to celebrate.

“Got it, so we’ll hold off on pairings, then.” Ross’s tone is matter-of-fact. “Well, I hope you brought your appetites. I’m going to head back to the kitchen and get going on your first course. If you need anything, we’ve got Steve as the lead server tonight and Felix is his assistant.” Felix is the guy who got us our water. He nods in the background.

Ross departs and I spy a few rogue eaters awkwardly trying to make it look like they weren’t just taking a picture of us from across the room on their phones.

“To three months and a great FoodFeed review,” I say, clinking my water glass against Benji’s. “Proud of you, babe.”

Moments later, a plate arrives with a single tortellini on it. I grab my knife and fork and prepare to dig in.

“Whoa, whoa. Hold up,” Benji says. “That’s the amuse-bouche.”

“So?”

He swallows his portion and replies: “It’s a one-bite.”

From across the table, Benji uses his fork and shimmies my tortellini onto it.

“Open,” he directs.

I close my mouth around the tortellini.

“Now chew slowly. Take it all in. Let the taste hit your palate like a slow leak.”

Nothing like the manic addict telling me to slow down to show the world how far he’s come.

* * *

We’re six hours into what I can only describe as a food coma meets a red carpet event. The three-hour premier of The Bachelor has come and gone, and every half hour Steve and Felix have brought out some mind-blowing dish featuring food I’ve never heard of, and certainly never dreamed I’d be eating.

Our tenth course of the night arrives and by now, the restaurant rush is over and the dining room is starting to filter out. After all, it’s only Monday.

“I’m literally so full,” I whisper, trying my best to tap out.

“You have to keep eating, babe.”

“I can’t, I feel like I’m going to burst.” I’m a petite girl being suffocated by a pencil skirt, for crying out loud. Benji knows I’m struggling, especially since we’re still on the savory courses. He looks around to make sure Ross is nowhere to be seen and takes a forkful of venison from my plate, devouring it in one bite.

“Jesus. How are you still hungry, Benji?”

“I’m not. It’s just rude to leave food behind when they’re doing what they’re doing.”

“Showing off?”

“Basically.”

Ross makes his way back out to the dining room. As he approaches our table, he unties the knot on his apron, a sign that the white flag has been raised—no more food, thank god.

“How was it?” Ross asks.

“Fucking delicious, man. Everything was bomb. Seriously, dude.”

“Nice, that’s what I like to hear. I’ve got our pastry chef working on your dessert courses now. Figured I’d leave the sweet finish up to the pro in this case.”

I put my hand over my stomach like my food baby is kicking.

“Listen, Benji. If I don’t see you while I’m breaking down the kitchen, I just wanted to say thanks for coming in. I loved what you did at the pop-up last week and if you ever want to come in and stage, just hit me up. Cool? And hey, congrats on the sobriety, man. That’s killer.”

Benji gets up and gives Ross a hug. I follow. It’s the first time I’ve stood in several hours and my legs feel like jelly. I’m wondering if that’s because of the lack of blood flow or the fact that I’ve gained twenty pounds since being here.

Dessert is an orgasmic chocolate cake with little gold flakes throughout the ganache, served with a pot of gooey, warm caramel, which shockingly I manage to find room for. Afterward, Felix comes to bus our plates as Steve tells us the cake course completes the evening. He wishes us both a good night and departs to the back-of-house. That’s it. There is no check presented, no paperwork that shows we came, we ate, we conquered.

Benji stretches his arms and protrudes his food-filled belly forward. He must feel like a king right now. He digs into his pockets and proceeds to count the rest of the cash I gave him earlier.

“What’s that for?” I say.

“Kitchen tip-out.”

“Are you going to leave it all?”

Instead of verbally answering me, he puts the twenties down on the table one at a time like he’s dealing cards from a deck until there are none left.

Though it’s a bit hard to see him spend everything that’s left from what we made on Friday, I know it doesn’t cover a fraction of what this dinner would cost a regular patron.

But between everything I saw and tasted tonight, I’m now 100 percent convinced we are anything but regular.

“Ready, babe?” he asks, helping me out of my chair. We walk hand in hand toward the front of the restaurant, where we pass the blonde hostess who sat us so many hours ago.

“Have a good night,” I say to her.

“Excuse me...” she says back, checking over her shoulder for management. “Could I take a quick picture with you guys?”

The three of us squeeze in together as Benji extends his arm out with her phone to press the button. Anything but regular, I think to myself again as I smile big for the camera.

4

“Babe.”

One Mississippi. Two Mississippi. I award myself a mental grace period in hopes that Benji realizes the sandwich I’m making requires actual skill. For me, at least. I don’t cook much anymore—well, let’s be frank, I never really did—now that an esteemed chef shares my address. But when I’m hungry and he’s exhausted, it’s back to a basic turkey-and-cheese for me.

I didn’t think I’d ever feel hungry again after last night’s nonstop food fest at Republic, but Benji picked up a crusty-on-the-outside, soft-on-the-inside loaf of bread with actual chunks of roasted garlic baked right in it from the Farmer’s Market while I was at work. And it’s a beacon of carby goodness that won’t stop calling my name.

Just like Benji.

“Hey, sweet babe?” he asks again.

“Yeah? What is it?” I finally respond after a lengthy pause.

“Come here. Come look at this email. I’m pretty sure I’m getting a fucking restaurant.”

Benji has left my laptop open on the couch, I’m assuming for me to peruse said email at my leisure while he grabs one of the last Camel Lights from a dingy pack in the pocket of his gray hoodie. I bought that pack for him earlier this morning as he walked me to the bus stop and it already looks like it’s been through a shredder. Stressful day of buying fancy bread and checking email on the couch?

I’ve always thought there were two kinds of smokers: the James Deans and the truck-stop loiterers. Benji is a James Dean, so I let it slide, especially since a cig hanging from his lips means he’s not smoking coke through a foil pipe.

I humor him, taking a seat on my couch and grabbing my laptop. To be clear, I’m not fighting some sort of custody battle over inanimate objects. It’s just that ever since Benji moved in with me a few months ago, boundaries have become a bit...blurred? Most days, I really like sharing my space with Benji. But every once in a while, I start to feel a little claustrophobic. It could be the 500-square-feet cabin fever kicking in, but today is most definitely one of those days.

Last night, I was famous, he was sober, and we were more in love than ever before when we had amazing sex until two in the morning. Then come 9:00 a.m., I was sluggishly pushing out tweets about a cotton swab while wondering why Jazzy and Maya wouldn’t text me back about some stupid TV show and if my direct deposit will hit when it’s supposed to so my bills aren’t late. It’s exhausting going from cloud nine to nine-to-five over and over.

Again, not the time for an emotional audit. Not when I need to see what this email is all about.

Dear Benji, the email begins. Before I read more, I peek at the sender’s address: a.blackstone.82@gmail.com. The email rings a bell, though I can’t quite place it.

My name is Angela Blackstone. I was a patron at last week’s pop-up dinner.

Bingo. It all comes back to me. I picture pasting her name and email into an Excel spreadsheet and recall her paying for two tickets to last Friday’s penthouse event.

As a fan of the Chicago food scene and industry professional myself (I’m the General Manager of Florette just outside of Chicago), I can confidently say you are doing some of the most interesting, flat-out genius stuff I have ever seen in a kitchen. From the carrot mousse as the amuse-bouche to the bourbon honeycomb panna cotta for the sweet finish, it was all so theatrical. Meaningful. Complicated. Appetizing. Amazing.

Now to be candid, as much as I follow your culinary delights, I am also privy to what they say about your lifestyle. Regardless, I want to talk to you about an opportunity.

I know what goes into a five-hour, five-course dinner like the one you hosted Friday. And so long as blood, sweat and tears don’t count for shit as seasonings, I know you are not actually considering doing pop-up dinners for the rest of your career. You are one of the best that ever has been and ever will be. It would be a shame if all of that capped at these fly-by-night dinners.

Like I said, I am in the industry. I helped open some of the best restaurants just outside of Chicago and earned accolades of all types less than 12 months after the doors opened. The gentleman financially behind those places is looking to invest, finally, in a space in downtown Chicago. As a result, he has excused me from my current role to start scouting for this forthcoming restaurant. After the location and talent is secured, it will be a fast, hard open. I will become the new GM and I’d like you to be Chef de Cuisine.

This is not a joke. This is not a drill. Reply for further details and give my best to Allie. She was a wonderful hostess on Friday night. Just tell her to keep an eye on her billfolds if you keep doing those pop-ups...

-Angela

Ah-ha.

So the bitchy blonde firecracker who damn near broke my sternum shoving a folder of cash into my chest wants to give my boyfriend a restaurant. Well, she’s going to have to get in line with the fifty other people who, for their own selfish reasons, like to dangle shiny false hopes in front of a guy who is trying to focus on getting his life together.

I take a bite of my sandwich and the crusty bread roughs up the roof of my mouth. The nerve of this woman and her sadistic little email has also managed to suck the saliva from my mouth, and now I’m rage-chewing and wishing I hadn’t forgotten my Diet Coke on the counter.

“What do you think?” Benji says as he blows a thick stream of smoke out the window.

“Still reading,” I say. Still processing is the real answer.

In Benji’s defense, yes, Angela’s offer sounds legit. But there’s a good chance she’s like all the rest: just someone who wants fewer degrees of separation between herself and the beautiful lunatic they see portrayed in the media.

I’ve got one job when it comes to Benji, at least until he gets a little more sobriety under his belt. And that job is to protect him. Protect him from the people who want to either glorify his addiction, or sabotage it.

I’ve got to look out for myself, too. “Give my best to Allie.” A cordial sign-off from a woman who just four days ago let me know exactly what she thought of my ability, or should I say inability, to command a room? I smell bullshit—even through the aromatic cloves of garlic six inches from my nose.

“I think this could be good for my reputation,” Benji says, ashing out the window before taking his next drag.

Here’s the thing about his reputation. He may be the one responsible for trashing it, but I care about building it back. I know that’s mostly his job, but we need people not to lose interest in his pop-ups. If he switches gears and takes the bait Angela’s hooked, we risk losing out on the type of cash flow that can be made with the snap of a finger. Or the sear of a scallop, I should say.

I get the allure of what Angela is offering: steady paychecks from a hot, new open. But Benji has sabotaged anything and everything that could have been good for him. In fact, he admitted that verbatim to me the first time we met. I thought it was the whiskey talking, to be honest, so I just giggled, asked for another glass of sauv blanc, and looked past it. I mean, who just matter-of-factly states that if it’s a good thing, he’s going to throw acid on it?

Perhaps not taking that warning seriously was an oversight on my part during the whole getting-to-know-him phase. But as his current girlfriend, I am now very familiar with his former MO. So while I should be supportive and excited at the thought that someone wants to give him a chance—a real, substantiated chance—I just can’t see the light when so many red flags clog my vision.

Angela has no idea how fragile Benji really is. Her job is to taste his food, catch a glimpse of him in the kitchen, post it on her Instagram and feel like the popular kid in school when the likes roll in. That’s it. She has no idea the size of the pot she’s stirring by promising sunshine, rainbows and restaurants. But I’ve managed to show him the way thus far and I’m not letting him take a detour on this dead-end offer. Go ahead, call me his part-time girlfriend, part-time game keeper. It’s true. God, Facebook “it’s complicated” relationships have nothing on us.

Then why the hell am I sticking around? Because the sex is just that good? I mean, it’s the best I’ve ever had by far, but that’s not what keeps me here. And neither is the cooking, although that’s a hell of a hook. So have I bought into the delusion that I’ll be the one thing that changes Benji, that sobers him up, shakes his shoulders and turns him into the Top Chef the whole country knows he can be?

Well.

Kind of.

I haven’t failed at much in my life so far. At least, not this quickly. For all the irritation and frustration a situation like this can carry, part of me really does believe that I could be the missing piece. Benji seems to think so, too. He tells me every day that no matter what success he has, it’s because of me. Everyone can see he’s doing so much better now that we’re together. And last night—three months of sobriety—is proof.

Benji rejoins me on the couch. My apartment reeks of cigarette smoke and mustard. I hate to admit that it’s not a terrible combo.

“That email’s crazy, right, Al?”

That’s one word for it. I don’t know what to say back, so I let Due Diligence Debbie chime in.

“Sure, but do you even know anything about this chick?” I decide not to tell him that I do, that she nearly football-tackled me over the little slipup I made when busing tables.

He takes the laptop back but doesn’t answer the question.

“Also, what happens with your pop-ups? You’re just going to ditch doing those right after FoodFeed announces it’s the one can’t-miss dining experience of Chicago? You finally have a real, passionate following, Benji. Just the other day I was at brunch and my server was begging me to spill the beans on your next dinner. Do you realize how easily you could sell them out? You’d be booked the next six dinners if you scheduled them.”

Full disclosure when it comes to his pop-ups: I front all food and supply costs. It’s not something I wanted to do, but when he came to me with a solid plan about how to pull off these pop-ups and contribute financially to our household, the Bank of Allie was really the only one willing to give the loan needed to get his idea off the ground. Plus, it was the only way to do this while avoiding his number one trigger—easy access to cash.

It works like this: Benji announces a pop-up on social media after he secures a “venue.” I use that term loosely since he never actually acquires any permits or paperwork. Therefore the destination for these dinners depends on who’s willing to say yes to letting him take over their space for a few hours, which usually means it’s only a matter of days between the initial announcement and the dinner itself. By that point, I will have withdrawn anywhere from five hundred to a thousand dollars from my personal account to purchase the last-minute ingredients and supplies.

Fronting the money isn’t as scary as it sounds. When someone wants a seat at the pop-up, they have to pay immediately online. The money goes directly into my account so I can pay myself back. After I’m reimbursed, the profit is enough to cover stuff like his cell phone bill, our gas and water usage, a fraction of the cable bill. We could probably stand to make even more of a bottom line, but there are only so many seats available to sell and Benji has a habit of insisting he needs just twenty dollars more for bigger sea urchins...or for a new slotted spoon...or to pay Sebastian in cigarettes. Even though the ebb and flow of things has become my obsession in the last few months, I can’t begrudge him twenty dollars. Plus, when I see people post gorgeous pictures of his beautifully composed dishes, I know there’s no possibility he’s abusing our system.

So if the pop-ups alone just cover the basic bills, where do we really rake it in? With gratuities. By the time the dinners end, patrons forget they’ve prepaid for their meal so it feels weird to them leaving the table empty—especially since they had a good time and ate great food. They dip into their wallets for whatever cash they have stashed away and make sure to leave it all as a token of their appreciation. It’s exactly like last night when Benji cascaded twenties like a waterfall onto the table at Republic before we got up to go home. But we were just two people, and stone sober at that. When an entire roomful of overserved celeb-chef chasers are involved, the result is hundreds of dollars just for a glimpse of the man-bun and a taste of his Sriracha Jell-O cubes.

I’ve thought about looking into legitimizing this business but the thought of figuring out an LLC for a guy whose credit looks like it’s been through a meat grinder is daunting as fuck. For now, I’m not worried as long as we continue to keep the gratuities as all-cash and totally under the table.

And as long as Angela is not in the picture.

“The pop-ups are what they are,” he says. “But this...this could be legit. Like, some real steady shit.”

He cracks his knuckles—the gesture I know means he’s getting excited about something. The first time I saw him do it was the second time we ever hung out. He had just gotten a text from a buddy who’d scored an eight ball (aka a helluva lot of cocaine) from a dealer known for having the good shit.

“I don’t know, Benji. I don’t have the best feeling about this proposition,” I say.

“Come on, Allie. You know I want my own restaurant. That’s always been the goal. To get four stars from the Trib. To have Candice Allegro give me a James Beard Award.”

To get what? From whom?

“All I’m saying is: Why would I slave my dick off doing pop-ups anymore if I don’t have to?”

This is a wee bit frustrating to hear considering he’s spent about two-thirds of his tenancy in my apartment basically just sitting on my couch focusing on his sobriety. The pop-ups are new and exciting. They’re just starting to get off the ground. Should he already consider retiring?

“But you’re making a profit that you don’t have to split every which way,” I remind him. “And you get to do what you want to do with the menu. Wasn’t that the goal?”

“You’ve got to think bigger than these pop-ups, babe. These dinners were always just supposed to be a distraction. A means to an end. And it looks like the end is coming real fucking quick.”

Benji hits Reply and starts pounding letters on the keyboard. I already know he’s drafting a note back to discuss this more so I excuse myself to put my dirty dish away before he asks me to proofread it.

Moments later: “Boom. The bitch already wrote back. We’re on for coffee tomorrow.”

The speed at which he propels himself into these head-on collisions is beyond my understanding. Sometimes, the chasm of difference between us repulses me, though I wish it didn’t. I just think about relationships like my mom and dad’s and wonder if I’m on the right track. They’ve been married for thirty-some-odd years and together even longer than that. Whatever the secret to a lasting relationship is, they know it. Would my dad ever do something rash without discussing it thoroughly with my mom? Before I play it out in my head, I stop comparing. This is my love story, I reason.

I rinse my dish under the sink as Benji comes up slowly and softly behind me. He puts his arms around me and lays his head on my back.

“Put that down,” he says. “I’ll clean when you’re at work tomorrow.”

I’d rather not leave filth in the sink overnight, but Benji starts kissing my neck and suddenly I lose my motor skills. He guides me a few steps to our bed and lifts my shirt over my head.

* * *

Benji had his own place for a hot minute. He invited me over sometime around our third date and made me dinner while sipping out of a fifth of whiskey he kept by the oven like a handy bottle of olive oil.

He plated the meal and slid it across his large kitchen island. I climbed up on a bar-height stool and he sat down next to me a moment later.

“Dig in, baby girl,” he said.

As I looked down at the plate, I was so intimidated. Scared I didn’t know how to cut into whatever he made and that I would proceed to eat a part you’re not supposed to. I was unsure if I’d even like the way it tasted.

But one bite in and my world was rocked.

“You like?”

I could only nod as I swallowed my food.

“Next time, dinner at my place. I’ll make you my famous grilled cheese. I use tinfoil on an ironing board,” I said.

At that, he spat out his most recent pull of whiskey and let out a laugh from deep within his chest. I hadn’t ever heard a laugh like that, especially not from him. It softened his edgy demeanor even though I’m pretty sure he was mocking me for my lack of kitchen skills.

“You know what? An ironing-board grilled cheese sounds hella good. Sign me the fuck up for that,” he said.

The rest of the night went just like that: jokes and drinks. He was way more palatable than I had ever imagined him being.

“Okay,” Benji had said as he cleared away our dirty plates. “Now, you’re going to fuck me.”

It wasn’t a demand. He was simply right. I was going to sleep with him. I wanted to sleep with him.

The next morning, I awoke to the sound of my alarm on my phone around six in the morning. I had set it extra early so that I could get back to my place, shower the sex off and get to work looking somewhat put together.

As I reached to silence my phone and sneak out of bed, Benji pulled me back like a magnet, burrowing me into the nook of his chest. I was the small spoon, which in itself wasn’t so outstanding. But he held me closer, tighter, harder than I had ever been held by anyone before.

And in that moment, when even in his sleepy haze he still objected to my leaving, I knew this wasn’t going to be just a onetime thing. Was it a lifetime thing, or even a long-term thing? Who knew? But contrary to my story with Benji being over, I was sure whatever was coming had only just begun.

5

It’s too early in the day to do math, but I find myself staring at yet another utility bill on Wednesday morning. I really don’t understand how a person whose worldly possessions include just six T-shirts, some skinny jeans and a pair of Dansko kitchen clogs can rack up such a high cost of living.

Every month since Benji moved in, a small part of me has died when I open the bills. My studio apartment is far from enormous. Yet lo and behold, the electric bill feels like it’s for a four-bedroom house with a pool. I’m not trying to point fingers, but as I look to my left, there’s a rack of lamb that’s sitting in a sous vide and will be for seventy-two hours straight. Seriously, if the health inspector could see the shit that Benji pulls from up here on the tenth floor, he would never be allowed to cook again.

Not far behind is the cable bill. While Benji was getting sober, he insisted he shouldn’t work. Like, at all. I didn’t doubt the process, but then he claimed he was so bored while I was at the office that he feared a relapse. Could you imagine the FoodFeed headline? Zane Relapses Due to Girlfriend’s Lack of Robust Cable Package. So I gave him the green light to set it up.

I’m sure there’s a way to scale back on the bill now that Benji attends regular NA meetings and has his pop-up work to distract him, but I just don’t have the energy to sit on hold with the cable company and negotiate what premium channels should stay and what DVR features need to go. So I pay the bill and accept it as part of the price you pay to keep your boyfriend on the right track.

It’s still odd to think how we achieved “couple” status in the first place, since the path there was about as rinky-dink as the food prep that goes on in this apartment.

Before we were living together, he accidentally left a hoodie at my place. So I put it on, kept it unzipped with no bra and sent him a little sext. Not my best moment, but tempering myself around him was (still is) damn near impossible and I thought I’d tease him a bit with a smoky eye and a little side boob. Clearly, he liked what he saw, because he saved the photo to his phone and blasted it out a week later directly from his Twitter account while on a bender. He captioned it: My girlfriend is hotter than yours. cc: @AllieSimon.

To set the record straight, I was his side chick at best. Not a title one is usually proud of, but a role that accurately described the state of our relationship at the time. You know, one of probably a few people you call for a sloppy bar make-out session, or a 5:00 a.m. cuddle-fest. I was just someone who answered his calls with a wave of butterflies instead of a pit in my stomach. The pit was reserved for a woman daring enough to be his actual girlfriend; someone willing to take Benji on full-time.

The following morning, his dedicated fans saw the shocking 2:00 a.m. tweet and as such, my phone buzzed with notification after notification. The combination of dings and glows woke me up before my alarm did. A lot of people were sending their congratulations, concurring that I was in fact “hot.” Others said he could do better. A few girls tweeted back, I thought I was your girlfriend, you dick. Or just a plain and simple Fuck you @AllieSimon.

Whether or not Benji was actually in the market for a girlfriend, this tweet heard ’round the Chicago food world was the moment it all went down for me, a no-namer suddenly thrust into a controversial limelight without any warning.

@FoodFeed: Hey @BJZane, congrats! Would love to do a blurb on you and @AllieSimon. Favorite this tweet if OK.

Moments later, Benji of course gave it a like, which gave FoodFeed permission to go even more public with what was just a private guilty pleasure to me at the time.

That pic was only 4 U, Benji, I texted him with the slightest bit of rage/embarrassment.

ppl should know, he promptly wrote back.

Know what? My bra size?

U R my gf

<3 How is this going 2 work?

IDK.

I had learned from previous exchanges with him that short, intense, rapid-fire texts were a telltale sign he was high.

Cocaine talking? I had to ask.

I’ll get clean 4 U. I told U.

I turned my screen to dark and clutched the phone to my pounding chest as I sat up in my bed. Is this really happening? Do I want it to be happening?

Before this public display, what we did was in the dark. It was a secret he and I kept, and we capped it at booze-fueled conversation and fiery hookups. Sure, Jazzy and Maya knew that I was dancing with the devil, but my parents—and certainly the entire city of Chicago—didn’t need to know I was spending a few nights a week rounding the bases with a ticking time bomb who would sniff white powder off the nightstand before going down on me.

When Benji came into my life, keeping my distance was both the first and last thing on my mind. Every time we’d finish having sex, my internal battle was always, do I gear up for round two? Or do I leave now while he’s toweling off in the bathroom and block his number for good? Before I could make up my mind, he’d come back into the room, lock his arms around me and ask me what I wanted for breakfast the next morning.

How do you put a lid on that? Any of that? Had I known how it all was going to shake out a few months later, maybe I would have pumped the brakes a bit. But with a guy like Benji, I learned there are none.

And now here I am four months later—figuring out our expenses on a hot and sticky late-August morning. In times like this, I wonder about the girls who assumed this role before. Did they have to pay a monthly entertainment tariff just to keep our mutual acquaintance from getting bored and looking for drugs?

Do you know who else I think about? The girls who’ll never be in my shoes—and how they are free of obligations like this, and so many others. A pang of envy hits me right in the gut. I remind myself Benji’s the prize, and it goes away.

Standing at the kitchen counter, I write out three checks, stamp the envelopes and tuck them into my purse. Even though he’s clean now, the entire internet and everyone I know tells me I should be paranoid about a possible relapse, the provocation of which can come from anywhere. Spare cash lying around, compounded by a bad day or, I don’t know, a teaspoon of baking soda spilled on the counter, can lead to disaster. So I’ve learned to worry that if I pay these bills online, Benji will figure out a way to reroute the money somewhere it doesn’t belong, which is why I’ll personally be delivering these checks to a mailbox before setting foot into my office this morning. No one tells you what it’s like to live with a drug addict, but the trick, apparently, is that you can never be too careful.

“You going to work?” he groggily asks from his side of the bed.

Perhaps it’s just early, but the question rubs me the wrong way. He makes it sound like I have a choice, like it’s feasible that I’m on my way to grab picture frames at World Market or something. It’s 7:45 in the morning. Where the hell else would I be going?

“Yup.”

“Love you,” he says, getting up to kiss me and pull me in for a tight hug. The smell of stale cigarettes lingers in the patchy start of a dark brown beard. He’s either out of razors and waiting for me to notice so I pick some up on my way home, or he’s sporting a new, burlier look. Whatever the case may be, I don’t mind it. I let the smell take me back to another place and time; namely, the bar where we first met and first made out.

The fluttering feeling in my gut comes back in force, the strangeness and danger and possibility of him swirling together in my heart and mind. In these moments, I experience a high of my own that makes so much of what I’m struggling with fall away. Debt might be high and resources low, but when he crushes me to his chest this way, it’s all good. A man who loves me is enveloping me in his arms. And I am all in. In retrospect, I have been from the moment we first met.

“Love you, too,” I say back, calm and sweet, though what I really want to say is, “Maybe I should stay home and fuck?” Then I think, why don’t we? Sex has always been the perfect equalizer for us. No matter how frustrated I can get by day-to-day life with Benji, in the bedroom it all melts away.

I glance over at the clock to see just what I’m working with. It’s enough time to unzip his pants and blow him. Oddly enough, giving him head does it for me as much as it turns him on. Seeing him utterly tantalized by something only I am capable of doing is probably how he feels when he’s putting the perfect sear on a piece of halibut as I wait for my plate at the table.

A few moans and groans later and the deed is done. I freshen up in the bathroom and hear him say, “Babe? Can I borrow twenty bucks to cab it to Randolph Street?”

Whatever tender moment I thought we’d just shared ends abruptly with the financial ask.

“How about I leave you my bus pass?” Bargain with me, pal. Please.

“I can’t exactly roll up to this meeting with Angela on a city bus. And I can’t risk being late because I had to take six different routes all over this fucking city. It’s impossible to get to the West Loop from here on public trans. You know that.”

He’s pitching it as if he’s interviewing for a job at the Board of Trade. I thought it was just coffee with some fan?

“Then text me when you want to go and I’ll order you an Uber. I have a credit.”

“You’re so obsessed about money stuff sometimes,” he says. He’s correctly identified my hesitation to give him what he wants, so he’s going for the hard sell. “But when I have a very important business meeting that could take care of you and me for a really, really long time, I can’t get twenty bucks to make sure I’m there on time. I seriously don’t understand you, Allie. I really don’t.”

Here it goes. The temper tantrum. Sometimes dating Benji is like raising an unpredictable teenager. One minute, we’re best friends. The next, he’s pissed I won’t let him ride his bike by himself to the movies. It’s hard to play mom with a guy you really enjoy fucking—and trust me, there’s no fetish there. I’ve explored it.

Still, I wonder, how is he so good at making it seem like I’m the one who’s so goddamn—

“You’re just being selfish,” he says offhandedly. I want to castrate him with his own paring knife. I’m not an ATM machine, for crying out loud. I’m his girlfriend.

“Benji. I literally do not have any cash on me. You—we spent it all at Republic.” It’s the truth.

“Well, then, I’ll walk downstairs with you and we’ll stop at the bank on the corner. It’s not that hard. And we can even get Starbucks before you head in to work.”

A Starbucks date with your bae before work sounds so romantic and cheeky. The ironic thing here is that when he kisses me goodbye and sends me off to show up fifteen minutes late to work with a vanilla latte in hand, he really doesn’t have a clue what I do. He knows I tweet about cotton swabs but whether or not this is my dream job, how long I’ve been working there, who my coworkers are, what the watercooler drama is...those are all things that never come up. It’s almost painful how indifferent he is about the details of my career, but then I remember there probably isn’t room for two at the top. And right now, and most likely always, what Benji’s got cooking matters much more, and to many more, than my day-to-day.

“Fine, but let’s go. We need to hurry,” I concede.

On the elevator ride down, I think about what We can get Starbucks really means—that I’ll be buying for the both of us. But as a recovering addict, Benji’s two green-lit vices are cigarettes and caffeine—neither of which he seems to get enough of. At least three times a week, Benji wakes up in the middle of the night and brews a pot in my little kitchen. It’s like he’s a prisoner to the hankering. I almost feel bad for him. At least it’s better—and cheaper—than blow.

* * *

Hey @AllieSimon...you need to come pick your boy up lol, read the tweet from someone I eventually figured out was a coworker at his old restaurant. I wasn’t sure on what planet something like this warranted a “lol,” but the kid uploaded a picture of Benji curled up in the fetal position, passed out by a Dumpster. Good god, I thought.

This took place before Benji had announced to the world that we were an item, and it was my first clue that maybe our rendezvous wasn’t so secret after all. How this kitchen worker knew to tag me in a tweet like that was equal parts unsettling and flattering.

I ignored my phone the rest of the day, denying that this could actually be my responsibility (no, really...we’re just fucking. Call someone else!). But at around midnight, a text that woke me up became a text I couldn’t pass over.

Can I come over? Please? Need 2 C U.

He needed to see me. And regardless of the circumstances, I liked the way that sounded and said yes.

When he stumbled into my unit, shaking and pale, I immediately settled him onto my couch and wrapped him in a blanket. I asked him what the hell happened, but the details were fuzzy. I’m not sure if he was being vague to spare me, or because he couldn’t recall all the gory specifics.

“Are you high? Can you at least tell me that?” I begged for more information.

“No. I swear. But I did get high Monday. And Tuesday. And yesterday. And now I think I’m having withdrawals.”

FML.

“Okay, so, what do I do? Do you need water? Crackers? Tylenol?” I didn’t realize then that treating withdrawal and nursing a hangover are two very different things.

“No, none of those things. It’s just gonna suck for a few days. Can you rub my back?” he asked me amid his distress. I placed my hand on him and felt a bulge the size of my fist under his skin.

“What is that?” I asked, grimacing slightly. I didn’t want to freak him out, but I was assuming the worst. A blood clot maybe?

“When I do too many drugs, I get these knots in my back. I don’t really know, just, can you keep rubbing?”

Scared as I was sitting that close to an overdose, it brought me comfort to know this wasn’t the first time he’d experienced these bulbous mutations.

“I think I’m going to go,” he said a few seconds later.

“Right now? You just got here. I feel like you should lie down.”

“No, I mean to rehab.” Boom, there it was. The first time Benji admitted that his drug use had evolved into something far more out of control than just a casual sniff off a credit card in a bathroom stall. But why to me, I wondered? Who was I in his life that he could so suddenly come to me in the middle of the night with his desperation as visible as the toxic lump protruding from his back? He must have known I wouldn’t judge him, call him a loser and tell him to get the hell out. Even I hadn’t known I was capable of such compassion until the need for it was physically and inescapably in front of me.

“What about your restaurant? Don’t you have to go to work?”

“It’s over,” he said.

I didn’t know if he quit or got fired, but I figured I’d let the food blogs figure that one out.

“Okay. So when would you leave?”

“Tomorrow.”

“What? Why so soon?” A part of me selfishly couldn’t fathom our road coming to an abrupt dead end.

“This is going to get really bad, Allie. Soon. You aren’t going to be able to take care of this. I’ve already made the appointment. They’re expecting me to check in at 6:00 a.m.”

I took a big breath and looked at the time.

“Well, then, let’s get you back to your place to pack.”

“You can’t come over,” he said. “I can’t have you see what’s going to happen next. You’re too good for that. Trust me, okay? Please.”

At that point, I called him an Uber and walked him back down to my lobby. His eyes were the dopiest I had ever seen. From the withdrawal? Maybe. From the fact that both of us weren’t ready to accept this would be the last time we’d see each other for at least a month? Definitely.

I had planned to pull the plug many times before on things with Benji, but now it was all coming to a forced stop. I should have been grateful—this was my out. But instead, I was sad. I didn’t realize that at some point, I had fallen for this guy. And it wasn’t just about the mind-blowing sex or handmade pastas. I cared about him.

I also didn’t realize that once I shut the door of the car and watched it take off toward an all-quiet Lake Shore Drive, Benji was going to partake in one last hurrah before rehab.

A bottle of pills, a fifth of Jack and whatever else he could get his hands on fueled this particular bender. And this is when he tweeted out my photo. This is when he outed me as his girlfriend. This is when I decided that accepting my new identity was easier than dismantling a bomb.

The next day, I slogged through work, worried and sad and happy and confused. I tried to Google what rehab was really like, but feared IT would hack my history and I’d get canned for being a liability with a double life.

From what I had seen on Celebrity Rehab, going away for help was going to be the right thing for Benji. I grappled with the idea that once sober, Benji might not see me the same anymore. That whatever drug-induced infatuation he’d had with me would subside. It’d be like sleeping off a hangover and realizing that the 3:00 a.m. order of extra-large cheese fries from the Weiners Circle was a bad idea. And I was okay with that. I had to be okay with that. I told myself a complicated story about how difficult people don’t deserve love any less than the simpler ones. If we only allowed ourselves to care deeply about those who can reciprocate our affection the way we’ve grown accustomed to, did we have any business calling that “love” at all? Whatever hurt or emptiness I felt in Benji’s absence was in the service of something much greater, and I made peace with it.

And then I came home from work and found Benji—the very same!—sitting on the foot of my bed.

“No. No, no, no, no. You can’t be here,” I remember saying adamantly as I threw my keys down on the counter. “What are you even doing here? How did you get in? You have to go!” I felt like I was hiding a fugitive. This kid needed serious help, even he admitted that. Who let the monkey out of his cage?

“Babe, calm down,” he had said, placing both of his hands up like I was about to shoot. “I know what you’re thinking, but trust me: I got this. I’m going to start going to NA meetings every day, twice a day. I already have a sponsor. His name is Mark. I even picked up the books. See? See?” He held up the Narcotics Anonymous literature like church propaganda. “My first meeting is tomorrow at 8:00 a.m. I’ll be gone before you even leave for work. I’m serious this time.”

This time? How many other failed attempts were there? And how serious could he be if he hadn’t even given rehab a single day to kick in? Which made me wonder...

“Did you even go?” I asked.

He didn’t say yes or no. Instead just offered a flippant, “Rehab isn’t for me.”

I had heard that line before. On Intervention. Right before they rolled the updates that said the subject hadn’t been heard from in months and was last seen smoking crack under a bridge.

“But you said it was. Right here on this couch, like fifteen hours ago. What the hell happened?”

“I don’t know, a lot of shit. My phone got stolen last night, I ran out of cigarettes and I don’t have the money for it unless I go to that freebie clinic in the ghetto. I’m not doing that. Get stuck with some fuckin’ weirdo roomie. No way. I’d much rather do it on my own terms. I’m going to do this my way with Mark and the meetings.”

“What about the withdrawal? I thought you said it’s going to be bad?”

“It will be. But I’ll stay tough and fight through it and call Mark if I need anything. He helped me get a new phone today. It’s a fresh start, only your number and his are programmed in it.”

I’m pretty sure this was when I started crying. I was already in a state of complete emotional exhaustion and this, food pun unintended, just took the cake. Worse, I couldn’t tell if I was happy he was back or scared he’d never leave. All I knew for sure was that I didn’t want to be in this situation anymore. It was all too much.

“Oh, babe. Come on. You’re breaking my heart. What’s wrong? What can I do?” Benji had stopped me from pacing uncontrollably by holding me in the way only he could—the way that managed to hit the reset button no matter how haywire my system was going. My body warmed up like I had just downed a shot of vodka. I slowed my breathing and let myself fall into him. I felt swaddled like a baby—safe and warm. The swirl of insanity instantly simmered down and the relief set in; this was real.

And we were going to be okay.

Underneath his messy front, there was something—a lot of things, actually. There was a lost soul that needed direction. A man with a good heart and an insane amount of talent. Benji had the wisdom to know he needed help, but not where to find it or how to get it. And then there I was, this beacon of normalcy shining in the night, and he had clung to it. I was like the Carpathia coming to pull him out of icy waters. How could I have blamed him for that? For thinking his source of rescue came in a little five-foot-three package, was a good lay and had a kind heart?

Plus, when a person asks you to help save his life, you can’t exactly turn him away. Or at least I couldn’t.

“I just want this to work,” I muttered through an ugly cry. There were another six words that would have been just as easy to fire off—I just want you to leave—but they would have been a lie. No matter the circumstances, I needed to be within arm’s reach of this man.

“I do, too, babe. And it will. The coke stuff...it’s over. For good. And with you by my side, I know staying clean is possible. Regardless of everything that’s going on right now, I still feel like I’m the luckiest guy in the world. I’d take slipping up, losing my job, the Twitter shit storm I started last night—I’d take it all again because I know it brought me you. The greatest gift of my life. I really mean that.”

He wiped a tear from the corner of my eye and went on with the monologue.

“But you gotta promise me one thing. You gotta stick by me, let me show you I can do this. I’m not going to let this fall through my fingers. I’ve never had anything like this, like you. I’ve wanted this my whole life.”

I stared out beyond him through the windows of my apartment and shook my head—what was he going to tell the press about losing his job? What part would everyone think I played in sidelining their favorite chef?

“So remind me, what’s the plan, then?”

“I’m going to NA twice a day. You should try to go to some programs, too. Nar-Anon and Al-Anon are good. Stay away from CoDA, it’s bullshit.”

I’d had no clue what any of those things were, or how I would fit them into my schedule. But I soon found out these were just nicknames for meetings designed to make me feel less crazy. Like I wasn’t the only one in a relationship with someone who doubled as a nuclear button. My biggest problem would not be finding a meeting—they happen all day every day in big cities like Chicago—but rather how I would go about hiding my attendance from my friends and family.

“And I’ll do my coursework each night. Look—I’ve already started. I’ll work the program with Mark.”

“Who is Mark again?”

“My sponsor. He and his wife, Rita, actually want to meet you. They host a picnic every Saturday in the summer at North Avenue Beach. We can go this weekend.”

“Benji, I don’t know if I’m ready for this.”

“Sorry, I know. I’m getting ahead of myself. When the time is right, we’ll do the picnic thing. And I’ll make some rad side dish, or you could bring your ironing-board grilled cheeses, and we’ll blow everyone’s mind. In the meantime, I’ll keep things between Mark and me. Okay? Sound good?”

I didn’t know these Mark-and-Rita people from Adam or Eve, but something about their names, or the fact they hosted a weekly picnic, made me feel like Benji was in good hands. And just like that, I felt myself starting to turn. Slowly.

“And what about work? What about your apartment? Your rent?”

“Babe, look at me.” I wasn’t sure how much closer he could have gotten, but he nuzzled in a little more and held my shoulders tightly. I granted him blotchy, tearstained eye contact.

“That place I was living in...the landlords...they terminated my lease.”

“They what?”

Just when I thought I was calming down.

“It’s my fault. I was late on rent, they had trouble verifying my work and after last night...things got a little trashed.”

“So, where’s all your stuff? Where are you living now?”

“Well, all I really had was cooking stuff and Sebastian is holding on to it all for me.”

I pictured his apartment on the night he cooked for me; there really was no furniture over there. Just a mattress on the floor and some bar stools. That’s when I realized that in the corner of my studio was a black duffel bag. His life, whatever scraps of it he was able to pull together before being evicted, was most certainly zipped in there.

“You want to stay here.” It was a statement, not a question—let me make that clear. “And get sober.” Again, not a question.

“I’ll make you lunch every day, I’ll cook dinner for you every night. Your friends, too. I’ll keep the place clean for us. Run your errands. Do whatever you need for me to prove how bad I want this and how committed I am to our future. This is a good thing, Allie. For our relationship. I can get better at my own pace, figure out what to do for work and take care of you.”

I don’t know how Benji got into my apartment that day. My doorman must have recognized him from the night before and figured he was on the let-up list. As far as my unit being unlocked, I was tired that morning. Really fucking tired. It’s entirely possible I forgot to lock up. Point being, as I looked around, I noticed my place was immaculate. Bed made, TV stand dusted, towels in the bathroom folded. He’d picked up while waiting for me to come home.

It had seemed ironic to me that the trade-off for accommodating a drug addict was a series of proposed housekeeping services and a promise that I’d eat like a queen. But sometimes when you’re just that tired, worn down and desperate, the vision of a decent lunch and coming home to a clean bathroom is enough to make it all seem worth it.

“I’m not going to starting cooking tonight, though,” he said.

My heart fell through the floor. I couldn’t put up with another night of mayhem or another false promise.

“Because tonight, I’m going to order you a pizza. I’m going to get your favorite—butter crust with crispy pepperoni and extra sauce on the side. And we’re going to share it, eat the whole goddamn thing. And we’re going to watch a movie, The Lake House or P.S. I Love You...one of those girlie DVDs I keep seeing in your collection that I’m too embarrassed to admit I want to watch. You can pick. And then, we’re just going to hold each other and talk if we need to talk, be quiet if we need to be quiet, and at the end of the night, we’ll go to bed knowing it’s just you and me against the world, and that tomorrow is a fresh start and a new day.”

He never let me object. Not once did I poke a hole in his plan or tell him no or force him to at least pick up a part-time shift at CVS. Yet still, the relationship that every girl wants was right in front of my face. The one where you can throw on some sweats, get comfy on the couch and curl up with your boyfriend, a greasy pizza and a chick flick, and still feel like the prettiest princess in all the land. And best of all, I wasn’t begging him to be on the same page as me. That was all Benji. He was laying it all out there for me.

Twenty minutes and two slices in and I had felt the stress and tension ebb out of me. How I was going to tell my mom and dad, or Jazzy and Maya, that an ex-addict was now sharing my address was going to require politician-like spin. But I’d deal with that later. Because right then, we were on the right track. Benji was there for me to rest my head on. The FoodFeed comments section and the Twitter speculation were out of sight and out of mind at that moment.

Later on, his warm hands rubbed the small of my back under my favorite Mizzou hoodie.

“I love you,” he whispered to me.

“I love you, too,” I said, knowing with certainty that I was his fighting chance, not some dark, dingy rehab center on the far West Side of Chicago.

6

I like going to work for two main reasons. First, it’s a place I can go to escape my strange home life. The near-constant sound of a blender, prep bowls always piled high in the sink and the occasional sous chef asleep on the floor is enough to drive anyone crazy. Here in my River North office, I can table what’s going on in my world and tune in for eight hours to what other people, sometimes worlds away, are going through. Granted, these online conversations are almost always about cotton swabs, but I still find ways to engage with hordes of people who seem really nice, really normal. Sometimes I wonder...do any of them have a Benji?

I’m good at what I do, too. So that helps. Our boss, Connor, doesn’t spend a ton of time with our social media department—he’s got bigger, more corporate fish to fry. But he checks in with us formally every six months to see how we’re feeling about things and where we want to go with our jobs. He and I last met together five months ago, when I hinted at creating a new role for myself: Creative Director. Essentially, I’d step back and oversee Stacey and Dionte, our graphic designer and copywriter, respectively, then lead a team of monitors who would divvy up responding to all the social streams. Though I’ve been a little distracted with my home life, I plan to pick up the conversation with him during our next one-on-one review, and remind him he’d been tentatively on board.

The other main reason I like coming here is that people ask me about Benji. And because there are only a few office-appropriate sides of him that I can discuss with my coworkers, my office is a place where I get to bask in the more delicious reasons I love him. When I can only talk about the good, it helps me reaffirm that my feelings for Benji are stronger than ever.

“What’s for lunch today, Allie?” Stacey asks, waiting her turn for the microwave.

“Um, not too sure. Looks like Benji reimagined some of our dinner leftovers,” I say as I stir them around and nuke them for another fifteen seconds.

I’m not giving the man enough credit, I just don’t know the technical terms for what he concocted and threw in a Tupperware for me. I do know, though, that whatever it is is a long way from barbecue sauce and mac ’n’ cheese—the first things he ever learned to cook on his own from scratch.

I’ve never asked him to explain the history of his culinary career to me because I feel like that’s a job for a fawning food blogger—not his other-side-of-the-industry girlfriend. But I know his first kitchen job was when he was in high school. His dad left his mom for a much-younger woman and Benji wrote him off completely. He chose to live with his mom, who moved them to a small apartment in Austin, Texas. That’s when he got a job as a dishwasher at a BBQ joint to help her with the rent.

A few months into the gig, the owners gave him a bit more responsibility—let him toy around with rotating chickens in the smoker, stirring the vat of coleslaw every thirty minutes so it wouldn’t crust over, things like that. One area they did not let him play around in so freely was the bar, but his teenage angst led him to a habit of topping off his free shift fountain drink with a shot of Jim Beam when no one was looking. One day, he got a little more buzzed than usual and decided the mac ’n’ cheese tasted like shit and the barbecue sauce was bland. So he afforded himself the liberty of redoing them both and sent the next twenty dishes out to the dining room with his altered menu choices. Regulars started complaining that something was different, which was when the bosses figured out the root of the problem was the teenager in the kitchen who smelled like whiskey.

From there, Benji bounced around at a few more restaurants. Meanwhile, his mom became depressed and started acting crazy and belligerent from all the medication she would take mixed with the vodka she kept on her nightstand. She was impossible to be around, according to Benji, so he started hanging out with the cooks after work instead of going home. From them, he adopted new kitchen skills along with some bad habits.

Eventually, he tried coke. The drug allowed him to be fearless behind the stove, unintimidated by any ingredient and never in the weeds despite his age or lack of any traditional training. No one could deny that Benji had talent. Talent that went beyond just scrubbing dishes or spicing up a few condiments. But no one in the Greater Austin area was willing to let a teenager who required two smoke breaks an hour be in charge of the kitchen.

At eighteen, he packed up the same black duffel bag that’s currently in my apartment, left his mom $500 cash and bought a Greyhound ticket to New York City. Through the power of social media, he built a following and made connections, setting up a staging gig at a new restaurant every year in all the major foodie destinations. Next came DC, then San Francisco, Miami and Vegas to name a few.

One hot spot at a time, he added skill after skill to his culinary repertoire. One hot spot at a time, he added drug after drug to the shit he was willing to try, ultimately always coming back to coke. Lots of it.

Ultimately, he wound up in the Windy City. He says that’s because it’s the capital of modernist cuisine. I say it’s because Chicago is the capital of girls who put out for chefs. (Guilty.) Regardless, he came here to “settle down”—meaning, to take his first ever full-time cooking job. While the same people who offered him the gig ultimately let him go, it was the first and only time he could really say he made it as a chef.

“Oh my god, that smells amazing,” Dionte says when he happens to catch a whiff in the break room. I have to admit, I feel special. Food may be the way to a man’s heart, but as my colleagues assemble around me, I’m convinced it’s the way to a woman’s ego. It’s like I’m dating da Vinci and I’ve just hung the Mona Lisa in my cubicle. Everyone is oohing and aahing, reminding me just what an awesome perk it is to be dating Benji Zane. I’m the cool kid at the lunch table, just like I was at Republic.

“What did he make?” Dionte asks.

“She’s not sure, but it looks like ditalini pasta with cream and pancetta,” Stacey answers for me. It’s like they’re gathering enough info to send TMZ a tip.

“You’re so lucky,” a girl from a different department gushes from the kitchen table. I don’t even know what her name is, but she begrudgingly stabs at her lackluster salad and shoots jealous death rays my way.

I escape the public scrutiny of the lunchroom and return to my desk to eat quietly alone in my cubicle. Words cannot describe the peace I feel in this little cubby. I used to think my apartment was my own safe haven. Now? Not so much. My cubicle, though, that’s indisputably mine. All twelve and a half square feet of it. I close my eyes and inhale a big whiff of the ditalini-whatever before taking a bite. It is pure heaven indeed. My mouth waters and I am reminded just how talented this beautifully flawed man is. And just like this lunch, I’m not sharing.

I go to throw away my brown paper bag and a few scribbles of black Sharpie marker catch my eye. I flatten the bag out on my desk. A love note.

Allie Simon. Every day, I thank my lucky stars that you are making me a better man. Deciding I wanted to do what it takes to be with you was the best thing I’ve ever done. I LOVE YOU. -B

My favorite three words from this man (other than dinner is ready). The first time he said it was when I was sitting there on the floor with puffy, red eyes in an oversize college hoodie, stuffing my face with thousands of calories of pizza and wondering how the hell this thing was going to work, but not really worrying about it either. Because next to me, tucked away in our own little enclave in the city, was somebody I was never supposed to meet but was always meant to have.

A few things have changed since then; some for the good, while others...well, like I said, the momentum is rolling and it’s hard to know whether I’m keeping up or falling behind. But a surprise note like this tells me that, for the most part, he’s keeping his promises. He makes my lunch most days of the week, keeps the place (somewhat) tidy and has (sort of) figured out what he wants to do. Or at least, he had that last part figured out, until Miss Angela Blackstone decided to come out of nowhere and dangle a restaurant in front of his face.

I finish my lunch and I still haven’t heard from Benji. Under ordinary circumstances, I would take the silence to mean the worst: an overdose or an arrest during a drug deal gone bad. I know I saw him just hours ago and he was totally fine, but I usually hear from Benji at least five times by lunch; his addict’s personality makes him incessant. Everything he likes, he loves. Everything he hates, he abandons. Everything he wants, he needs now or better, yesterday. And most days, what he wants is to talk to me. All the time.

But today is different. Today he has his meeting with Angela, and I’m sure she’s still blowing smoke up his ass or I’d have heard from him by now.

I look her up on LinkedIn to verify she is, in fact, the chick who scolded me for leaving the money unattended. I’m in the social media business, after all, and frankly curiosity got the best of me.

From what I can tell from her profile, Angela checks out—which is both a good and a bad thing in this case. I mean, according to her résumé she worked where she said she worked during the times she said she was there. And she was definitely a manager, too. Not just some entitled server who appointed herself with a new title after claiming to “practically run the place.” No, she’s a bona fide back-and front-of-house professional with ten people who have written recommendations for her. Glowing ones, too.

In the time it takes me to rinse out my Tupperware and return to my cubicle, I somehow miss six calls, four texts and an email from Benji. Apparently, Benji’s meeting is finished.

Of all the communication, the email is the most frantic. It says: Why the hell aren’t you answering? Bout to call your desk phone.

I’ve made it very clear that Benji is never to call my desk line. For one thing, I don’t have a direct number, which means to reach me, you have to call our receptionist, Linda, and ask specifically for me. Then she forwards the call to my landline. He did this once a while back that day he wanted permission to splurge on cable. I was busy in a meeting, away from my desk, email and cell—but that didn’t stop him from asking Linda to personally go find me for a wellness check. I’ll never forget Linda’s face as she stood outside the all-glass conference room and tried her best to nonchalantly get my attention. I thought there was an emergency. I thought my dad’s blood pressure problems had finally gotten the best of him.

Benji seemed baffled that in the corporate world, you can actually be fired for having your boyfriend pull you out of a meeting to find out what channel Shahs of Sunset is on. But once I explained that no job would mean no way to make rent for our cute little Lincoln Park abode, he cut the shit. Since then, he’s been pretty good at steering clear of Linda and my landline, but that doesn’t stop him from blowing up all other mediums of communication.

His texts grew more frantic by the second—literally:

Yo. U around?

Hello??????

ALLIE. WHERE THE HELL R U

Ugh, just checked Locator. I know UR @ work. CALL ME.

I know it sounds insanely controlling for him to track my locale with an app. But adding Locator to our phones was an even trade; I’d put it on mine if Benji put it on his. I rarely check his anymore, but I used to, just to confirm he was always near Lakeview and Diversey, the intersection of my apartment. And before you tell me the plan is flawed because an addict could just leave his phone there while out hunting for drugs, let me remind you that Benji wouldn’t part with the device that links him to his social media feeds. Plus, how do you complete a drug deal without unlimited texting?

Relax, was eating, I write. Call u in a min.

K. Love u.

Like most things concerning Benji, communicating with him while at work takes a bit of science. I used to chat with him on Google Hangouts. I thought that was safe because I could just minimize it when someone walked by, but one day I saw IT run a company-wide troubleshoot, which proved they have the ability to see what’s on our monitors at any given moment. Since then, I blocked Benji from contacting me that way during work hours. He was pissed at first, but the last thing I need is for someone to let HR know that at 10:13 a.m., Benji Zane wrote Allie Simon, My dick still smells like your pussy and I kind of love it.

Most people would keep a thought like that to themselves, but not Benji. Benji will talk about life’s more personal details the way other people talk about the weather. I have to give him points; a good lover is a good communicator, and Benji never hesitates to tell me what he wants, when he wants it. But highly graphic instant messages about my lady parts while I’m at work? I have to draw the line somewhere.

I grab my phone and make my way to the server room. There are about 150 people who work on computers on our floor, so essentially this room has rows and rows of hard drives stacked about five feet high that hum, flicker and vent a slight amount of heat. Buried in there, four rows down and one row in, is the perfect place to take five and call Benji back. In this nook, no one can hear us argue about money. No one can hear us discuss what days I need to take off for his pop-ups. No one can hear us chat about the amazing sex we had that morning.

Not surprisingly, he picks up on the first ring. “Hey.” Real casual, like he hasn’t been in a complete frenzy for the past fifteen minutes.

“Hey. What’s going on?” I ask.

The good thing about chatting with Benji is that he’s direct. Whatever he wants, whether it’s sex with me, twenty dollars from the ATM or for me to put his cell phone bill on my credit card so it doesn’t get shut off (he always gives me cash from a pop-up after), he doesn’t beat around the bush.

“It’s happening,” he says. “I’m getting a restaurant.”

I was afraid he was going to say that.

“Really?”

My stomach fills with anxiety. I should probably see my doctor, get something prescribed for these moments when his antics send my nerves into overdrive. But a bottle of mood levelers would be too big a trigger for Benji. Even if I hid them somewhere, he’s like a bloodhound with narcotics. It’s a risk I’m not willing to take.

“I met with Angela. She’s a cool chick. Knows her shit. Totally legit.”

“Yeah, I looked her up online earlier.”

“She has this investor guy,” he goes on, as if I hadn’t spoken. “The one from the ’burbs. He’s ready to make his city debut and they want me to design the culinary concept. Get this: they have a space in mind already and he’s basically ready to buy the space and make it happen for me.”

“They already have a location?”

“Not just a location. An actual restaurant that’s ready to be flipped. It’s a pocket listing.”

“What’s that mean?” I ask.

“It’s basically like a secret listing at this point. The previous owners need to sell it quick. Their Realtor was friends with Angela’s investor, so they called him to see if he had any interest. Now he gets first dibs and it stays off the MLS or some shit like that.”

“Got it.” Eight ball, in the weeds, pocket listing...the vernacular I learn from Benji is the gift that keeps on giving.

“Right now, they’re the only people who know about it,” he continues. “If they don’t strike by the end of the week, the building goes to auction and they’ll be outbid by someone who wants to turn it into a trendy office space just so they can say they’re on Randolph Street.”

“Wait. It’s on Randolph Street?”

“Sure is,” he says.

I’ve learned to basically take everything Benji says with a grain of salt, but if what he just told me has any merit, then he, Angela and this investor dude are onto something.

Admittedly, I don’t know much about the food industry. But even I know Randolph Street is Chicago’s famed restaurant row. Every nice dinner we’ve had since being together has been on Randolph. In fact, it’s where Ross Luca’s place, Republic, is. Though the area had basically been decrepit for years, it’s since turned into a mecca for the Michelin-minded because rent downtown is way too high. Granted, the West Loop is getting pricey due to the celebrity chefs, hour-long waits, prix fixe menus and artisanal cocktails—but hey, that’s Randolph Street for you. A foodie’s paradise.

“You have to be kidding. How does no one know about this?” asks Due Diligence Debbie.

“I don’t know. I told you, it’s some secret listing. We’ve got to move fast here.”

We. An interesting if undefined pronoun that I’ll sweep under the rug for now. No time for semantics. The server room is making me hot; I need to get back to my desk.

“Can it wait until I get home? Can we talk about it more then?”

“Sure, yeah, that’s fine. But can you come home a little later today? I didn’t get a chance to do the laundry and cleaning and I have no clue what I’m going to make for dinner yet.”

Benji’s brain is in a constant state of overdrive, especially when he’s excited about something. So the fact that housekeeping is at all on his mind in the midst of believing his dream is coming true right before his eyes helps me regain my bearings. No matter what’s going on with the restaurant on Randolph Street, Apartment 1004 will at least be clean and tidy.

“No problem. See you around six thirty.”

Back at my desk, I find an email sitting in my inbox from Angela Blackstone. For a second I assume it’s something Benji’s forwarded, but, sure enough, it’s a note directly from her, addressed to both Benji and myself.

Benji,

Great meeting with you today! Thank you so much for taking the time to speak with me about 900 W. Randolph. I think we can both agree it’s something spectacular, and an opportunity we cannot afford to pass up.

As per your request, I am copying Allie, and will on all future communications. As I understand it, she will play a large role in moving forward with our plans and I am delighted to welcome her to the team. I have no doubt that you two are a true power couple and am so excited to get to know her more in the coming days, weeks, months.

I spoke with the Realtor this afternoon. He gave me the entry code and we are a “go” for a self-guided, private tour of the space on Friday, August 27th at 11am. Craig will meet us there and Allie will be there too, correct? She really should see this for herself.

Finally, attached you will find the blueprints of the space, as well as the proposed budget I put together based off of the initial investment numbers we talked about today. This all can be tweaked, but it shows you where we need to hover around in order to move forward—plus or minus $10k.

See you Friday.

-Angela

What. The. Breathe.

I won’t read too much into it. I won’t overreact. These phrases become my mantra and I run them through my mind on repeat. Still, it’s hard to ignore all those pesky plural pronouns. And this budget...what has Benji promised? And how am I involved?

It’s just an email, I remind myself. It’s just an email that can be deleted as quickly as it came through. But instead of pressing delete, I press the pause button on my freak-out. Maybe this is one of those things that’s best not to bubble up.

I try to look on the positive side. Benji and I are a couple. We freaking live together. He obviously wasn’t receptive to committing to the pop-ups much longer, so I’m in no position to give the cold shoulder to anything that could potentially mean more income. I cling to the small, bright hope that maybe this isn’t as bad as it seems. What’s definitely a pleasant surprise is the fact that he’s requested that Angela copy me on everything from here on out. Hey, Ang, remember the girl who couldn’t manage to handle the tip-out to your standards? Well, we’re a package deal, so get over yourself.

My email dings again. Please, no more from these two, I think to myself.

Google Alert is the sender. I click to open and read a paragraph from a blog that this handy little tool has scraped from the internet.

Dating in Chicago is a complete and total nightmare. Aside from Benji Zane & Allie Simon (omg, can we please start calling them Zimon?!), who after last week’s pop-up dinner are basically Relationship Goals, the rest of us are screwed...

It takes seeing my relationship from another angle, this time from some chick on the web who calls herself a dating expert, to loosen the knot in my stomach. I may have no idea what we’re getting into, but the world seems to think Benji and I have something special and I happen to agree.

And that’s when it hits me: maybe this whole restaurant thing is actually that “something bigger” I always knew was in store for us.

* * *

Since Benji requested I come home late, I find myself with an extra hour to kill after I get off work. So I hit up Jazzy and Maya for a quick Happy Hour at a place that’s central to all our offices.

At Roka Akor, a swanky steak house, Maya shoves her blazer into her work bag and Jazzy clips her bangs back with two bobby pins as our first round of cocktails is served.

“Okay, guys, before you say anything,” I begin, afraid of how hard they may come down on me, “I have to admit I haven’t watched The Bachelor yet so no spoilers, please.”

“Oh my god, don’t freak me out like that,” Maya says. “I thought you were going to say something crazy...like you and Benji got engaged.”

I can’t tell if that would be a good crazy or a bad crazy in her opinion.

“Speaking of Sir Benji, what’s the latest?” Jazzy asks. “Any more pop-ups we can finally get on the list for?” She nudges me as she takes a sip of her mojito.

The two of them wanted to come to Benji’s dinner last week and I told them it wasn’t a good idea. We were already oversold and I’d comped my parents’ meal, obviously. If I ate the cost on two more free seats, it would have created more work for Benji in the kitchen and less profit for us. If they knew how hard it was worrying about my paychecks for the first time in my life, maybe they’d cut me some slack. But of course, I’m not letting them become privy to the gloomier side of things. Instead, I decide to hit them with the good news.

“Well, actually, no. Because he’s in talks right now with some investors about opening a restaurant. On Randolph Street.”

“WHAT?” They react in unison with the same big eyes and high-pitched exclamation. It feels so good to get that off my chest to people who actually care. Who get what it means to have a spot in the West Loop.

“Yeah, it’s really early on and I don’t have many details, but it sounds like it could be happening. Soon.”

There’s a longer pause than I’m comfortable with given the big news I’ve just shared. I want them to ask me what kind of food he’ll serve, if it’s located next to any of our favorites, if they can get on the list for opening night. But, nothing.

Eventually Jazzy says, “Wow. That’s cool,” and Maya just sips on her drink.

“Okay. What am I missing here, guys? I thought my boyfriend having his own restaurant would be a good thing?”

“It is,” Maya confirms. “It’s just that...I mean, my dad knows this guy who’s a chef and he, like, never sees his wife and drinks a lot. He said he’s surprised they’re not divorced yet.”

Oh, well, if your dad knows a guy...

“Yeah, opening a restaurant is great,” Jazzy says. “But it’s going to be super stressful. And on Randolph Street? Every eye is going to be on him.”

“Every eye is already on him,” I correct.

“My point exactly. What happens if he slips?” Jazzy asks.

“If he slips?”

“He’s only been sober for what, like, a few months?”

“Three.” I lick the salt off the side of my margarita glass.

“Maya and I just want to make sure you’re prepared if he relapses.”

There, she said it. The R-word. The word I’ve barely let myself think. I’m surprised how much it hurts to hear it aloud.

* * *

“So that’s how it is. You have no problem eating his food, screenshotting the articles we’re in and talking about how hot he is on our group texts. But deep down, you just think he’s going to relapse? Maya, do you think that, too?”

Maya goes pale. But if an intervention is what they’re turning this into, then I have no choice but to flip it on its ass.

“Maya?” I prompt.

“I mean, statistics show—”

“Oh, don’t even go there with me. I live with the guy, I see him work his program every day and every night. I kiss him goodbye before he goes to his meetings and have his sponsor’s number written on a piece of paper taped to the fridge. He’s going to be just fine, ladies. In fact, he is just fine. So you know what I say? FUCK statistics. That’s what I say.”

I set my glass down as my hands start to shake. I fix my gaze to the left and stare out into the bar at nothing in particular. I just know that if I make eye contact with my so-called friends, I’ll start to cry. Or drop another round of f-bombs.

“Try to understand where we’re coming from.” Jazzy jumps in to play referee.

“I can’t. Because I was under the impression that you two supported me. Supported us.”

“We do!” They sound feeble and unbelievable. I just shake my head and take my phone out. For once I’m not concerned about the shit they might give me for doing so.

When I look down, of course I have a text from the man of the hour. Benji wrote to let me know it’s now safe to come home. Dinner is just about ready and he can’t wait to see me. I smile and reply with a single heart-shaped emoji.

That’s when Maya puts her hand over my screen.

“Yo, can you stop texting and listen to us?”

I tighten my grip on my phone and spring my arm back. Something about her attempting to put a physical barrier between me and Benji just to drive home a moot point sends me into a blind rage. As if I wasn’t in one already.

“Yo, can you stop poking holes in my relationship? Both of you need to either find your own or get a hobby that isn’t dissecting my life.”

I throw down a wrinkled twenty that I keep in my purse specifically for this cash-only frozen yogurt place I go to and tell them that should take care of my margarita plus tip. Then I grab my bag and head home to the meal Benji’s prepared just for me.

7

“Smells so good. Burgers?” I ask, inhaling greedily as I walk through the door. The drama with Jazzy and Maya dissipates upon first whiff.

“Not quite, babe.” Benji pops out from the galley kitchen and kisses me, a warm oven mitt gently cradling my face. “Chicken with roasted carrots and broccoli, and mashed sweet potato gnocchi.”

He’s nailed it and he knows it. Benji’s soft, pillowy gnocchi recently dethroned his infamous macaroni and cheese as my favorite meal. Plus, I’m a sucker for sweet potato anything. Coming home to this will never get old, I tell myself as he dips back into the kitchen to put the finishing touches on our meal for two.

“Do I have time to change?” I ask as I kick off my shoes.

“You do, but...”

“But what? What’s the problem?”

He takes two steps toward me, kisses my lips, then works his way down to my neck. I roll my head back and feel the goose bumps start to surface. He and I both know that when he gets to my neck, we go to the bed. But before he spends too much time on my sweet spot, he stops himself and heads back to his post at the stove.

“The problem is I want to fuck if you’re already going to be undressing, but I can’t right now because I’m at a critical spot with these potatoes.”

I feel my face flush. It’s unimaginable that I’m with someone who is as creative and passionate in the bedroom as he is in the kitchen.

Benji makes me feel like a woman. A desired woman. A wanted woman. And even though it’s his libido that’s amped up, it’s mine that’s just getting discovered.

Before Benji, I was doing the whole single-in-the-city thing. Not necessarily by choice, but Chicago is an epicenter for Peter Pan Syndrome—that thing where grown men still think drinking until 6:00 a.m. in Wrigleyville with their buddies on the weekend is a good look. I swear, no guy here is in a rush for any sort of committed relationship.

So I did what all other twentysomething females with a Chicago zip code do: embraced it and rotated through guys on Tinder. Clearly I’m not one to scoff at meeting someone from the internet (hello, @BJZane), but you could say there was something a little too casual about my love life in the time between moving back after college and finding my way with Benji.

“You just have to get to the third date,” Maya would say. “Cosmo says that’s a morally acceptable amount of time before sleeping with a guy.” But three dates with a person I knew I didn’t have a future with felt like a slow race. And when we managed to finally get there, sex felt like something I needed to squeeze in like a side of vegetables because it was good for me.

I was never truly needed by a guy before Benji came along, and so I never realized just how powerful that feeling is. Dirty talk? Yeah, sure, whatever. But tell me you need me, and I’m halfway to an orgasm. I may have learned this about myself from Benji, but he’s learned from me that saying it gets him what he wants—both in and out of the bedroom.

It may not be outlined in the official NA handbook, but I’ve read enough lifestyle blogs to know that regular sex is part of a normal, healthy relationship. And that’s what I’m after here—normal and healthy—no matter how I have to go about getting us there.

“How about in a little bit?” I bargain. “We’ll put on an episode of Lost.”

“Putting on an episode of Lost” is essentially code for “we’re going to screw.” I don’t know what it is about that show, but every time we watch it, we wind up naked on the couch within the first twenty minutes. I have no idea what’s actually happening in the season two story line, but it does a good job washing out the occasional moan that could be heard by those waiting for the elevator in the hallway.

“Okay, deal. Go change and let’s eat.”

We eat dinner together every night unless he’s got something pop-up related going on or an evening NA meeting with Mark. Most of the time, we stay at the apartment. Partly because preparing me a home-cooked meal is a term and condition in the stay-sober deal he made with me, and partly because going out to eat in this city is almost always a spectacle. Don’t get me wrong, it feels incredible—to be the woman behind the man like I was at Republic. But tonight I’m craving simple and delicious in all facets of my life, so I’m pleased it’s just us.

Sprawling granite countertops are not part of the amenities in my tiny unit. So Benji hinged a piece of butcher’s block to the wall for added prep space a few weeks ago. I have no clue how sturdy it is, or what kind of damage he’s caused to the drywall, but tonight he’s set it up as a makeshift table for two. There’s a single yellow flower, plucked from the landscaping near the front door, poking out of a highball glass. It’s a romantic touch and I quickly forget how cramped we are when he puts a steaming plate in front of me. I’m in awe this was made right here in my underequipped kitchen.

“How is it?”

“You know I’m obsessed with this gnocchi.”

“Good, babe,” he says, pushing the flower into frame and snapping a photo of his plate before uploading it to social media. Not everything can be sacred, I guess. “I made extra for your lunch tomorrow.”

There are times I doubt that I’m doing this right—this whole keeping-an-addict-sober thing. It’s like losing your virginity or graduating from college: there aren’t manuals for this kind of stuff. But when I hear him say that he’s made a double batch of my favorite food so I can eat well at work tomorrow, I know something’s working, something’s clicking. He’s thinking about someone other than himself and it’s a relief seeing that he’s on the right track. Not to mention empowering to know that I helped steer him there.

But he can’t distract me with food forever. There’s something I need to bring up, even if it means derailing our Lost plans.

“So what’s with the email I got from Angela?” I keep my voice calm and pop another gnocchi in my mouth.

“What do you mean?” he asks, peeling the crispy skin off his chicken with his bare hands and stuffing it in his mouth. I guess two can play at this keep-it-casual game.

“She emailed us this afternoon. Said that you said to keep me looped in on everything.”

“Well, yeah,” he says, chewing thoughtfully. “She needs to know that I’m only in if you are. If she thinks I can be successful without you in the picture, she’s dead wrong. Made that crystal fucking clear today.”

My face flushes again; this man trusts me with his life, his career, his everything. It’s an incredible responsibility and an honor. I only wish I could put it on my résumé.

“So I don’t have to do anything, right? I don’t need to reply?” I want confirmation that this is his pet project, not mine.

“Did you look at the attachments?”

“No, why?”

“They detail the investment.” His voice takes on a salesy quality.

“Isn’t that for some old, rich, white guy to peruse?”

“Craig is his name. Yeah, but he’s not the only investor here,” Benji clarifies. “We have to own a part of it, too, or this isn’t going to work.”

Bomb. Dropped. And something tells me this isn’t “an extra twenty dollars for cab fare” kind of investment. I can feel my blood start to come to a slow boil. I set down my fork, which still has a gnocchi dangling from the spears.

I accept that Benji cannot do much on his own at this stage in the game. And I don’t mind helping. Having him in my life has shown me how much of a natural-born problem solver I am. Couple that with my need to feel needed, and I understand why he feels comfortable running everything by me. But sometimes I wish I had the option to RSVP “no” before getting roped into the real clusterfucks.

“What are you talking about? Either this Angela chick has an investor who’s footing the bill or she doesn’t and this is just a bullshit scheme to bleed you dry and use your name.” My appetite suddenly disappears.

“What are you talking about?” Benji snaps back.

I know where this is going—to the land where civil conversation goes to die. My only hope is that we don’t emotionally drain each other before dessert is served.

“Do you have any clue how these things work, Allie? Obviously not. Yeah, sure, Craig could front the whole thing easily. But if he does, we have no say in what the hell goes on there.”

Please stop saying we.

“I’ll just be a slave to whatever some sixty-year-old fuck-face from the suburbs wants to do. I’m not taking that kind of a risk. Not on Randolph Street. Not at this stage in my career.”

Career is hardly a word I’d use to describe what goes on in here between his jimmy-rigged food prep and the micro profit we pull, but I throw no flags. Yet.

“What do you want for me, Allie?” He continues with the diatribe. “Do you want me working at a place with some laminated spiral-bound menu that can be wiped off when someone’s kid throws up on it? That’s going to be my big return to the food scene? Loaded baked potato skins and early-bird specials? Please, I’ll get laughed straight out of Chicago and have to spend another six years staging around the country before I find my way again.”

Subtle as it may be, I recognize that as both a threat and a jab. The likelihood that Benji would actually throw away this cushy Lincoln Park setup to go back to coast-to-coast couch surfing is slim to none. But he’s certainly attempting to get me to believe that this life I’ve helped him create isn’t good enough.

Needless to say, this is not the first time a normal conversation with Benji has gone sour. What hasn’t killed him has indeed made him stronger. But it also has caused him to develop unhealthy coping mechanisms and an uncanny ability to turn a neutral chat into a straight-up confrontation. Most of the time, I can defuse the situation before one of us throws something. A reminder that one call to the front desk from an angry neighbor is all it will take to get us kicked out of our building usually gets him to lower his voice. Tonight, I don’t see that tactic bringing him down. I’m just glad the days of him running to a pile of cocaine to feel better are over.

That said, I need to find solid ground again. So I take a breath and try a different approach.

“Why don’t you fill me in, then. What was in that attachment, Benji?” I keep my voice calm and, I hope, curious.

“The number.”

“What number?” I say, willing my hands not to shake with suppressed frustration as I resume eating.

“Thirty.”

“Thirty what, Benji? Just tell me, okay? Please.”

“Grand.”

I put my head in my hands and rub my eyes. “You need that kind of money to do this deal with them?”

“No. For them to do the deal with me.”

It might be my head spinning, but this is not adding it up. The confused look on my face signals Benji to explain his rationale.

“If we can’t buy in, I tell them I’m out and this whole thing capsizes. Angela said so herself, they’re not doing this open with any other chef. If I bow out because I can’t have part ownership, the space goes straight to the MLS where it’ll be scooped up by someone else, probably Ross Luca to be honest, and the opportunity for Craig to have a restaurant on Randolph Street is over. So it’s ten percent, or I tell them to get fucked.”

“And ten percent is $30,000?”

“Yes.”

“Well, then, tell them to get fucked.”

With a steak knife in his grip, Benji slams his fist to the table.

“God fucking damn it, Allie. You’re missing the point. Opportunities like this don’t wind up in your lap every day—or at least, not in mine, okay? You know my past. Angela knows my past. And this whole city knows my past. And guess what? She and Craig are still willing to do a deal with me. They’re willing to give me a chance that no one else is ballsy enough to offer. They know I’m the right person for this regardless of what they’ve read about me on that hack-job FoodFeed blog.”

FoodFeed’s given him his platform in this city and he knows it. He may claim now, in this moment, that he doesn’t care about what they write, but he and I both know it’s the first and last thing he looks at every day.

“Well, if they know so much about your past, they should know you’re still in recovery and ought to give you another six months to get your shit together.” It comes off snide, but I’m just being defensive of him.

“Look, I’ve known I wanted to do something like this since I learned how to make barbecue sauce from scratch. Since I learned to make a roux for real mac ’n’ cheese. Since I said fuck you to my dad and turned my back on my deadbeat mom. Since traveling thousands of miles, sleeping on hundreds of floors and making shit money while staging at places that didn’t care about me. I stuck all of that out because I knew it would lead me to something like this. And now that something is finally here. I’m not saying no. I can’t.”

Benji gets up from his seat, crouches down like he’s doing a squat and grabs my hand.

“I’ve been sober for ninety-two days, Allie. That’s ninety-two days of doing nothing but sitting in this apartment, fucking around in this tiny ass kitchen and busting my dick doing one-off pop-up dinners for people who have the audacity to call themselves ‘foodies.’ Aren’t you tired of that? I’m tired of that.”

I’ve been cheerleading so hard for these pop-ups; rooting for him not to give up on them. I don’t know what my obsession is with them, to be honest. They’re a lot of work, a little bit of money and would be completely frowned upon by a handful of governmental agencies if they knew about them. But they give me a sense of control that I find comforting. The moment I hop into the Excel document that shows his food costs or his current guest list, I see exactly what he’s up to—who, what, when and where. And I can breathe easier and sleep better at night.

But if I remove that from the equation and make this not about me, then the truth is that, yes, I am already tired of the pop-up scene. Tired of having to wait for someone to submit their reservation payment so that I can buy a new shirt. Tired of black-market squirrel meat purveyors doing drop-offs in my lobby at 2:00 a.m. Tired of there being corn silks in my sheets at night because there’s never enough counter space. Tired of snapping at my friends because a conversation about these stupid dinners can turn into a full-blown fight about my relationship.

But still, a couple hundred dollars every week makes more sense than $30,000 all at once. I mean, that’s just basic math, right?

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