This time it would be worse. It would be Pop-Up Kitchen but with a secret, of my identity, of this silly little crush I have on this infuriating restaurant owner.

And forget any attempt at privacy, for me or her. To be back in the limelight, not as a chef presenting quality food made from scratch but as a sideshow, the desperate, loser ex of a high-powered producer.

“No,” I whisper. “God no.”

“Hollywood, please.” Amy sounds desperate but I can’t look at her. Or maybe I can’t see her at all. “Think of what it would be like if we won...” she says again.

That’s the worst part. I am. If we won, maybe Amy would trust me with my own kitchen. If we won, the revenue we’d generate would not only give me the freedom I’m craving to create the menus I want. It would mean I could stay here at Amy & May’s, as head chef, instead of having to work for some other chef in some other kitchen.

“I think we should apply,” I hear Amy say. “The worst that could happen is we get rejected.”

Finally, I focus on her.

Amy’s smiles are like the slow, warm burn of a habanero pepper, the spice of ginger. That smile is almost enough to convince me, just like the first time I met her.

She’d shown me around this place. I’d followed in the wake of her peach scented shampoo, my heart pounding, barely able to form words. I’d met plenty of pretty girls before, been attracted to them in ways I hadn’t fully understood—or maybe in ways I didn’t want to understand.

But Amy. She’s fierce and a bit loud and she commands the attention of every room she’s in. At least, she commanded my attention. The last time Amy looked at me like this I took this job and broke up with my fiancé.

I want to save this restaurant. But I can’t keep doing things just to impress this pretty girl. Not when what she’s asking me to do has the power to break me.

“No.” I stand up. The chair screeches against the hardwood floor. “Don’t ask me again. I’ll do your stupid shellfish dishes. I know what you think of me,” I say and she has the audacity to look confused. “That I’ve lost my talent, that I’m some loser who can’t cook anymore.”

Her eyes widen and the echo of my words in the empty dining room make me wince. “But going on TV won’t fix any of that. If you want to go on this show, you can officially find yourself a new head chef.”

Chapter Three

Amy

If there is any place in the world capable of giving me an existential crisis it is my brother’s girlfriend’s guest bathroom. There’s no other room in the world that makes me feel like I do not have my shit together.

First of all, I don’t have a guest bathroom. My one-bedroom/living room/kitchen, one-bath apartment has a century-old porcelain sink with a crack in it that will one day be my landlord’s problem. On any given day there are up to five plants bathing in my tub.