by Layla Reyne
Clancy ended the call, his earlier upbeat mood now as gray as the sky outside. Food. Food would make him feel better, or at least stop his stomach from grumbling.
Bundled up, he headed for Portillo’s first and grabbed a hot beef sandwich, the peppers and gravy chasing away the winter chill that had penetrated his multiple layers of clothing. Old Man Winter won again, however, after a stroll down the Magnificent Mile. It was worth it to see the famous street and bridges decked out for the holidays. When he could no longer feel the end of his nose, he ducked into a hip little sushi bar with an art deco feel. Sushi was another can’t miss for him in Chicago, the fish always top-notch, something that’d surprised him the first time he’d visited. Hot tea and an excellent sashimi plate later, he was warm enough to head back to the hotel. He decided on The Aviary for dinner—great cocktails and his sort-of-Alinea fix—but he needed to change into something nicer than jeans and a Shark Week tee.
If Miller was back from his meetings, Clancy would invite him to join. Last night still weighed on Clancy’s mind. While they’d gotten on with dinner after the heavier turn, thanks in no small part to a sinful chocolate lava cake, Clancy had tossed and turned all night, unable to get Miller’s lonely, defeated voice out of his head. There was no evidence Sloan’s friendship would waver, marriage or not, but it was still a major change in Miller’s life. An unknown he hadn’t thought about for twenty-plus years. He needed a friend, especially now. The holidays could make anyone lonely, even in a room full of people. Clancy had seen it time and again during his rotations, the hospital beds more full and their losses more numerous between Thanksgiving and New Year’s.
Clancy wanted to be a friend to Miller. Not because he was a famous chef and they had a love of food in common. Not because he was hot in the burly way that was totally Clancy’s type. But because Miller was a good man. What he’d done for Sloan was remarkable, as was the patience and kindness he’d shown to him so far. Miller was teaching him more about food every day, sharing his time and knowledge, and filling a friend void that Clancy suffered too, having let so many relationships wither due to school and work. Yes, Clancy’s parents had financed the tour, but Miller never made it about that. So if Clancy wanted to invite his new friend out for a drink, or go grab a pizza...
Hmm, pizza...
He was so caught up in his daydream about cornmeal-dusted deep-dish crust covered in mozzarella, Italian sausage, pepperoni and tomato sauce, that he was halfway across the hotel lobby when Miller appeared in front of him.
“Hey, Doc, didn’t hear me call from the bar?” He nodded to the corner of the lobby bar where a half drunk Negroni set in front of an empty stool.
“Sorry ’bout that.” Clancy pushed back his hoodie. “Was daydreaming about dinner.”
“Yeah? What’s on the menu?” Miller strolled back to the bar, and Clancy followed, admiring his ass in another pair of snug jeans, Clancy’s eyes drawn right to it by the two-seam back flap of Miller’s checkered sport coat.
“Hot beef sandwich?” Miller guessed, then he guzzled the rest of his drink.
Clancy righted his gaze just in time. “Had that for lunch. And some sushi. I was thinking The Aviary for dinner, but then I thought of pizza...”
“And it was all over?”
“All over. Last thing on my list.”
“Mind if I join you?”
Clancy smiled. “I was hoping you’d be back so I could invite you.”
“Sounds like a plan.” Miller pulled a twenty out of his wallet and tucked it under his glass. “Just need to go up and grab my overcoat.”
And bonus, Clancy didn’t have to change now. “How were your meetings?” he asked, as they rode the elevator up.
“Good,” Miller answered distractedly, texting someone on his phone.
“Restaurant related?”
He pocketed the phone. “Trying to get a scoop out of me, Dr. Rhodes?”
Clancy shrugged. “What if I am?”
Miller laughed but didn’t answer, asking instead, “Where’s your favorite place for Chicago pizza?”
“I’m a traditionalist. Lou Malnati’s.” Since his mother had moved to Chicago, he’d spent each trip working down the best-pizza-in-Chicago list. He kept coming back to Malnati’s.
“That the place with the super buttery crust?”
“They actually trademarked Buttercrust.” He rambled on about his favorite pizza place all the way down the hotel’s long hallway. He paused to inhale as they turned the corner toward their suite, and Miller jumped in.
“You know,” he said, “your mom didn’t have to put us up in all the fanciest places and suites. This had to cost a mint.”
Clancy had wondered how long it’d take Miller to remark on their lodgings, especially after he’d learned about Miller’s upbringing. But there was a good explanation for the premium hotels on this trip. “Easier to get bookings,” he told Miller. “Higher-end places hold the top suites for celebrities and for concierge companies like Mom’s. And this time of year, the cheap rooms are sold out.”
“I guess that makes sense.” Miller beat him to the door and pulled out his key card.
Clancy put a hand on his arm. “I think you need this vacation as much as I do, but if the lodgings or the plane make you uncomfortable, tell me. We’ll make other arrangements.”
Miller’s eyes locked with his, held, and that spark of heat flared again between them. Standing this close, Clancy could almost feel the warmth of it. Could swear there was a growl in Miller’s “Thanks, Doc,” before he stepped back, swiped his card, and pushed the door open.
Clancy didn’t have a chance to reply, to try and snatch the moment back, because he was too busy trying to lift his jaw off the floor.
Christmas had exploded all over their suite. A decorated Christmas tree stood in the corner nook between the windows overlooking Navy Pier. Lights and garlands were strung over the fireplace mantel and along the window ledges. And on the sectional that’d been separated and positioned on either side of the tree lounged his grinning mother and his smug-faced stepfather.
He sucked in a startled breath...and smelled pizza, not pine. Following his nose, he spotted two huge boxes from Lou Malnati’s on the dining table. He whipped his head back around, looking first to Miller, then to Miranda and Robert. “What’s going on?”
Unfolding her legs, Miranda stood, crossed the living area, and folded him in her arms. “Merry Christmas, darling.”
Clancy hugged his mother back, confused but glad for this chance he didn’t think he’d get. “Christmas isn’t for another four days.”
“We’re headed out of the country tomorrow,” Robert said. “And since you were here in Chicago, I couldn’t deprive your mother of her family Christmas.”
“Thank you,” Miranda said to Miller, “for letting us crash your tour.”
“No trouble at all,” he said with a smile.
Rather than get lost in those attractive laugh lines around his eyes, Clancy hugged his mother again. He drew back a moment later and put on an air of mock anger. “How come we never went to Morton’s?”
She led him by the arm to the table. “I take it you enjoyed?” she said, as they loaded paper plates up with pizza slices.
“It was awesome. I had a monster steak, and it came on a sizzling platter.” He dropped his plate on the table and demonstrated a bigger one with his hands. “And the place was super cool. Below ground, dark wood, and leather booths, like a speakeasy but with killer steaks.”
Miller leaned in around him and grabbed a slice of pie. “Don’t forget the cute somm who gave you his number on the way out.”
Miranda’s eyes sparkled. “I want to hear everything.”
Clancy had actually tossed the somm’s card this afternoon. He wasn’t kidding; the somm wasn’t his type. But he had to indulge his mother, giving her all the details
as they ate pizza and drank champagne. An hour later, he and Miranda were on their second bottle while Miller and Robert were sipping scotch on the balcony outside.
His mother canted to the side, reached behind the tree, and righted herself with a flat rectangular box in hand.
“Mom, you didn’t have to.”
She laid the present, wrapped in silver paper and a glittery bow, in Clancy’s lap and ruffled his hair. “It’s Christmas.”
“You already helped make this amazing trip happen.”
She flung an arm around his shoulders and squeezed. “You deserved it.”
He kissed her on the cheek. “You’re such a sap, Charlotte.”
“Oh, come on, I’m totally Samantha.”
Proving her point, she refilled their glasses while he ripped into the package, getting glitter everywhere. He tossed the box top aside and folded back the tissue paper. Inside was a large leather scrapbook with an embossed design on the front—a fork, spoon, and knife arranged like a fleur-de-lis. “What is this?”
“Open it up and see.”
He lifted the book out and let the rest of the box fall to the floor. Placing the leather binder on his knees, he opened the cover, flipped the blank title page, and found a French Laundry menu attached to the next one. Wait, not just any menu. Their menu, from last weekend. He ran his hand down the page, a snapshot of each dish flashing through his mind. He flipped the page and there on the next one was a handwritten list of all their Oxbow Market picnic goodies—meats, cheeses, breads, accompaniments, and the wines—on letterhead Clancy recognized as Miller’s old restaurant. When had he done this? Before they’d left Napa? He turned the page again and found a printed menu of their room service meal from Jackson Hole on one side and their lunch menu on the other.
“How?” he gasped.
“I have my ways.” She tilted her head toward the patio, confirming Miller’s participation in the conspiracy. Before he could consider what that meant, what Miller realized this trip meant to him, Miranda ran a finger down the stacked page edges. “There’s room here for each menu from the trip.”
“This is amazing.” He set the book on the coffee table and wrapped her in another giant hug. “Thank you, for everything.”
She grabbed their glasses, handed one to him, and clinked the rims. “You deserve the best.”
He killed another glassful before going to retrieve their Morton’s menu from his room, along with the gifts he’d bought Miranda and Robert. She was still cackling about the matching plaid snuggies as Clancy slipped the Morton’s menu into the fourth spot in the binder. He flipped the page. Blank, of course. “You want to tell me where I’m going next?”
“Nope.” Miranda shook her head. “Not risking the Thatcher-Sykes wrath.”
Reminded of Sloan, and his and Miller’s conversation, Clancy sank back into the couch. “You were right,” he said low. “They’re recently divorced. Miller’s heartbroken.”
Her green eyes flickered to the patio and back. “That’s not the impression I got on calls, with either of them.”
“It’s complicated. He’s happy for her, and also not in love with her.”
“Because he’s gay?”
He startled mid-sip of a fresh glass. Champagne bubbles were always going up his nose when his mother was around.
“One, all that plaid.” She grinned as she snuggled down in her own new tartan. “Two, you don’t see the way he looks at you?”
Clancy ducked his chin, though why he was trying to hide his blush from his mother, he didn’t know. “I hardly know him, Mom.”
She patted his cheek. “Don’t lie to yourself, or me, darling.”
He gulped back the rest of his drink, then fiddled with the stem, twirling the empty glass as he spilled the beans to the only person he could talk to about this. “Even if there was something there, I don’t know where he’ll be now, with his restaurant closed and the most important relationship in his life changing. And I’m going to be in LA, working for Dad.” He slouched against her side, head resting on her shoulder, as he stared out at the balcony.
“Since when are you afraid of anything?” She dropped a kiss on his head. “Look at all you’ve accomplished so young. No fear. Doesn’t run in our blood. If you like him, take a shot at something more.” She patted the binder. “If it doesn’t work out, so be it. You had this trip. You always will.”
His stomach fluttered at the thought, at the possibility. The tour was supposed to be about the food, not the chef. But his attraction to Miller wasn’t about the chef; it was about the man. That wasn’t breaking the rules, was it?
Chapter Six
“Rise and shine, Doc.”
The deep, rumbly voice of Clancy’s dreams was accompanied by a hand on his shoulder, gently shaking him awake. Then a far less gentle shake tried to hurl him off his makeshift bed.
“Easy, I got you.”
Clancy blinked open his eyes to a very blurry Miller crouched in front of him. “Turbulence.” Miller held Clancy in place with one hand and passed him his glasses with the other. “We’re descending.”
Clancy slipped on his rims and his world came back into view. “We’re here?”
Miller nodded and shuffled back across the aisle to his seat, buckling in. The grooves around his eyes were deep, his smile wider than Clancy had seen it yet on this trip. With the sun streaming in through the plane’s windows, Miller appeared way too fresh and attractive for having been awake at the ass crack of dawn to catch their flight out. After a night spent tossing and turning, Clancy had conked out as soon as they’d hit cruising altitude.
But not Miller, it seemed. He was wide awake and eager for this next stop. Clancy could see it in his bright eyes; this destination was special. Not that the others hadn’t been. Clancy had pieced that together sometime around the second pat of hand-rolled butter at Morton’s. Miller had picked these spots not just to give his tour companion a good show. They meant something to him too, and there was something extra about this one. Because Miller in his easy rider jeans, a Jazz Fest T-shirt, and a lavender plaid blazer that was making its first appearance, together with that wide grin, was fucking extra.
And Clancy was fucking doomed.
Wait!
Clancy righted himself with a start, gaze darting from Miller’s T-shirt, to the purple jacket, to the swampy lowlands out the window. Which were getting closer by the second. He buckled his seat belt, then checked the time on his phone. A little over two hours had passed since takeoff. He did the calculations in his head; it all added up. “Please tell me this stop is New Orleans.”
Miller’s smile grew impossibly wider. “Excited much?”
Clancy crossed his fingers and his toes. “Just to be clear, that’s a yes?”
“Yes, Dr. Rhodes, we are in New Orleans.”
The cinched-tight seat belt was the only thing keeping him from bouncing in his seat. “Where are we going? Commander’s Palace? Brennan’s? Cochon?” Or maybe something simpler yet equally raved about. “Camellia Grill.”
“Have you been here?”
“No, but I’ve watched every food show ever filmed here.”
Miller laughed until it was drowned out by the skid of tires and the roar of the engines, the plane touching down. When the ambient noise returned to normal, Clancy asked, “So, is it one of those places?”
“None of the above.”
No problem. He had at least fifty other places on his NOLA list. But there was one thing that was a must. “Fine, but you are not bringing me to New Orleans and depriving me of beignets and chicory coffee.” As soon as the words were out, Clancy regretted how demanding they sounded. And how couple-y.
Miller, however, breezed right over them, seemingly still amused. “Oh, so now it’s not just your popcorn obsession? It’s coffee too. And you want beignets with it?”
“I’m a doctor. I survive on coffee, so when I can have the good stuff, yeah, I want it. And who doesn’t love powdered doughnuts?”
Miller rolled his eyes, and it was the most attractive thing he’d done to date. “Do not let one of the NOLA natives hear you call them that.”
Clancy mimed zipping his lips, as they rose and began gathering their things.
“I’m going to count how many beignets you eat before we leave tomorrow morning,” Miller teased.
Clancy tapped his chin with a finger. “Just one meal, then?”
“Well, two, technically, as I planned to grab muffuletta sandwiches on the way to the hotel, if that’s okay with you?”
“More than. And dinner tonight?”
The cabin door swung open, and they started down the steps to the tarmac.
“We’re meeting a friend of mine,” Miller said.
“Another chef?”
Miller threw a wicked grin over his shoulder. “Thinking of cheating on me?”
Clancy missed a step and would’ve taken them both down if not for Miller’s arm around his waist. He ignored how good that felt and the rising blush that set his cheeks on fire. The heat didn’t recede until Miller released him on the tarmac.
“Well, it is Greg Valteau, so I won’t hold that reaction against you.”
Thank fuck they were on solid ground, or else Clancy would’ve missed another step. “Holy shit, the head chef at Dram? Wait, we’re going to Dram?” A gastropub that boasted one of the country’s largest whiskey collections, Dram had won a slew of best new restaurant awards this year. Clancy was so excited he didn’t even bitch about it being humid here in December.
“I didn’t say that,” Miller replied, as they approached the waiting town car.
Clancy thrust out his bottom lip, dreams of Pappy Van Winkle tastings and Drambuie-soaked pork ribs floating away in the damp air.
“Aww, don’t give me that face, Doc.” Miller opened the town car door for him, while the valet loaded their luggage into the trunk. “I promise what I have in store won’t disappoint.”