Page 3 of The Accidental (Redemption Inc.)

Feb had been so engrossed in the kitchen that she hadn’t made her usual guest rounds, which was how she’d almost missed two of her favorite people dining with them tonight.

If she hadn’t been standing next to Lacey when the dessert order came down the line—mango white chocolate panna cotta, no mint—she would have missed her friends completely.

“Amanda, so good to see you.” She set the dessert plates on the table, the yuzu custard cupcake for Amanda, the panna cotta sans mint for her husband. “And Justin, you’re glowing.” She leaned in to hug them both, then slid into the chair across from Justin. “Everything good with the twins?”

He patted his extended belly, the baby bump prominent under his lavender suit and tie. Last time Feb had seen the married chefs at their restaurant, Diamond, Justin had just started showing. “Rooter and Tooter are great,” he said, unleashing the Texas drawl he usually reined in.

Amanda rolled her eyes and stole a bite of his dessert. “We are not naming our children Rooter and Tooter.”

He popped the back of her hand with his spoon. “Keep stealing my sweets, and we’ll see about that.”

Their laughter only subsided when Dylan appeared at their table with a tray of drinks, a flute of sparkling plum wine for Amanda, decaf coffee for Justin, and a whiskey for Feb. “You need anything else?” they asked.

“You two good?” Feb asked their guests. At her friends’ nods, she smiled again at Dylan, coveting tonight’s wine-red lipstick and matching gauge earrings. “We’re good, thanks.”

Justin’s gaze tracked Dylan all the way back to the bar before he swung his dark, knowing stare Feb’s direction. “So,” he drawled. “Valentine’s Day have anything to do with the cute bartender?”

As she considered how much to confess, Feb sipped her new favorite rye, one Dylan had introduced her to a couple weeks back.

They’d been stocking the smooth Sonoma Coast whiskey ever since, and each night when Feb started her evening rounds, Dylan would bring her a glass.

“I am interested,” Feb admitted. “But they aren’t the reason I’m opening for Valentine’s Day.

That’s me giving two middle fingers to the critics. ”

Justin cackled. “That tracks.”

“I loved what you did with the solo reservations,” Amanda said.

“Should make it easy for that Render critic to go unnoticed, assuming he’s still in town.”

Feb bobbled her glass, nearly spilling her whiskey. “What Render critic?”

“Pretty sure we had one at Diamond last night,” Justin said. “Reso was under Jacob Pappas?” he asked Amanda.

She nodded. “Average height, not an average body.” She hummed her appreciation, and Justin tipped his mug in agreement. “Beefy, dark curls and darker eyes. Way too good-looking to be there alone.”

“We tried to take him home and the blush on that bronze skin... Mmm!” He shimmied in his seat. “Almost as good as this panna cotta.”

“I’ve seen a lot of food critics in my life, but never one that hot.”

Feb chuckled at her friends’ amusing back-and-forth, the two of them always on the hunt, but inside, her stomach was on a roller coaster. Justin must have noticed, his hand lightly covering hers on the table. “Hon, you okay?”

She shook her head. “Not really. I need to go see if Pappas is on the reservations list.” Standing, she kissed both their cheeks before tossing back the rest of her whiskey and hauling ass across the dining room to the bar.

Dylan saw her coming, their eyes wide with concern. “What’s wrong?”

“Is there a Jacob Pappas on the list for Valentine’s?”

They grabbed the backbar tablet out of its holder and, after a couple taps, glanced back up at Feb. “Nine o’clock. Last seating.”

She closed her eyes and tipped back her head, cursing the ceiling and whoever was up there giving her two middle fingers. “Fuck!”

Feb surveyed the kitchen one last time before flicking off the lights and making her way up the short, inclined breezeway to the dining room.

While staff usually exited the back through the locker room, she’d learned a long time ago that if she didn’t do a back-to-front walk-through on her way out, she’d spend the night worried that the espresso machine in the breezeway station was still on, or that the beer taps behind the bar were dripping, or that the front door wasn’t locked.

That her pride and joy, one way or another, would be destroyed by morning.

She needed to lay eyes and hands on all the potential hazards on her way out or else she’d toss and turn all night and risk burning the place down herself the next day from exhaustion.

Espresso machine confirmed off, she continued on to the dining room—and stumbled to a stop at finding one of the barstools still occupied.

Dylan sat angled toward the kitchen, their sticker-covered personal tablet propped up with a keyboard stand, Feb’s favorite bottle of rye and two glasses waiting beside it.

“You’re still here?” Feb said as she wove through the tables.

Dylan eyed her over the screen. “So are you.”

Feb tossed her coat and bag out of the way on another stool, then climbed onto the one beside Dylan. She flicked her gaze at their tablet. “What are you doing?”

“Researching Jacob Pappas, which is definitely an alias.”

Alias , not fake name . She’d noticed that about Dylan before; the precise way they spoke at certain times, usually about process or procedure, especially if it involved legal matters.

Feb wondered if someone in their family was an attorney or in law enforcement.

But that seemed too personal a question to ask without buildup, so she started with the safer, more immediate topic at hand.

“That’s the way Render critics work,” she explained as she filled their glasses.

“They can’t let anyone know who they are or what they do.

I only happen to know Pappas may be one because of Amanda and Justin. ”

Dylan closed the tablet and pushed it aside. “You seem calmer now.”

“We stick with the plan. It’s a good one.” She was still nervous—she’d been waiting for a Render review for years—but she was more confident than ever in her team and her concept. “I’d be a helluva lot more fucked if we’d planned the boring prix fixe.”

“Truth,” Dylan said with a raised glass.

Feb clinked hers against it, then took a healthy swallow of the smooth, coastal rye. She leaned back against the padded barstool, eyeing Dylan’s tablet again. “Who’s the sticker fiend?”

Dylan’s grin brimmed over with affection. “My niece,” they said as they traced the giant clover at the center. “Her other aunt started her on stickers last St. Patrick’s Day. It’s been hell or hilarious ever since—jury’s still out. Her dads’ devices are completely covered.”

“They’re here in the city? Your family?”

They circled their hand in the air. “Around the Bay Area.”

A local, then. As a transplant, Feb was always looking for a local’s favorites.

Locals knew where the good shit was buried—down this or that alley, tucked in beside one or the other storefront.

They had their own map, separate and apart from the one critics and media pushed.

“What’s your favorite place to eat here? ”

They shimmied in their seat. “We’re sitting in it.”

“Flatterer.” Feb hid her pleased smile behind the rim of her glass, taking another sip before asking, “What’s number two, then?”

“Angelica’s Bakery.”

Whiskey sloshed over the rim of Feb’s glass as she banged it on the bar.

“That place is insane . The mistletoe cannoli...” She mimed a chef’s kiss, and even that wasn’t praise enough for the best dessert—the best bakery—in town.

She was only sad the too-short window for mistletoe cannoli had passed.

“They work well as bribes,” Dylan said with a wink.

“You’ve tried that?”

“More like I was the bribed. Totally worth it.”

Feb refilled their glasses. “It’s good you have family around.”

“I didn’t always.” Feb cocked a brow before she could stop herself from being nosy, but Dylan waved off her unspoken apology with an intentional flitter of their fingers, each nail painted a different color of the nonbinary pride flag. “My bio-fam kicked me out when I was a teen.”

“Dyl—”

They shook their head and, improbably, smiled, as wide and affectionate as before when they’d spoken about their niece.

“Best thing that ever happened to me. Sucked that first year I bounced around homeless, but I ended up in a queer teen shelter, and that was where I found my real family. I wouldn’t have the family I chose without the ones who didn’t choose me. ”

Feb swirled the rye in her glass, mimicking the guilt that swirled in her gut. “Now I feel like an ass for daily cursing mine for my name.”

Dylan leaned in, their breath whispering across the side of Feb’s face, their voice teasing and close. “They kind of deserve that one.”

Feb laughed, the tense moment broken by the quick, dry wit she’d come to depend on the past few months.

Feb thanked them by sharing the highlights of growing up February Winters.

More laughter carried her and Dylan through another round of drinks, Feb starting to feel it, suspecting she’d feel it even more tomorrow morning, but she was too intrigued by Dylan to let this moment go.

She wanted to get to know them better, had wanted to since they’d first walked through UTT’s doors, but Feb was shit at making time outside the kitchen, especially for dates.

Hell, even for friendships. But here, now, was the perfect opportunity to get to know one of the most intriguing people she’d met in. .. she couldn’t remember how long.

And Dylan seemed intrigued by her too, more than happy to continue to get to know her better. “They treat you well, though, your family?” they asked.

“Incredibly,” Feb answered with her own smile. “I’m lucky. They didn’t blink when I said I wanted to cook for a living, didn’t balk when I left Beaverton to move down here, and never once judged me for who I love.” Her parents had only ever cheered her on, the loudest of her fans.

“Even if those relationships ended as broken hollandaise?”

She flopped back in her stool with a dramatic sigh.

“They were so disappointed it didn’t work out with Marissa.

Mom thought she was the one.” Marissa was a med student at UCSF, sweet, well-mannered, a dynamo in bed.

Crazy busy, same as Feb. Neither of them took offense at the other’s lack of time, but with virtually zero time together, their chemistry in the bedroom had zero time to bake into more.

“As for Dad, he lobbied hard for Brett D’Moine at first.”

Dylan slapped a hand over their mouth, barely keeping their whiskey in. Once they managed to swallow, they barked out a laugh. “Like the cheese? You can’t be serious?”

“Oh, but I am,” Feb sputtered around a giggle. “The irony was not lost on anyone. Too bad he wasn’t nearly as tasty.”

“You said at first about your dad, so when did it get stinky?”

“Well played,” Feb said with a tip of her glass at the play on words. “Brett became my right hand in the kitchen where we both worked. I told him about the restaurant I wanted to open next. Then he stole the concept for his own place.”

Dylan’s outraged expression was the validation every chef who’d ever been in Feb’s position—and there were plenty—craved. “He didn’t .”

“Yep.” She polished off the rest of her drink. “At least he had the good grace to take it to SoCal. The coyote wasteland can have him.”

“So you swore off love for good?” Dylan said, as they poured Feb another.

“I didn’t swear off love,” she said with a flick of her hand.

“I just didn’t have time to go looking for it.

Making real hollandaise every day is hard enough.

” She sipped at the whiskey and resteadied herself on her stool.

“And if I wasn’t going to trust anyone from the kitchen again, finding time out of it became impossible once I opened this place and it started to get attention. ”

“And your heart didn’t.”

“Heart, pfft.” She leaned close to Dylan and affected the same conspiratorial whisper they’d used earlier. “I’d just settle for something besides my vibrator between my legs.”

Feb giggled—until she noticed Dylan wasn’t laughing.

Those green eyes were fixed on her, their intense gaze fiery again, sending a zing right to where Feb used that vibrator.

She giggled again, then pressed the back of her hand to her lips, trying to stop the words from tumbling out. “Did I just say that?”

Dylan’s green gaze darkened. “You did.”

“Too much whiskey.” And if she didn’t get off this stool right now, she was going to lean the rest of the way forward and break her own rule about smooching colleagues from the kitchen.

She spun the opposite direction and vaulted off the stool.

Teetering, she stayed upright solely by the grace of Dylan’s hands around her biceps, their warm, compact body pressed against her back, their hot breath floating into the valley behind Feb’s ear.

“Let me call you a car.”

Feb’s shiver creeped into her words. “I can walk.”

She was sure Dylan noticed, the bartender skating their hands down Feb’s arms, goose bumps lifting in their wake.

“We can’t let anything happen to you before the Render critic gets here.

” They lifted her arms from behind and braced them on the back of the adjacent stool.

“You stay here. I’ll finish locking up and get the rest of the lights.

” They made the lap around the dining room Feb hadn’t finished earlier, flicking off lights as they went, casting more and more of the space in shadow.

They cut through it with a grace and efficiency of movement Feb only seemed to have in the kitchen.

Outside of it, she was the same nerdy kid who’d tripped up the bleachers during her third-grade choir recital.

Dylan ducked beneath the bar flip and strolled the length of the bar, checking all the taps were off and the top-shelf whiskey case secure.

The bar.

Dylan wasn’t really in the kitchen. It wouldn’t really be breaking any of Feb’s rules to taste those wine-red lips and feel Dylan’s body more firmly pressed against hers.

“Car should be here shortly,” Dylan said as they emerged from behind the other end of the bar, near where Feb waited. And waited, holding her tongue, letting the silence draw Dylan closer. “Feb, you okay?”

“There’s another reason I haven’t gone looking for a relationship lately.

” She shifted her weight from the stool to the person in front of her, looping her arms over their shoulders and resting her cheek against theirs, whispering her confession in Dylan’s ear.

“I haven’t wanted to since you walked through my door. ”