Page 47 of Things We Tell Ourselves

He picks up the first quail leg with his fingers. She does the same; the sauce adds to the quail’s savory perfection with a hint of sweetness. Wade is already onto his second. She finishes and goes for the Brussels sprouts without a second thought. She takes the first bite and sits back in her chair, enjoying the crisp crunchiness in every bite.

“I would eat way more vegetables if they tasted like this,” she comments, looking at the plate in the center of the table.

“If you don’t eat it,” Wade says slowly, “I will.”

“You know,” Camille sits up, scooping up the last of the appetizer and adding it to her dish. “I would do something on the second floor that would attract the sorts of people you want to eat at The Hive.”

“I could turn it into an office space. Make it appealing for a firm or an architect group.”

Camille takes a drink of her water, shaking her head. “I was thinking more like a creative outlet where people in the area could come and take classes by professionals like,” she glances at the walls, “like the artist who did all of this.”

“Interesting idea,” he nods, eating the last of his appetizer. She likes the way he gives her an appraising stare.

The next course is Phillipe’s take on fried cheese sticks. The mozzarella sticks have a light batter, baked instead of fried, with a dipping sauce of a sweet caramel consistency, tasting more like a dessert. Phillipe brings out the main entree on a cart, rolling it right up to the table. It’s a large cast-iron skillet with an equally sized serving spoon next to it.

“This is my latest creation.”

The food on the skillet is designed to look like a campfire. The broccolini are standing up like trees, supported by fingerling potatoes piled at their base. An actual miniature fire is at its center, made up of tiny coals glowing a smooth, ember red. Over the coals is a small, low-profile bowl with a cube setting inside the bowl.

“As the sauce melts, I recommend altering dips between the broccolini and fingerlings. Feel free to eat with your hands, but be careful. The coals are real and inedible.”

The heat emitting from the skillet is enough that Camille takes her blazer off, draping it on the back of her chair. Phillipe looks at Adam, who’s refilling their waters.

“You remember what to do next?” he asks, backing out of the room.

Adam nods, topping off Camille’s glass.

Camille waits until Phillipe is gone to widen her eyes at Wade, who’s sitting back in his chair, his hands in his lap.

“What are you waiting for?” she asks.

He purses his lips before reaching his hand out and plucks up one of the broccolini. He looks it over, frowning. Instead of dipping it into the sauce, he uses the end of broccolini to poke one of the coals.

“I wonder if our insurance covers this,” he ponders, pulling it away from the coal to examine the singed end.

“You’re ruining the experience,” she whispers, poking at a potato with her pointer finger, checking to make sure it isn’t too hot before picking it up. The broccolini that the potato was holding up tilts from the loss of support.

Adam pulls two glasses of red wine out from the cart. “I suggest dipping the potato and broccolini in the sauce while it’s melting before it gets too hot.”

This sauce is different from the quail sauce. It’s got an orange tinge as if it has mustard in it. When she bites into the potato, it has a strong creamy flavor, not a bitter mustard flavor. It makes her think of Worcestershire sauce.

Wade’s eaten his broccolini, and despite how great she knows it must taste, he’s still giving the plate a skeptical stare. He dips his head toward Adam, who’s walking around the table to the cart. “Has anyone burned themselves with this dish?”

“Only the kitchen has tried it that I know of.”

Wade grabs a potato, dipping it into the almost fully melted sauce before tossing it into his mouth. Camille smiles as he exhales out of his mouth as soon as he bites into the hot vegetable. Adam stands up from behind the cart, revealing metal tongs in hand. He uses them to lift the bowl from the coals, swirling it around. With the bowl off the coals, Camille notices what looks like more of the orange sauce spilling out from beneath the coals.

“Is the bowl leaking?” she asks, sitting up to get a better look.

“That,” Adam grins, setting the bowl down on the skillet beside the coals, “is supposed to be there.” He takes a deep breath. “Okay,” he glances over at both of them, “this is my favorite part.”

He grabs the top coals with the tongs, moving them to line the lip of the inner edge of the skillet. By the third lump of coal, Camille sees what the coal was hiding.

“That’s what I’ve been smelling,” Wade says, craning his neck to see what Adam is uncovering.

“You have seared sirloin tips, marinated twenty-four hours before serving.”

“You still dig it?” Wade asks Camille, enjoying how giddy she’s getting as she watches Adam pour some of the sauce over the two pieces of sirloin.

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