Page 96 of So Not My Thing
I shot Miles a questioning look, but he just shook his head. “I think we’re starting with apps,” he said.
“That means appetizersandaperitifs,” Jordan added. “Let’s get this started.”
I was about to text Dylan when he walked in. “Hey,” he said. Normally, he walked in with a touch of swagger, but tonight his shoulders were stiff.
“Everything okay?” I asked.
“Yeah, fine. Just some friction at work.”
I could almostseeChloe’s story antennae go up. “Trouble at Redbird?” she asked.
“It’s nothing,” he mumbled. “Did someone mention drinks?”
“Coming up,” I told him, leading him over to our table. Tanya had arranged the tables for two separate dinner groupings, but they were close enough that we could talk back and forth easily. “Before we start, I wanted to tell you—”
But before I could give him a heads up that Miles and I were dating now, Miles slid an arm around me and held his hand out to Dylan for a shake. “Good to see you, man.”
Dylan’s eyebrow went up, and he returned Miles’s handshake. “So you’re with my sister now?”
Miles looked down at me. “You didn’t tell him?”
“I was about to.”
“You don’t tell me a lot of stuff,” Dylan said, his face losing some of its animation again.
I had no idea what he was talking about. I loved my brother, but we weren’t close. It wasn’t like I knew what was going on in his dating life in any given week. “Did I do something wrong?” I asked, trying to figure out his weird mood.
“Nothing. It’s fine. Forget it. Which one is my seat?”
Miles pulled out my chair and waved Dylan into the one across from me. Miles sat next to me with Chloe across from him.
“Hey, Clo,” Dylan said, sounding a tiny bit less grumpy.
We settled into small talk until Tanya emerged from the kitchen to announce that dinner service would begin. “Tonight, we’re eating from Chef Le’s take on refined classics. We begin with a shrimp starter.”
The servers brought us small plates, each with a gorgeous piece of Gulf shrimp in Cajun pesto resting on a triangle of toast.
“Points for the plating,” Chloe said. Dylan nodded.
It proved to taste good too. So did every other dish she sent out. After the two dessert tastings—a coffee crème brulee and a torta ricotta—Tanya brought Chef Le Anh out to the floor. We gave her a sincere round of applause, and she returned to the kitchen to pack up.
“Hey, Jordan,” his wife said, loud enough for us to hear her. “How about if you and Miles hop on stage and give us a preview of the entertainment?”
Jordan shook his head, but everyone else hooted and clapped, and Miles waved him toward the stage. Jordan shook his head again, but this time he was grinning as he rose and went to the piano. “How about some classic jazz?” he called out to more hoots. “Let’s do a little ‘So What’ from Miles Davis.”
He was flawless, his fingers lightning quick on the keys. We clapped when he ended, and he smiled out at us. “We’ll bring in people to cover the standards, but we’re also going to showcase singer-songwriters who have an interesting point of view. Sometimes that may verge toward Americana, other times toward soul and R&B roots, but from blues to bebop, the Turnaround will have it.”
“How’s the booking going?” I asked Miles as Jordan headed back to his seat.
His big smile tightened a tiny bit at the question. “Tougher than expected. We’ve got great regional acts coming in, but we’ve had a hard time getting calls back from some of the other acts I wanted.”
“Use your name,” Aaron said from the next table. “I keep telling you that, bro. All you have to do is use your name.”
Miles rolled his eyes at him. “Eat your torta.”
“What was that about?” I asked him.
“Nothing. Old argument.”
