Read Online Food Whore by Jessica Tom - Free Book Online Page A

You’ve changed your mind about her?”
    â€œNo, hold on. You didn’t eat anything?” I took his uneaten bites personally. I had picked this restaurant, ordered the dishes. Even when my college cooking experiments had gone haywire, he’d still eaten my food.
    â€œWe could have ordered other things on the menu,” I said, the air yanked out of me.
    â€œI know. But I wanted you to order, since this place is for you.”
    â€œI thought you’d like those dishes. Was I totally off?”
    Elliott squirmed. “This just isn’t my style. Honestly, I like it when you cook stuff from Helen’s cookbooks. That’s way more edible to me.”
    I lost my appetite. And then she walked in, ignoring the line outside.
    Emerald had changed into something different—­a low-­cut white tank top that fluttered in front of her cleavage, jeans, black knee-­high boots, and one of her suspicious men’s coats. I was feeling pretty good in this dress, but that confidence vanished the second I saw her.
    â€œMy friends got held up, so I thought I’d find you guys!” Emerald said. “The line out there is crazy! Who knew Bakashu would be the place to be?” She leaned in to look at Elliott’s plate and I swear he looked down her shirt.
    â€œBakushan,” I corrected her flatly.
    â€œOh! Haha! Right, I knew that. So what are you eating? This place is cool. I like it.” She grabbed a menu from the hostess station, took one quick look at it, and pulled it over her mouth as if she were telling us a secret. “But the menu is weird, isn’t it? Snail, chocolate . . . what’s screwpine? I guess I’ll get the chicken? I’ll wipe some of the wacky stuff off.” Then she took off her coat and sat at our table.
    â€œI’ll get the chicken, too,” Elliott said, looking away, then at me, then away again. “Sorry T, I’m pretty hungry.”
    â€œYou could have said you wanted the chicken . . .” I said, keeping my tone as flat as possible so Emerald couldn’t detect that things had gone sour. I looked at Elliott and said as much as possible with my eyes, Please, let’s just have a nice dinner?
    But he didn’t see, or didn’t care, because he began chatting with Emerald.
    â€œHow did you even get in here?” Elliott asked in disturbingly easy tones. “We had to wait.”
    Emerald shrugged in a way that was at once modest and boastful, Oh, it’s no big deal if you’re me. “Wait, what’s the chef’s name?” she asked. “I think I read about him in ELLE .”
    â€œOoooh, ELLE, ” Elliott mocked. “He must be a big deal, then.”
    â€œHe is a big deal!” Emerald said, slapping him with the menu. “Or at least he’s cute!”
    I wanted to yell Enough . I wanted to redo the whole night—­the outfit from Emerald, seeing Kyle, my orders off the menu.
    â€œHis name is Pascal Fox,” I said quietly, way too quietly for normal conversation, and unintelligible in this loud restaurant.
    The open kitchen’s steam and smoke masked Pascal a bit, but I still caught a glimpse. Even though he was getting a lot of media attention, he didn’t look like a man who cared about photo shoots and celebrity. He looked like a serious chef with a lot on the line. He sprinted sideways through the narrow galley, threw something out. His chef’s jacket was rolled to his elbows, revealing a mural of indecipherable tattoos.
    In a faraway place in my mind, I heard the music of the restaurant and Elliott and Emerald, maybe talking about work or liking chicken. I didn’t regret coming to Bakushan anymore. Only bringing Elliott there. It was horrible to say, but why had I thought he would enjoy it?
    I stabbed a snail-­and-­pork dumpling, a half-­eaten bite that Elliott had probably all-­too-­happily put back on the serving plate,