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“Nope.” I mimed drawing a zipper across my lips. “Look, Whitney’s back.”
“Come on, guys. Our table is ready.” Whitney had poked her head out the door just enough to speak. Then she disappeared back inside.
The group filed through the doors and toward the large table the waitstaff had set up for us on the far side of the room. I wormed through until I snagged a chair to Megan’s right. Jenna was on her left. Then on the other side of Jenna was Noah. Austin plopped down beside me and nudged me with his elbow.
I glanced over and had to fight not to roll my eyes as he sat there wiggling his eyebrows at me. He was such a pain. Beside him, Kayla hit him on the arm and hissed for him to stop.
Great. So four people knew. And if two of them were women, was there any chance at all that Megan didn’t already know? I wasn’t completely sure what the woman code was on stuff like that, but even guys would be rushing to spill details if they hadn’t been sworn to secrecy.
Sometimes even if they had.
Megan touched my arm to get my attention. “Okay. Tell me about Season’s Bounty and why their desserts won’t work.”
I ignored the warmth from her fingers and tried to organize my thoughts. “The hot food is all perfect. There were these chicken lettuce wraps that I honestly could have just eaten for days. Three kinds of bruschetta. Stuffed mushrooms. Some kind of skewer that had vaguely Greek seasoning to it and a dipping sauce that was a lot like what you get with a gyro.”
“Yum.” Megan held up a finger as the waitress approached our table.
I waited while we all ordered, got our menus collected, and conversation resumed around the table.
“Okay. Keep going.” Megan clasped her hands together on the table. “It sounds fabulous.”
“It was. I was disappointed that crabcakes weren’t an option, but Paige explained that she only uses local, in-season ingredients and crab season ends before the gala.”
Megan frowned. “Bummer. The crabcake I had when we went on Monday was divine.”
“It was.”
Megan had let me have a bite since we’d been there to check out the restaurant. In fact, we’d spent the entire meal sharing bits of each thing so we got to taste more than just what we ordered.
I cleared my throat and forced my mind away from the casual intimacy of that meal and back to the present. “Let’s see. She did this thing she called a bacon puff—basically thick bacon in flaky pastry. Deviled eggs.”
Megan snickered. “No way.”
“They were good. And they were classier than your grandmother’s deviled egg.” Of course, now I was worried. “Should I cancel those?”
She shrugged. “If you think they’re fine, they’re probably fine.”
Except I could hear the derision in her tone. Shoot. I should have taken her with me. I could always call and set up a second—no. I’d given Paige the go-ahead. The food was good. And the layout ideas that she’d had when I explained the venue had seemed logical. Fun, even.
I took a breath. “Okay. The desserts were mostly fruit. And I mean fruit is good, but to have fruit in December, she was explaining, it was all basically canned.”
Megan wrinkled her nose. “Gross.”
“Not like store canned. Like granny canned. But yeah.” I didn’t completely get the fascination with only using local, in-season food, but it was the thing at Season’s Bounty so it wasn’t as if I was going to change that. Nor did I want to. People could do what they wanted with their businesses.
“Anyway, she suggested this bakery and a couple of other restaurants that have, in her words, phenomenal desserts. I thought the bakery was probably the best first choice. Thus my excursion this afternoon. You game?”
“Sure. I like dessert. We should see if anyone else wants to tag along.”
I winced.
“What?”
“What what?” I wasn’t sure I could pull off playing dumb, but I hadn’t meant to react visibly.
She cocked her head to the side. “You winced. You don’t want to invite the gang?”
“I don’t want a committee.” That sounded harsh. I blew out a breath. “Just…so many opinions is going to make it take longer.”
