Hot Mess. Emily Belden
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one hand, he seemed aggressive. A little too intense for me. On the other, it was intoxicating that this quasi-celebrity chef dude wanted to hang out with me so badly, he had to wave a limited-time-only offer in front of my face to get me to act.
Another fact about me: I’m not one to pass up a good deal.
Yeah, I’m in, I coyly responded back, even though I was terrified at the thought of stepping out of my comfort zone.
Good choice, he typed back.
A few hours later, I put on some eyeliner and walked over to the meeting place with zero expectations. When I saw this rough and tough hottie sitting at the counter drinking a generous serving of neat whiskey, I knew I was in for more than I bargained for. I probably should have run before he had a chance to see me. I could have easily DM’d him, said my bus broke down or I got stuck at work. But I just couldn’t turn away.
“There she is, Miss Allie Simon, everybody,” he said along with a slow clap.
I looked around and there was no one else in the bar, which made his intro of me both silly and sweet. I could feel my nerves dialing down a notch.
“Hello, Benji,” I said, putting out my hand for a shake. He grabbed it, flipped it and kissed the top of my hand.
“Hi, Allie.”
“What can I get for you?” the bartender asked, putting a cocktail napkin down in front of me.
“Uh, how about a sauv blanc?”
“You’re at a whiskey and burger bar, babe,” the condescending bartender said back. “We don’t have sauv blanc.”
“The fuck you don’t.” Benji stepped in. “Go ask your chef what he puts in the mustard glaze. And bring an empty glass back there while you’re at it.”
The bartender gave us side-eye, realized it was Benji Zane shouting that order and grabbed a tumbler as he departed to the kitchen.
“Fucking idiots,” Benji whispered to himself as he took a sip of his drink. “So, how are you?”
He put his hand on my thigh as he asked the question—an action I would normally reject from a guy who wasn’t physically my type. After all, I was drawn to dudes who looked like they were sent home the first night on The Bachelorette. Clean-cut, maybe wearing a little concealer, just trying to be nice until we took things to the Fantasy Suite.
Like I said, walking, talking cliché.
Before I could answer, the bartender came back.
“Sorry, we don’t have wineglasses. But here’s your sauv blanc.”
“Well, cheers,” said Benji.
“How did you know...”
“It’s a burger place. They have mustard.”
“So?”
“I assume if they’re charging $15 for a basic hamburger, they probably make the mustard in-house, meaning there’s got to be a crisp white wine in the walk-in cooler back there or they wouldn’t be able to get the recipe right. He knew they had sauv blanc. He was just being a douchebag who was too lazy to walk ten feet and get it.”
I had been out with straitlaced stockbrokers sporting impeccably tousled hair who had held doors for me, brought me flowers for a first date and pushed in my chair for me at dinner. But no one in the last two months had ramped up my mojo as much as Benji had in that first five minutes. He stuck up for me—and my girlie drink order—all while showing off his culinary chops just a little bit.
From that point on, I knew he was going to be trouble. But I never imagined he’d become my trouble. Big difference.
Throughout the night, Benji excused himself a handful of times to go to the bathroom. Sure, a part of me wondered if he was doing coke in there, but I had to remember we both were drinking. I, too, would be in and out of the bathroom all night had I broken the seal earlier. Also, I had never done coke, nor did I know anyone in my social circle who had, so what was I looking for anyway? White powder to be coating his nostrils? A nagging itch at his nose? For what it was worth, neither of those things were happening, so I shrugged it off and stopped counting his trips to the bathroom. After all, I wasn’t in this for the long run, so what the guy did in the men’s room was none of my business. All that mattered was that he kept rejoining me back at the bar and picking up right where our scintillating conversation left off.
A one-night stand was inevitable. But by the time I realized the drug thing was real, and it was serious, we were way past just one night.
It’s late in the workday Monday when I get an email from my alma matter, Mizzou. It’s the quarterly journalism alumni update wherein they compile a list of about a hundred bullet points, all just quick mentions of who got hired where, which people have been promoted at their jobs and which of the former editors are now stay-at-home moms and freelance taste testers for Nabisco. Being three years post-grad and still happily working for an ear-cleaning company, this digest is basically my version of Page Six news.
Which is why I’m particularly shocked to see my name about a third of the way down the list.
Allie Simon is dating celebrity chef Benji Zane. They live together in Chicago.
Normally the chairman of the department solicits for these kinds of updates, and this is most certainly a blurb that I did not submit myself. So the fact that one of the best journalism schools in the country has scooped this intel straight from a popular food blog and finds my personal life newsworthy makes me feel like a goddamn celebrity, I must admit.
I don’t blame them for not including a word about my role at Daxa in the roundup. In fact, it’s kind of a shameful career choice considering I was at one point the managing editor of the school paper. But the truth is, I never wanted to be a reporter and by the time I pocketed my degree and moved back to Chicago, the way the world works had changed. People wanted to speak and read in bursts of 280 characters or less and Daxa, headquartered here in the River North neighborhood, was looking for someone to help them get in on a conversation of that caliber. Couple that with my need to pay bills and suddenly tweeting about cotton swabs became my calling. Or something like that.
It’s always a bit difficult to play catch-up on Monday mornings since we switch over to an automated community management system for nights and weekends. Unfortunately, the “NightHawk2000” has the personality of a bad first date and sometimes misses an influx of tweets if the system has to reboot itself—which it does, often. I want to say that today is no different, but it’s actually worse. Taking off last Friday for Benji’s pop-up set me back about 300 replies before 9:00 a.m.
I somehow make it through the day and am now standing outside my office waiting for the Route 22 bus up to Lincoln Park while group texting with Jazzy and Maya about tonight’s premiere of the new season of The Bachelor.
Maya: Starts @ 7. My Place?
Jazzy: Can BZ whip up some garlic hummus?
Suddenly, I’m interrupted by a tap on my shoulder.
“Babe! What are you doing here?” I pull my headphones out as Benji brings me in for a clammy hug. He clearly walked to my office, which is a good forty-five minutes at a brisk pace. He smells like a cigarette accompanied him and deodorant did not. Still, I’m happy to breathe him in, although I’m regretting the fact I haven’t touched up my makeup at all today. It may sound shallow, but in my defense, I’m not like Benji. I can’t just throw on a white Hanes V-neck with a sweaty man-bun and automatically look like I should be on the cover of People’s Sexiest Man Alive issue.
Plus, this is an ambush. He surprised me outside my work. Now, what for is the question.
“Remember how I told you there were a few VIPs on the dinner list at the pop-up? I circled their names on the