Yeah that's what I'd expect reload to do but it's no biggie :)
Is Peek Aside different from the Show aside context menu option? Those can't be closed by Esc but do have a Hide aside context menu option. Maybe I misunderstood that this was different from what this plugin uses.
Looking at the shortcuts for Peek Aside it seems they don't work on Mac. Alt + F1 (Opt + F1 on mac) opens the Displays part of my Preferences application instead. I have been using the context menu this whole time, but perhaps that's different. I expect this belongs as a comment under that plugin - sorry for getting off-topic.
Esc works for this plugin's version of Aside though so thanks for that! All sorted.
Edit: Ah yes I see it's show-aside that's adding the context menu.