I held up my middle finger and wished a rash to her underboobs. Take that, smart ass.
Wyatt was squatting when I found him, reaching to the very back of a shelf. I shivered, and not because of the cold. The air changed with him so close. It tensed and sparked and amplified every nervous emotion rushing through me.
He turned his head when the doors opened. He nodded to acknowledge my presence and went back to fishing for missed leftovers.
“Hey, Wyatt. Can we talk for a minute?”
He turned around to look directly at me, his eyes dark and ambiguous and unreadable in the poor light of the cooler. “We’ve needed to talk a lot lately.”
His observation made me itchy. I didn’t know how to respond to that. Or even how to think about it.
We had needed to talk a lot lately. That was normal between chefs and their sous chefs.
But Wyatt and I weren’t normal, and none of our recent talks felt normal either. It was probably best if I fled this restaurant as quickly as possible. Especially because I couldn’t even name what was going on between us. Only that it wasn’t normal or appropriate or even in the realm of usual for either of us.
“I can come back at a different time…?” I offered timidly.
He stood up slowly, inch by slow inch, until he towered over me. “Now’s fine.”
Clearing my throat, I had a second of panic that I still sounded like a man. My morning voice had mostly disappeared after two cups of coffee and a Fiber One bar, but now I was too nervous to use it. Not a common trait for me.
Damn Dillon and Vera—getting inside my head. I was perfectly content to hate Wyatt in the normal way before they ever said anything. And now I was second guessing all my loathing for him because of other people’s opinions. Dumb. It was dumb. And I wanted us to go back to normal.
That meant ignoring my friends altogether and focusing on our usual relationship status—enemies. Mortal, arch, ride or die enemies.
“What’s up?” He crossed his arms and faced me. Suddenly, I felt very nervous.
I bit his finger and now I could never be his mortal enemy again. How stupid was that?
“I wanted to make sure I could have Sunday evening off.”
His face scrunched up. “What day is it today?”
“Friday.”
“And you want Sunday off?”
I hid my wince at the harsh tone of his voice. “No, I already have it off. I want to make sure I keep it off.”
“Hey, if you’re not on the schedule, you have nothing to worry about.”
“You say that…” I braved his gaze and let him see the nerves I wasn’t successful at hiding. “But I haven’t had a day off in maybe a month. A little over a month?”
His jaw ticked. “Are you complaining?”
I swallowed. “Not formally.”
His head dipped and if he was anyone else, I would have sworn it was to hide a smile. “Okay, so you want Sunday night off. Got it.”
“Thanks.”
“I mean, it’s one of our busiest nights, but if you don’t feel obligated to come in, I suppose I can’t make you.”
The cooler was dark, lit only by a few bulbs not bright enough to reveal if there was a twinkle in his devilish eyes or if I was imagining it. Was he teasing me? Or was he serious?
“I have other plans,” I said neutrally. “Or I would be here. You know I would be here.”
“Sure. It’s fine. You’re allowed to do other things besides work.”
I shrugged. “We both know that’s not true.” One of his eyebrows lifted and I could tell he was preparing for a fight. “Not because you’re a slave driver. Although you are. It just comes with the territory. This is what we signed up for.”
Wyatt ran a hand over his face and nodded. “I guess it is.” He turned back to the cooler shelves and started moving things around, organizing them where they should be located on the shelves. It was amazing how quickly things got out of order here. By nature, we were all meticulous and anal with our equipment. But one hectic dinner service shot our best intentions to shit. Someone had clearly forgotten their cooler duties last night.
I hoped it wasn’t me.
“Thanks again, Wyatt. I’ll be here every other night this weekend.” I smiled at the back of his head. “You can count on me.”
He looked back at me over his shoulder. “Yeah, thanks for that.”
I stood there longer than was socially acceptable, holding his gaze and wondering what the hell to say. He’d never said thank you before. He’d never shown any acknowledgment that he even noticed I was going above and beyond for him.
“You’re doing a good job.” The words were out of my mouth before I could swallow them. There was just something so vulnerable in the way he was looking at me. And the bags beneath his eyes seemed blacker and bigger than yesterday, and he hadn’t yelled at any of us about the cooler. Instead, he was in here organizing it. This wasn’t his job. He was the head chef. He wasn’t supposed to stoop as low as this.
His eyebrows drew together. “What do you mean?”
“With this.” I spread my arms, gesturing to the cooler, the kitchen, this fucking enormous job he had. “With Lilou.”
“You don’t have to—”
“I’m not,” I assured him. “I’m not saying that to make you feel better. You’re doing the best you can. And it turns out that the restaurant hasn’t burned to the ground yet, and we’re still booked solid for the next four months, and you haven’t made anyone cry in at least three weeks. Wyatt, you don’t suck at this.”
Half his mouth lifted in a slow smile, and a rogue butterfly took flight low in my belly. And it must have been on fire, because the quick heat that spread through my body made me lightheaded.
Obviously, that was the butterfly’s fault.
“Six months,” he murmured in a low rumble.
“Huh?”
“We’re booked out for the next six months.”
I tried my best to keep my expression neutral, but my traitor eyes bugged, and my eyebrows rose, giving me away. I cleared my throat and desperately grappled for sarcasm. “There. See. I told you so.”
The other side of his mouth joined in and he hit me in the chest with a full-fledged smile. What kind of witchcraft was this? Holy hell, Wyatt didn’t smile enough. He should definitely smile more. Who knew someone so scary could be so beautiful?
“So you think Killian picked the right guy for the job?”
And there it was—the poison that killed the magic of his mouth. I rolled my eyes, finding it much easier to be annoyed with him again. “Let’s not get crazy. Maybe he picked the right guy, but the right person for the job was me.” I added a winning smile to soften the blow.
He only laughed, which irritated me even more. “You’re so full of yourself, Kaya. I’ve never met anyone like you before.”
I rolled my eyes again and turned to walk out of the cooler. “Yeah, well, you’re welcome.”
His arm darted out and made a barricade across my middle. His warm skin in the cool air of the refrigerator rocketed through me, kindling the already dangerous fire burning through me. “Is it a date?”
Rotating my head so I could glare at him, I tried to process his question. “Is what a date?”
He didn’t look at me though. Even though his arm was wrapped around my waist, he refused to meet my eyes. “Sunday night. Is that why you want the night off?”
My breath caught in my throat and I lost the ability to form words. Why did he want to know? And what was I supposed to say? I couldn’t exactly tell him the truth. Vera had asked me to keep our rendezvous on the down low. Beyond that, I didn’t want him to know I was moonlighting at Sarita. If missing Sunday night was a big deal, I couldn’t imagine telling him I wanted to leave permanently. Especially in his current sleepless state.
But lying wasn’t exactly an out either. First, he would eventually figure everything out. Like when I handed in my two weeks’ notice and confessed my move across tow
n.
“Not a date,” I admitted. “But it’s a commitment I can’t reschedule.”
He looked at me. His head lifted, and he shocked me with his rich, fathomless brown eyes. The intensity swimming in them knocked me back a step. It felt like I’d overdosed on chocolate, my stomach churning from the sugary sweetness that I shouldn’t have greedily inhaled.
Ironically, he caught me with the arm that had trapped me. Otherwise, I would’ve fallen directly on my butt.
He didn’t acknowledge my moment of klutziness and I was grateful for his small kindness.
When he was satisfied I wasn’t going to topple over again, he dropped his arm and moved out of the way to let me pass. “Okay.”
I waited a beat longer, but he turned back to the shelves again. Conversation over. He had work to do and no more time for me.
Okay, fine. I didn’t need more time with him. He’d given me his blessing to have Sunday night off. That was the whole reason I’d gone in there to begin with. That was a win.
So why did it feel like I’d somehow lost?
I pushed through the rubber curtains hanging in front of the cooler entrance and rubbed my forearms in an effort to cool down. Or heat up. Or stop the hairs on my arms from standing straight up. Or maybe I was doing all three.
God, Wyatt. What the hell?
The shocking part of the whole exchange was that I had been expecting to hear Wyatt step back from his question. I expected him to assure me my dating life was none of his business. Or that I could date whoever I wanted.
But he hadn’t said any of that.
Now I was overanalyzing every single word and looking for hidden meaning, and I hated him even more for making me obsessed with thinking about him.
But at the same time I also hated him less. And that was even more confusing.
I rubbed my temples feeling a headache start to take hold. Sunday night couldn’t come fast enough. I needed time away from this kitchen. I needed to clear my head.
And my libido.
Chapter Six
My hands trembled as I reached for the door. This was it, the moment of truth. Or at least one of them.
An early one. Probably a baby one.
This was like a prologue to the moment of truth.
But, goddamn, it felt scary as hell.
One of my mentors from school had always said, if you’re not scared as shit, it’s not hard enough.
This was plenty hard enough.
The door pushed open before I could find the courage to touch it. A guy and a girl walked out carrying empty boxes that needed to be broken down and thrown away. They were both wearing black chef coats with red flowers on the lapel and their hair was hidden behind bandanas, although the girl’s springy black curls exploded out the back of hers. They checked me out but didn’t stop to chat.
I let out a slow breath and straightened my black chef coat with a flower on the lapel. Mine was a lily though. Not the Spanish rose of Sarita.
Normal people might not notice the difference, but we did.
I slipped inside the kitchen and the exterior door slammed shut behind me. Leaning back against it, I steadied my breathing and took a minute to get my bearings.
Even though I’d worked for Ezra for several years, I’d never seen the inside of the kitchen at Sarita before. I’d eaten here several times and gotten drinks with friends often. But the kitchen had been off limits.
I’d met a few of the chefs at Bianca and Sarita before now, but there was always this unspoken hostility between us. We would never admit it out loud, but we were in fierce competition with each other. We wanted to be the best of the harem. We wanted to be best bitch.
But aside from that, we wanted to be best in the city. And up until recently, when Bianca’s leadership failed, we had all been in steady competition for the title.
The constant rivalry made Ezra Baptiste infinitely happy and plenty rich. Because that meant he owned three of the best restaurants in the region. On the other hand, the constant contention made us feral.
Once, when the city had an arugula shortage, Lilou had run out and Killian made me call Bianca to see if they had any extra. The girl on the other end had laughed like a hyena and hung up on me.
There was a rumor floating around that some of the chefs from Sarita had broken into Bianca and stolen all their immersion blenders because they thought Bianca had better ones.
Basically, I was willingly walking into shark-infested waters.
And the Lilou lily was bleeding all over me.
“Hey, you made it!” Vera called across the kitchen that was eerily similar to Lilou’s. There was a significant size difference because Lilou was a much bigger restaurant, but the layout was the same. Good.
That made this an easier battle to fight.
Vera felt like safety, so I moved toward her. “Are you kidding? This is amazing.” I met her eyes. “You’re amazing.”
She waved her hand, dismissing the compliment. “I’m doing this for purely selfish reasons.” Leaning in, she dropped her voice and whispered, “Get me the hell out of here.”
I snorted a laugh. “Is it that bad?”
She looked down at her hands, seeming unsure what to say. Finally, she lifted her head and pierced me with a totally open stare. “It’s not mine. That’s the issue. It’s not mine and I feel it in my bones.”
Her words kicked me in the chest and my body started absorbing this moment before my mind could catch up. At the same time, a tingle started in my toes and rose through my body like an electrical current.
This wasn’t her kitchen. This kitchen was mine. It belonged to me. Or it would soon.
I smiled at Vera, feeling a change take root in the core of me, a hope and dream that I had never known existed until this moment.
The idea of it had been there for a long time. Even the strong idea of it. But it wasn’t until this moment, with the gleaming stainless steel surrounding me and the buzz of voices and chopping and hiss of fry pans and clank of dishes that I fully understood what it meant to wholly, totally, completely want something so badly I would work as hard as it took and for as long as it took until it was mine.
And then I would work harder and longer and tougher and smarter to keep the dream alive.
When I hadn’t said anything for long enough that I could tell Vera felt awkward, she clapped her hands together and asked, “Ready to get to work?”
“Hell, yes.”
She smiled back. I didn’t know if she recognized the hunger I felt for this place or if she didn’t know what else to do, but her smile solidified the still shaky parts of me and whispered to be brave.
“Tour first, don’t you think?”
I nodded and followed her as she began walking around the kitchen pointing out equipment and people. I continued to nod and smile, desperately but uselessly clinging to names I had no chance of remembering. There were just too many of them and I was still overwhelmed with the unfamiliar electricity rushing through me.
I took deep breaths and settled on figuring out how to get whatever I wanted without having to use names. “Hey, there, champ…” seemed my best option.
She took me back to the office and I blanched at the sight of it. “What happened in here?”
“Right? And Ezra was surprised when he quit. The jackass was a total slob. Killian and I have had a hell of a time getting her right again. This was what the kitchen looked like too.”
My hand landed beneath my jaw, supporting my head from falling off my body in shock. “The kitchen looked like this?”
She rolled her eyes. “It was worse if you can believe it. It was amazing this place hadn’t burned to the ground from a grease fire yet.”
“What about bugs? Mice?”
Her nose wrinkled. “Both. We’ve had exterminators come out, but we’re still working on it.”
Bile rose in my throat and real anger settled in my fists. I had worked in plenty of kitchens with bugs and mice problems. I had even worked in
one with rats before. It was a difficult problem to solve once they invaded. And if you didn’t keep the kitchen in tip-top shape constantly, they invaded quickly.
That was why we were so absolutely anal about deep cleaning at Lilou. And why I would be a total slave driver about it when I ran my own kitchen.
I lowered my voice to a whisper. “How is the staff handling the changes?” It was one thing to deal with the aftermath of a sloppy chef. But if the crew left behind was just as bad, it would be the fight of a lifetime to retrain them.
She glanced over my shoulder quickly before giving me a look. “They’re lazy and undisciplined, but not totally worthless. With the right leadership they could turn out to be something special. And I think they want a good leader. They’ve responded really well to Killian and me and our daily verbal whippings and chores. We have to spell things out for them… but they’re at least willing to try.”
“Are they talented?”
Making a sound in the back of her throat, she ran her hands through her hair. “Too talented. All they care about is the food. They don’t see the point of anything else.”
I rolled my eyes and let out a deep sigh. “So not the worst-case scenario.”
“I’d rather have chefs I could teach to cook better than filthy ones.”
My heart sank. “Would you hire any of them? For Salt?”
Her lips pressed together, and I could immediately see she didn’t want to tell me the truth. But she would. And I was grateful for it. I needed the truth. I needed the entire picture. “No. Not one of them.” She rolled her neck. “Maybe the dishwasher. He’s efficient. Maybe if I couldn’t find one I liked better.”
A laugh bubbled out of me. “This place is not at all what I imagined.”
She smiled. “You thought I was handing over a sexier version of Lilou, didn’t you?”
I threw my hands to the side. “Obviously!”
“Oh, young padawan. So much to learn. So much to teach you.”
“I only hope it’s worth it.” I leveled my serious face at her. “Listen, I’m willing to work as hard as I need to. I’m willing to do whatever it takes to get this job and whip this place into shape. But there’s still the risk that Sarita won’t even go to me. That Ezra won’t hire me.”