My dad followed Killian’s pointer finger before taking his hand. “Hank Delane. Vera’s said nice things about that restaurant. She’s the only expert I know, but she always knows what she’s talking about. You must be proud.”
“Very, sir.” He half turned around, staring at the sauce I stirred absently. “I’ll see you later, Vera. Good luck tonight.”
Not wanting to seem rude in front of my dad, I mumbled, “You too.”
Killian left quickly, taking all his weird energy with him. I let out a shaky breath and glared at the gravy.
“He seemed nice,” Dad said. “You made him out to be such a superstar. I wasn’t sure what to expect.”
I snorted and felt a tingle of relief as I remembered how I really felt. “He’s not usually so welcoming. You brought out the decent human in him. Most of the time he’s obnoxiously combative.”
My dad snickered, taking a seat at the tall stool I’d bought for Vann and Molly when they helped me out. Neither of them could be here tonight, so my dad offered to take money instead- even though I was positive he didn’t fully understand what that entailed. I felt beyond guilty asking him to stay up hours past his bedtime, but he insisted. I loved him more for it, plus I needed him to look at my cooler and work his mechanical magic. “I don’t think I’m the reason he was over here helping you with your sauce.”
My face flushed tomato red. “Oh, my gosh, Dad!”
“Well, baby girl, honestly.”
I stared harder at Killian’s creation—I couldn’t even call it mine anymore. “Are you sure you’re up for this tonight? I hate risking your health.”
He waved me off with his meaty hand. “Vera May, there is no place I’d rather be than right here with you. If I have to go, at least let me spend my last days with the people I love most doing the things they love most.”
Hot tears pricked my eyes, but I refused to let them fall, not yet. “Dad, you’re not going anywhere, so stop talking like that. Besides, I’m going to teach you how to use a fancy phone and then you’ll realize how much you have to live for.”
He grunted and said something that sounded suspiciously like, “Jesus, take me now.” I finally lifted my face to smile at him. “You can do it, Pops. I believe in you.”
“Alright,” he finally grumbled. “Show me how to work the hoozywhatsit.”
I filled out the sauce to accommodate all the meatballs, following Killian’s additions, hating him every second of it. Then I showed Dad how to use the PayPal card swiper on my phone. He practiced with his credit card while I finished the prep work.
By the time we had our first customer, he’d deposited two hundred dollars of his own money into my account, claiming that he couldn’t resist the opportunity to invest in such an exciting business venture.
“I’m paying you back,” I told him sternly.
He didn’t bother to take me seriously. “What for? I can’t take it with me.”
I hated that he kept referring to his death as if it were going to happen tomorrow. I wanted him to fight his cancer. Fight it and win.
That said, with dad helping take orders, it was the roughest night I had so far—even worse than the first night when I had to do it all myself. He loved talking to the customers, but got most of the orders wrong or mixed up. He kept accidentally deleting apps from my phone when it sat too long, and he had to pull up the pay app on his own. And he ate more meatballs than I sold.
Or at least it seemed like it.
But we had so much fun. My dad was funny, and he kept my customers and me entertained. I didn’t remember that about him from my childhood. Or I guess I did, but it was in a distant way.
I had been so excited to flee this town and his house, that I hadn’t let myself appreciate him or his sense of humor. I should have spent the last few years getting to know that about him, getting to know him.
Instead, I’d let myself get locked away. Derrek had never wanted to visit, never wanted to let me come back here. At first, I blamed his job. He was an executive chef after all. He had to work late and be up early. He didn’t get weekends or holidays off. He couldn’t leave his kitchen.
Later, when his abusive nature made itself known, I realized he preferred the control. He didn’t care about my family and didn’t want me to care about them either. He wanted me for himself. Where he could keep an eye on me. Where he could dictate my every move and thought.
Dad had always been polite to Derrek, but just barely. I knew I hid what was really going on the few times Dad and Vann had come to visit us, but they both saw that I was unhappy.
And for those reasons I’d kept Dad at a distance. I felt like I was only just now getting to know him since I’d moved back. But now my time with him had an expiration date. Dad was dying, and I couldn’t make up for all the time lost.
I closed the truck two hours early. I was nearly out of meatballs and Dad looked tired. Besides that, I was exhausted from trying to babysit him at the window and get through all those orders.
Dad helped me clean up and carry what I needed to my car. I walked by Lilou wondering what Killian would think when he came outside and I was gone. Usually, he left before me.
Shaking my head, I realized how ridiculous that was. He wouldn’t care. Or notice. Whatever we were, we weren’t friends. We weren’t even enemies.
Enemies implied that we were on equal footing of some sort, but he had made it clear time and time again that he was the superior chef. What had he called me in that note?
Pedestrian.
Dad followed me home and went straight to bed. He barely made it through his bedroom door before I heard the deep rumble of his snores.
I couldn’t fall asleep easily after a shift. I was always too amped up.
Plus, I usually smelled like the inside of a deep fat fryer. I took a shower and washed work off me, all the different smells from the night and the shadow of failure I couldn’t shake.
I blamed Killian Quinn for that.
Or at least tonight I did.
After I’d put product in my hair and brushed my teeth, I sat on my bed and pulled my laptop out. I tried not to get too obsessive with my business page or the reviews that popped up every other day, but I couldn’t help it. Feedback was addicting. And thankfully, so far the response had been so positive that it was hard not to bask in the glow.
Besides, after putting up with Killian for two days in a row, I deserved a little glow.
There was a message waiting for me, and my heart sank when I saw that it was from James Q, the same heckler that had originally reached out to me.
James Q: How’s business? He’d asked. Like he knew me.
I thought about ignoring him completely. But this guy had assumed I would fail from the start. He needed a verbal lashing.
Or at least an I told you so.
Foodie the Food Truck: Fantastic. It’s been better than I could have ever expected. And it had been. It wasn’t a lie.
His response came quickly. James Q: I’m impressed, Foodie. I honestly didn’t think you had it in you.
I wasn’t sure how to respond. Foodie the Food Truck: Uh, thank you?
James Q: It was a compliment.
My brow furrowed. How had I gotten sucked into another conversation with this guy?
Foodie the Food Truck: I assumed.
James Q: I’ve been told I don’t give very good compliments, so I just wanted you to be sure.
This conversation echoed too closely to Killian, and I immediately clicked on his name to cyberstalk him more closely. There was no profile picture, although from his feed and small friends list it was clear this guy was involved in the food industry somehow. I scrolled through past posts and pictures of the dishes he made both at home and in an industrial kitchen. But his posts were few and far between, and there were never any face shots.
He could have been any chef.
He could have been Derrek.
He could have been Killian.
I shook my head, hating how absorbed in Killian
I was. I obviously needed sleep. Anything to stop thinking about him.
Foodie the Food Truck: Well, thanks again, James. I hope you get to check out Foodie sometime soon.
He sent me back a thumbs up, releasing me from the conversation. I clicked off the message box and shut my computer down.
Putting aside the message, and Killian and Lilou, I lay back on my bed and rubbed my hand over my heart.
It burned in my chest, punching against my breastbone, wanting something I couldn’t define. I hated this feeling. I hated that it followed me around like a specter, taunting and poking and never leaving me alone.
I’d felt it in high school the second I realized I wanted to be a chef. Every time I researched schools or made plans for my future, it was there, spurring me on to chase my dreams. I’d had a momentary break from it during culinary school, but it returned in full force once I was tied to Derrek and realized my dream of becoming a famous chef faded in the long shadow of his illustrious career.
In the beginning, I had hoped Derrek would help me in my career. I hadn’t wanted to use his connections for unfair advantages, but he’d been an opinion I trusted, a gentle critic that would both inspire me to do better and point out my flaws. Until we moved in together. Then he’d quickly made it clear that I could cook in a kitchen, but not one that I ran. He didn’t want to compete with me. He didn’t want me to suffer a schedule like his. He didn’t think that we would survive both of our career goals.
So, I’d blended into the background while he continued to accomplish everything he wanted to.
My heart started hurting again the day I was offered a sous chef position in an up and coming bistro. I’d come home elated and so proud. Derrek had been excited for me too, but then started asking questions carefully crafted to make me doubt myself. By the end of the conversation, I’d believed I wasn’t ready to be a sous chef. He’d helped me realize that if I took that important of a position, then I wouldn’t be able to see him or take care of our apartment. It was a great kitchen, but not one on the top of my list. If I settled now, I would always be settling.
I turned down the offer and worked part time at a bigger, more commercial kitchen. The food wasn’t interesting, and the head chef was obstinate and self-absorbed. I would never have moved up there. I would never inspire new and creative dishes. I would make the same generic crap over and over again under the thumb of a man that didn’t even know my name.
But I did get to see Derrek whenever he was home or needed me. I did get to play house with our apartment.
And that was just the beginning of how things went so wrong.
I continued to rub my chest, wondering when the ache would go away. Derrek was gone. I ran my own kitchen. I owned a business.
I’d been forced to change my dreams since my young culinary days, but I’d recalibrated and made new dreams. Set new goals.
And I was reaching them.
So why did it feel like settling?
Chapter Ten
The next four weekends became a circus routine of trying to make the best damn food on the freaking planet and Killian sending one of his spies to infiltrate my very carefully vetted line of customers every time I changed up the menu.
It was infuriating.
He was infuriating.
I would have denied access to every single one of his moles except I couldn’t screen as thoroughly as I would have liked. Not while I was busy cooking. And not while he dressed them in disguise—or at least made them take off their chef jackets.
Not to mention, when it came down to it I was afraid to refuse service to anyone just in case they didn’t work for Killian. Refusing to serve customers based solely on my irritation with the man across the street would obviously be very bad for business.
So, to combat Killian’s ruthless criticism, I kept the menu at one option instead of two. And I honed every one of my techniques to master level. I became a freaking black belt at cooking.
The notes still didn’t stop.
The weekend I made meatloaf burgers on onion buns he sent this back: Mushy and over seasoned. I’m taking away your salt privileges. And if you don’t stop using parsley as a garnish, I’m suing. I will sue you for defamation.
The next night, Friday night, I chopped up four cups of parsley out of spite and sent it over to Lilou in a to-go container. I made Wyatt give it to Killian. Actually, I tried to get Wyatt to throw it in his face and yell, “Make it rain, motherfucker!” But Wyatt was a giant, skinny chicken. Basically, Wyatt just handed it to him and explained my evil plan. And then apparently, they had a nice chuckle over it. I hated them both.
Lesson learned, never send a man to get a woman’s revenge.
That Saturday night, I’d removed the parsley from the dish—mainly because I used it all in my flop of a prank—tightened up the spices and added a thorough fry to the meatloaf burger on the grill top to make it less “mushy.” Killian stopped by after Lilou closed to suggest I use Panko in the burgers instead of regular breadcrumbs, add turmeric to the seasoning mix, and top them with fried onion rings instead of sautéed onions.
His suggestions were obnoxious.
And genius.
The weekend I served a mashup of poutine and pot roast with slow-cooked chuck roast over French fries with fried cheese curds, gravy and a side of roasted balsamic carrots, he sent this lovely note: What is this, Canada? Make it taste better, Delane.
I’d actually sent a note back that time that said, What does that even mean?
He didn’t waste any time. Not five minutes later he wrote:
1. Chuck roast—cheap. It’s so cheap. Why are you so cheap, chef?
2. Fries—soggy.
3. Cheese curds—stringy.
4. Carrots—how are those working out for you? That’s what I thought.
5. …
Well, to be honest, I already knew what number five was going to say, and I didn’t want to read it. Or care about it. Or bother with it.
5. Gravy—I’m sending someone over to confiscate your salt. Don’t fight this. It’s the best thing for both of us.
That Friday morning, I stopped by Tractor Supply and picked up a twenty-five-pound salt block for $6.99. I made Wyatt take it over to him later that night. It had been as satisfying as I imagined it would be.
He stopped by around midnight and tricked Vann into letting him order. I’d made his food and had it halfway out the window before I realized it was him. Before I could pull it back, he’d grabbed it and taken off across the street.
I shouted after him, “You better run, Quinn!”
He’d turned around to flash me a smug grin and almost got hit by an oncoming Volvo.
The weekend I tried a play on Reubens by stuffing biscuits with pastrami, Swiss cheese, house-made sauerkraut and Thousand Island aioli to dip it in, Killian made a traffic ticket out of an order pad and fined me one million dollars for “Forcing soggy biscuits on unsuspecting customers.”
One million dollars.
I copied his ticket on an order paper of my own and fined him one billion dollars for being such an asshole. (Molly’s idea!)
He stopped by that Saturday night to add ketchup to my aioli, and I quote, “Because nobody ever expects ketchup.” Then he showed me how to bake the biscuits halfway so they didn’t get mushy and squeeze the excess juice from the sauerkraut—something I had known how to do once upon a time. But let’s be honest, I didn’t work with sauerkraut a whole bunch. I was bound to forget something every once in a while.
This weekend I’d picked chili dogs to feature, and I was keeping those pretty straightforward only because my chili kicked ass. My butcher had gotten me a sweet deal on spicy kosher hot dogs, and they had a fair amount of heat to them. I’d pickled my pickles two months ago and then quartered them for the hot dogs. They were the perfect blend of spicy and sweet, crunchy and soft.
When Killian sent back his criticism, I was beyond being surprised by his notes or him as a human. I’d accepted this as
my new reality. Yes, I owned a business, set my own hours and made whatever I wanted! Yes, I also had to deal with Killian Quinn every day—my punishment for living the dream.
I could never catch who took him my food. To be honest, I didn’t try that hard. Whoever they were always paid, so at least there was that. I had my suspicions, but there were close to two hundred customers nightly, and I only recognized a couple of people from Lilou, specifically. Regardless of who took Killian my food, Wyatt was always the one that brought the note back.
I glared at him as he walked up to the truck, shoulders slumped in acceptance. I couldn’t help needling him. “The messenger I’m dying to shoot.”
He pouted. “I miss eating here.”
“Yeah, well, you’ve been banned.” I reached out of the order window and tapped the siding next to the chalkboard menu. I’d made Molly hand draw wanted posters of Wyatt and Killian. Although they were a little worse for wear since they’d been taped outside for three weeks. I probably should have laminated them.
Wyatt frowned at his faded, windblown picture. “If it makes you feel any better, tonight he chewed my ass on three separate occasions. Once he even threatened to call animal control.”
I suppressed a laugh. “On you?”
He nodded, resigned. “On me.”
“Oh, poor Wyatt. We don’t think you’re an animal. You should quit Lilou and come hang out with us. We’re way more fun!”
Molly leaned over, “We also have a two ass-chewing maximum. So the most you ever get your ass chewed is twice per night.”
His head tipped back, and he closed his eyes. “That shouldn’t sound amazing, but it does.” Meeting my eyes once again, he looked like he was considering it. “What do you pay?”
I opened my mouth to speak, but Molly cut me off. “I can answer that since I’m her highest paid employee.” She leaned back on the stool, resting the book she’d been reading between customers on her lap with her finger in place to hold the page. “Nothing. She pays us nothing.”
Wyatt grinned at her. “Slave labor? I like the way you roll, Vera.”
“Like it enough to become a minion? The position also comes with hugs!”