by Anne Leigh
The years may have eased the pain, but the emptiness in my heart would never be completely erased.
She’d said that I should move back to New York so Dr. Fortez could make sure I was doing okay.
Dr. Fortez advised me that the best thing to do was leave New York and find myself out on my own.
But my mother refused to listen.
I just wished she listened to me back then.
I wished she spent the time to listen to my brother when he was hurting.
I wished she had the fortitude to be a mother when my brother and I were younger.
As the water dripped down my body, I washed away all of the negative feelings that she invoked.
Wishes were for fools.
And I wasn’t one of them.
“You have Tables 1, 4, 10, and 17,” Chyna said matter-of-factly.
As the head server, she doled out the table assignments for the night.
She was petite like me, and she was fair in handing us our tasks.
I nodded my head and tightened my ponytail, ensuring that the pins would not fall from the sides. I liked to wear my hair down, but being in the food service industry, it was a hindrance.
I loved working at Okihana’s. I’d been working here for a year now. I got to eat the excellent steak pastries during my breaks and share the yummy confections that the Head Chef created for the night with my co-workers.
I didn’t care much for the uniform because the white shirt with red trim was tight across my chest, but it wasn’t the restaurant’s fault that I had boobs.
The tight fitting skirt was also something I could do away with but then again, beggars couldn’t be choosers.
My brother begged to differ. He didn’t agree to me working two days a week in the evening, but it was my life.
I wanted to experience everything in college.
While I could.
I wanted my resume to say, Bridgette Cordello, painter, server, college student.
Rather than Bridgette Cordello, spoiled heiress, child model, daughter of so and so.
“Ohayo gozaimasu. Welcome to Okihana’s,” I started to say to the middle-aged looking couple who was seated at Table 10. They were regular customers. Clarence was an African-American man who loved his sushi baked and Tia was his wife, a Spanish lady who reminded me of Sofia Vergara, and she loved the tuna sashimi.
“Bridgette.” Clarence stated, smiling, his eyes crinkling on the sides, “Our favorite server.”
I rolled my eyes in humor, “You say that to Damon too, Clarence.”
He gave a loud laugh, his shoulders rocking in his dark blue suit. “Are you gossiping about us?”
Tia joined in, “Esta todo bien querida. Don’t mind Clarence. He’s just…how do you call it?” Her eyes sparkling in amusement towards her husband.
“Joking?” Clarence supplied.
“Ah yes. Joking,” Tia agreed. She was an executive at Telemundo and she spoke more Spanish than English and I understood her because I was fluent in it, but sometimes, my ears heated up from all the curse words that she infused her sentences with. The more sake she drank, the looser her tongue got.
They continued to debate on what they were going to order.
After two minutes, Clarence settled on the spicy tuna shishito and shrimp tempura. Tia, the more adventurous of the pair, ordered the wagyu beef nigiri and eel roll.
I left their table and typed their order into the computer.
My phone buzzed inside my back pocket, but I ignored it.
I saw the computer alert that Table 17, the farthest of my tables because it was near the windows and offered a magnificent view of Westwood and its surrounding cities at night, already had occupants.
Okihana’s was a high end Japanese restaurant and steakhouse. It had a month-long waitlist. Amid all the Michelin-starred restaurants in the area, it was one of the longest-running and the most respected.
I was hired because I helped out a classmate in one of my classes at UCLA. I wasn’t an English major, but he’d looked so boggled on the first day of class so I helped him sort through the assignments. On one of our study sessions, I let it slip that I was looking for a job. Any job. Akihiko said he’d give me one, if I was willing to serve people, because his dad’s place was hiring three servers. I said yes right away. Turned out that he was the son of Ishiro Tokoyana, the owner of Okihana’s.
A year later, I was still here, explaining to customers the fine art of Japanese cuisine and I loved it.
I’d never had a job, so this was one of my greatest achievements.
Chyna looked harassed; her eyes were already darting side to side, meaning we were going to have full night. It wasn’t an uncommon thing to have a full night, but the way Chyna’s demeanor was, it meant that we had a lot of the upper echelon of Hollywood dining with us.
It was a hit or miss with the Hollywood clientele.
Some of them were really nice and others, outrageously rude.
“Can you take Table 17 now?” Chyna asked in a harried voice. It was too early in the shift for this. “I heard she’s America’s Top Model or something and she wants her celery stick right this second.”
I raised my brow but supplicated.
I walked towards Table 17, the table reserved for privacy. Everywhere in the restaurant was a private area, but there were a few tables that demanded more privacy.
I eyed the tall brunette whose face I recognized from the billboards that lined my drive whenever I had the urge to do some shopping at the Beverly Center.
She was pretty but in a fake way.
Kara, my brother’s girlfriend, was really pretty but in a natural, warm way.
This one reminded me of my mother’s favorite models.
“What’s good to eat here?” She asked in a haughty voice. Not even giving me an inch to say my greetings. “It’s all like fishy…stuff.”
I swallowed an air of retort and smiled, “Welcome to Okihana’s. Would you like a refreshing drink of jasmine tea or one of chef’s favorites?” Jasmine was to give her some calm in her essence. She might need a pitcher of that with the way her eyes were rolling at the menu.
If she didn’t want to eat here then why bother coming here?
“I hate jasmine tea.” Her voice cut in, “I don’t like fruity stuff.”
Jasmine hates you, too. I’m sure it would rather be drunk by someone else.
I’d been around entitled people all my life. From my mother to my father to my classmates in boarding school. Their attitudes weren’t new to me.
But this wasn’t my place to school them.
I was under the clause of my employer and frankly, the way some people walked around feeling so entitled bored me.
She whipped her perfectly manicured hands in the air, “Is there like any real food I can eat here? Like French fries?”
“I’m sure I can ask the chef to make some sweet potato fries for you.” Okihana’s catered to the customer’s whims, and I was sure that the chefs would be laughing at her order, but hey, that’s what she wanted.
“Okay…french fries with no salt, no additives, no spices, not a lot of oil, and can you ask them to make them really thin cut?” She said, her shoulders heaving as if it was such a challenge.
Would you like the potato in it at all?
I bit my tongue instead and said, “I’ll see what I can –“
“Bridgette?” His voice.
Him.
The one who had haunted my dreams for the past two years.
The last time I heard it was when he’d spoken my name after he’d kissed my forehead and asked me to call him.
My feet were firmly planted in my KURU Vienna Flats that I wore for work because they were comfortable.
But my legs started to unbuckle and I gathered all the energy I had to keep standing upright.
He smelled of fresh wood and citrus.
Of vacations in Aspen and strolls in Calgary.
“What are you doing here?” The greens in his eyes were tra
nslucent under the ambient lighting, and as his right hand touched my left arm, I felt it again.
The spark that I wanted to deny but couldn’t.
His jaw had a hint of stubble and the way it foreshadowed his jaw made him look more mature, levitating his masculinity in full force.
It had been over two years since he’d brought me home from my brother’s birthday party.
Two years of me living my life, ignoring the fact that he had texted me after draft day, and said he was happy to be living in LA, that maybe we could go out some time.
Two years of grabbing onto bits and pieces of information that Kara unknowingly fed me.
But time didn’t diminish the attraction that I’d tamped down because he and I…we could never be.
I still hadn’t said anything, because any time Scott was around, my tongue got tied to the roof of my mouth.
“You know her? Our little server?” America’s Top Model said and it crashed through my silence.
“Ah. Yes,” I croaked out, Scott’s hands were still on mine when he addressed what I can only assume was his date.
“Her name’s Bridgette.”
His voice held an edge.
“I didn’t get her name.” The tall brunette said and her eyebrows shot through her forehead, “Was I supposed to?”
I glimpsed at Scott’s jaw tightening, “No. But you could act more courteously towards the people around you.”
“Gee.” She huffed and pulled out her phone.
And that was my cue to leave.
I removed his hand from my arm and fled the scene.
My heart was still hammering a hundred beats per minute when I looked down to my computer to type his date’s order.
I had to wrack my brain for a long time.
I stood there trying to figure out what she’d ordered.
Dr. Fortez, the head of the Neuro Department at Johns Hopkins, once stated that my brain had a thicker and larger amount of gray matter than normal people. It was because of this that I could handle more information than the average individual.
I could close my eyes and the flood of information would roll through my mind.
But right now...
I couldn’t.
Because Scott could do what other people couldn’t.
He made me forget.
Scott
Jaelin Carrera was America’s next top supermodel.
Her scantily clad figure was all over SI’s latest spread and her face was splashed all over the country’s billboards.
She had half a million followers on her social media, and all she could talk about was the best angle for selfies.
How the fuck would I know?
My agent, Trayton Kho, arranged for us to meet, hoping that we’d strike a connection.
The top model and the quarterback.
Heard that story once, twice, many times.
“She would be great for your image,” Trayton had said.
I responded with, “We’ll see.”
The first time we met, she was waiting for me outside the locker room. Her dark waves were perfectly curled and she looked flawless. Long legs, great tits, and a nice face. She’d clung to my arm and I went along with it because my agent hadn’t ever steered me wrong. We’d gone out for a drink. She got plastered and I drove her to her hotel and made sure she was safe in her bed before I left the Ritz.
I didn’t really get a good feel for her because she drank a lot, so when she’d texted me three days ago that she was in town after a stint in Europe, I’d agreed to show her around town and thought that ‘hey, I got nothing to lose’. Maybe she was better when she was sober. I’d asked Trayton to see if he could get us in one of the Japanese places that he frequented.
My agent didn’t have to, but he was a good guy, so he gave me his reservation for Okihana’s.
I picked her up from her hotel and she seemed cool. She chatted about her job and how she hobnobbed with editors of whatever magazine.
I didn’t catch the names because they were foreign and fashion didn’t really interest me.
I get that Tom Brady loved Uggs, but I wouldn’t be caught dead in them. Just the look of those boots made me itchy.
In high school, there were people who asked me to model, but honestly, the thought of exposing my junk to the world wasn’t something I got off on.
Now, Trayton was presenting all sorts of underwear deals to me, but I’d rather drink gallons of milk on commercials than strut my ass in front of a camera.
Didn’t people get tired of watching my ass in tights? Why would they even wonder what it looked like without pants?
I mean, it’s an ass.
A collection of gluteal muscles that you use for what? Sitting, standing, kicking, running…taking a shit.
Plus, I reserved the right to the person I was intimate with to be the woman who got to see my ass.
My teammates had no choice because a locker room with football guys is a bunch of sweaty asses, but anyways –
Jaelin loved to talk about pictorials and modeling projects so I let her.
She was sexy. Her off-white figure hugging dress was a wet dream come true, but I just didn’t feel the chemistry with her.
I’d slept with a total of three women in two years.
It was sad really.
Rikko often joked that I could have all the pussy I wanted, but I wasn’t going to have pussy just to have it. Unlike my best friend, I liked to be in a relationship when I had regular sex. I liked the meaningful part of it. Where I knew that after I’d satisfied her, she’d be around to talk, cuddle, or maybe watch TV.
I didn’t ask for much, but I liked sex in the confines of a relationship.
I’d slept with three women after Kara broke up with me. They were in the context of one night stands, and after the third one, I knew that I couldn’t be that guy.
They satisfied me for a minute and that was it.
Jaelin…the more she talked, the more I could see us hanging out maybe as friends.
After tonight, I wouldn’t be calling her again and if she ever called me, I’d answer as a friend.
I knew how hard it was to find good friends when you were in the business of fame and popularity.
So if she ever needed someone to just talk to, I could be that guy, but I knew that I wouldn’t be sleeping with her.
After giving my keys to the valet, we walked to the lobby and the receptionist guided us to the elevator. Okihana’s was on the fourteenth floor.
Jaelin and I got situated in a small corner, and because of the traffic I excused myself to go to the bathroom.
I could see why Trayton liked this place. It held an understated elegance with Japanese figurines mixed in with modern art and the overall effect was pretty swell.
On my way back to our table, a young guy recognized me, “Are you Scott Strauss?”
I tilted my head and he asked for a selfie.
He said that he had a vlog on YouTube and his fans would be ecstatic to see LA’s quarterback on it.
I shrugged my shoulders and shook his hand.
I’d been around people who wanted to shake my hand as early as high school and normally, if I could, I did. I saw no harm in saying hi to them. I wasn’t a superstar or anything, I just happened to play a sport that had millions of viewers but to me, football was football.
Without the glare of media interviews and million-dollar contracts, my love for football would still be the same.
I could hear Jaelin saying something to the server and she sounded kind of bitchy and rude.
If there was one thing that peeved me, it was when people didn’t treat other people right. Who gave her the authority to look down on other people?
If people didn’t watch football or buy my jerseys, I would be a regular Scott.
Strauss wouldn’t even matter.
I could be Joe Blow down the street throwing balls.
And statistics showed that majority of the people who bought my stuff were t
he regular working class. I had them to thank for the nice condo I lived in and all the cool material things I had.
My stepmom might have her shortcomings, but she always taught me to be nice to women. But right now, I wanted to rip Jaelin out.
Jaelin was still talking about tea when my gaze landed on the petite server dressed in a tight white fitted shirt with some red lines on the side, much like the borders of Okihana’s logo. Her skirt was also tight and fit her perfectly.
Now, I wouldn’t pay a dime for my ass.
But that…ass.
I would. I’d give that ass a contract.
Her hair was tucked into a ponytail, but the side of her face reminded me of the woman who had intruded on my thoughts once in a while.
“Bridgette?” Even I could hear the surprise in my voice.
What was she doing here?
Did Bishop know that she was working as a server?
Her hazel eyes blinked once, twice and her mouth opened, but nothing came out, as if her words were suspended in air.
The last time I saw her, she had spiky bangs that framed her forehead.
The bangs were gone now, but the beauty of her face was definitely still there, the years had done nothing to erase the fact that she was stunning.
But the years have made her facial features softer, gentler.
I sparred with Jaelin about the way she was treating Bridgette, but even I couldn’t focus on my words.
“Her name’s Bridgette.” I heard myself saying, but everything that came out of my mouth was second to the fact that I was touching her arm.
Two years ago, I dropped her off at her apartment because Bishop didn’t want her taking an Uber, and I sure as hell didn’t want her to either.
I’d never felt the need to protect anyone.
Kara was always so self-assured, she hardly needed any protection.
But Bridgette, whenever she was around, I felt the need to protect her.
Maybe it was because of the vulnerability I saw in her gorgeous eyes.
Maybe it was because she was so small compared to me, she looked to be about 5’4”. Which was air to my 6’2”.
Maybe it was because when her lips were set in a straight line, I wanted to coax a smile from her so I could view those gorgeous indentations between her cheeks that she was hiding.
