My head argued that we had a cruel and competitive past together and that absolutely nothing could come out of an attempted relationship between us except more cruelty and a hell of a lot more competition.
But my heart spoke in a language that didn’t involve words. It beat with the hope of something my brain couldn’t yet describe. And it raced with anticipation for more of the kissing. More touching. More talking. More smiling. More everything.
They didn’t agree, my head and my heart. And the feeling of my body being in such staunch disagreement made my stomach flip in protest.
Damn, Kaya, get it under control.
“You’re right,” I told Jo. “I care enough about him to not want to see him hurt. I’ll be careful with him.”
She lifted a hand, pointing a stern finger at me. “I didn’t say anything about being careful. My Wyatt wouldn’t know the first thing about being careful. I’m asking you not to screw this up. He’s trying, girl. He’s brought you to this place that is sacred for him, for all his brothers. He’s trusted you in ways I don’t believe he’s trusted anyone since his mama died. Don’t be careful with him. Just don’t fuck this up.”
“Yes, ma’am.” My response was immediate and triggered by the sharp tone of her voice. My eyes bugged at her curse word, surprised to hear it come from someone who looked, even if she didn’t act, like a grandmother.
Her mouth broke into a satisfied smile. “That’s what I like to hear.”
“Jo, I can’t find anything wrong with that truck other than it’s a hundred years old,” Wyatt exclaimed as he rounded the corner, wiping his hands on his pants. “You’re going to have to take it to the mechanic if it keeps acting up on you.”
“Oh,” Jo answered. “I’ll figure it out.”
She turned around to reach for a crate of fingerling potatoes in every shape and color and I had just enough time to glare at her back. Evil woman. There wasn’t anything wrong with her truck. She wanted to get rid of Wyatt for a few minutes, so she could lecture me!
Her lecture wasn’t going to work. Wyatt could take care of himself. He didn’t need scary mama Jo fighting his battles for him.
“Hey,” he said to me, standing close, popping my personal bubble with his height and body heat and irresistibility. “Sorry about that.”
My Wyatt, she’d called him. Only he wasn’t. He wasn’t hers.
I struggled to swallow and slow the rapid beating of my heart. But was he mine? “Hey.”
“I’m going to grab a few things from Jo and then I’ll be ready to go.”
Picking up my cardboard flat of odds and ends, I distanced myself from him. “Go for it,” I said quickly. “I should be going anyway. I need to drop all this off at home and change before work.”
His bright expression dimmed. “Are you sure? I’ll only be a second.”
“It’s fine. You’re fine.” I cleared my throat to get my mouth to stop saying dumb things. “I just don’t want to be late. My boss can be a real pain in the ass.”
His mouth kicked up in a half smile. “Yeah? Maybe I should say something to him.”
“Make sure he knows you mean business.” The fluttery, nervous beast inside me relaxed at our easy banter. This was more comfortable territory. This was familiar ground.
Jo had messed with my head with all her talk about fragile, committed, and damaged Wyatt. I needed to disentangle myself from her delusion and remember that I knew Wyatt, and we were only having fun. Or something like that.
It was impossible to date around with our hours. And the pressure and stress of our job kept us isolated, clinging to things we knew and didn’t have to try very hard for. That’s what I was to Wyatt. And that’s what he was to me. End of story.
He walked me to the dirt path that wound between vendors out to the parking lot. “Hey, I know your parents are coming this weekend. You should bring them by the restaurant.”
I smiled. As if. There were a lot of perks to working at Lilou. Not only prestige and industry-wide respect, but excellent food and access to one of the best kitchens in the region. However, just because I worked there didn’t mean I got to drop in whenever I wanted. In fact, employees were only allowed to make reservations once a year. The waitlist was so demanding, Ezra didn’t want his employees taking up tables. And when we were able to get our names down, we had to wait in line like everybody else.
“Are you going to set up a table in the alley? Feed us Lady and the Tramp style? Because my parents might enjoy it, but hello, awkward party of one.” I pointed to myself, shuddering at the image of my parents making out with a plate of spaghetti between them.
Gross. And no thank you.
He laughed at my joke, his eyes lighter and happier than I had ever seen them before. But again, this perspective of him was skewed. I was used to him yelling at me all the time, hating me. Our new… friendship? Or whatever you wanted to call it was seriously messing with my head. And my sex drive.
“Have they ever been?”
It took me longer than it should have to catch up in the conversation. I was lost in that look in his eyes, the one that made them so decadently brown, like rare, smooth whiskey. “To Lilou? No, they haven’t. Their style is more, um, how do I put this gently… Cracker Barrel.”
His smile stretched and warmed all at once. “I’ll get you a table then. For Saturday night? You can show them what you do. Impress them.”
“Are you serious?”
“Yeah. I bet they’d love to see where you work. And even though you won’t be cooking, they’ll get the idea.”
“Wyatt, I don’t know what to say. That’s unbelievably nice of you.”
He leaned forward, his grin turning wicked. “I’m trying to unseat your sister. No offense to her, but I can’t have anyone thinking someone else is better than one of my chefs.”
It was my turn to laugh, the sound bubbling out of me from the bottom of my toes, all the way through my chest, filling my lungs and giving me a fizzy feeling low in my belly. “I appreciate that.”
“You’re welcome.”
“Okay. Bye, Wyatt.”
“Bye, Kaya.”
I carried my produce back to my Land Cruiser and loaded the flat into the back seat. The doors screamed in protest as I opened and shut them, first for the veggies, and then for me. I ducked behind my steering wheel, feeling like the entire market was staring at me.
They weren’t. Nobody cared that my beautiful, vintage beater was noisy as hell. They went on with their business none the wiser that I’d shut myself in my car as quickly as possible, so no one would witness my freak out.
God, why did Wyatt have to be so… likeable. I’d gotten used to hating him. It was easier that way.
My chest ached, and I was positive I was having a heart attack. I rubbed at the pain with the heel of my hand and tried to sort through the riot of emotions trying to trample my insides.
The car started to get hot. The sun was warm today and without the windows down, I had started to bake. Sweat prickled on my forehead, but I still didn’t touch the manual window crank.
Instead, I glared at my phone spilling out of my purse on the passenger’s seat. I needed therapy. Or aversion therapy at the very least.
Carefully picking up my phone, I swiped my thumb over the screen until it recognized my face and opened past the lock screen. I pressed the Facebook icon and clicked on my search bar. Nolan and I weren’t friends anymore. Not in real life or on social media accounts. But his name was the first thing to appear in my search history. Pathetic. I was one hundred percent confident in how pathetic I was.
But I couldn’t help it. My social life had been reduced to coffee dates with one of my two friends and working fourteen-hour days.
He was back home dating all the girls in Hamilton. All the girls older than eighteen and younger than sixty-six. He drew the line when they were eligible for social security.
Scrolling through Nolan’s newsfeed, I cringed at exciting pictures of him hiking, out
drinking with our old circle of friends and selfies the girls he dated tagged him in. He was having the time of his life coaching and living up his youth.
I was working myself to the bone for a dream job I had to convince myself I still wanted.
Lifting my eyes, I stared at myself in the rearview mirror and forced my fragile self-esteem to call bullshit. This wasn’t a joke. And I wasn’t doing this to prove a point.
I wanted this—Sarita, food, all of it—for me. I wanted it because I didn’t know how to not want it. I wanted it so bad I could feel it in my bones, to the depths of my soul. This career was me. Sarita or no, I wasn’t going to give up on it and call it quits because my ex-boyfriend looked like he had a better night life than me.
You would think that little pep talk would make Wyatt more appealing. What if we were only having fun? I deserved a little fun, didn’t I? I deserved Facebook worthy photos and a few wild stories to share with the gossipy bitches back home.
Shaking those stupid thoughts out of my head, I started my car and pulled out on Franklin Street. I wouldn’t do that to Wyatt. I wouldn’t use him to make myself feel better.
Besides, there was more to Wyatt than I wanted to admit to myself. I wasn’t sure I could handle something casual with him. I got the distinct impression it would be like playing with fire. I would be smart for a short while, but inevitably get burned. No matter how familiar I was with the flame, he was hotter, more unpredictable, and dangerous in ways I didn’t even know existed.
No, it was easier to protect my heart from another bad boy with different aspirations. A relationship with that type of guy never ended well for me. And even though I was the one that stayed true to myself, I was the one that kept getting hurt.
At home, I planned to have another cup of coffee and relax for a few minutes before it was time to head in to work. My fake excuse about being late to work was unsubstantiated. I had at least a whole hour and a half to kill. I’d gotten my purchases put away when Dillon texted to ask if I wanted to meet Vera and her at a nearby plant nursery. I texted back that I would love to and would meet them in twenty minutes.
See? I had a social life. Sometimes I worked. But sometimes I went shopping for house plants. Take that, Nolan. You big, dumb idiot.
I changed my high-waisted cotton skirt and chambray cropped tank top for a pair of wide-leg black linen pants and a yellow cami with wide-straps that had a little ruffle along the seam. In another hour I would throw my chef coat over it and be work appropriate, but for now I would fit in with the real world.
Grabbing my crossbody purse, I glanced around my sparse but trendy apartment and noted places that could use a little green. There were a lot of spaces.
I had been wanting to get plants for a while. It was either a house full of plants or a puppy. But I worked too much to take care of something that needed to be fed and walked and required human interaction every day. And I hated cats.
Also, I hated fish tanks. I’d had one break in my bedroom when I was thirteen. I’d thrown a baseball at Claire and she ducked instead of catching it. The ball crashed into the tank and water dumped everywhere. Water and those tiny rocks and itty, bitty, shattered pieces of glass. I had sworn that day I would never own another fish and face a potential twenty-five-gallon catastrophe ever again.
Plants. I could handle plants.
Maybe I’d even make an herb garden behind my kitchen sink where the natural light could reach it.
Liking the idea more and more, I headed out the door to meet my friends. Er, my friend and the drill sergeant I knew.
The nursery felt like a breath of fresh air when I stepped into the cool building. Deep greens and light greens and every color of flower stretched in all directions, carefully designed to draw the eye and jumpstart the gardener in each of us.
It worked on me. This was like some kind of textile therapy. And after my morning, I drank in every second of the calming atmosphere and aromatic air.
“Kaya!” Dillon called from where she stood by a pallet of succulents.
Ooh. Yes, please. I grabbed a basket near the door and headed toward them. “Hey.” I smiled brightly, feeling more like myself than I had five minutes ago.
Vera and Dillon smiled back. “Hey.”
“You look cute.” Vera grinned. “It’s nice to see you not covered in Coke from head to toe.”
I laughed. “Yeah, it’s amazing how comfortable I am in a kitchen, but ask me to carry dirty dishes around for a few hours and I lose all sense of balance and coordination.”
“I can’t wait to see how you do with reservations.”
“No,” I groaned. “You’re not putting me on the phones, are you?”
She waggled her eyebrows and held her thumb and pinky up to her face, mimicking my future. “Hi, this is Kaya at Sarita, how can I service you this evening?”
“Oh my God,” Dillon laughed. “You sound like a phone sex operator.” She looked at me. “Please don’t ask strangers how you can service them!”
“That could be an interesting career change. My mom would love that.” Smacking my hand to my forehead, I made an angry sound in the back of my throat. “I forgot, I can’t come in this Sunday. My parents are coming to town and I promised to spend time with them.”
Vera pouted. “That’s no fun. I’ll have to find someone else to torture this week.”
Dillon gave her a look. “You look so nice from the outside. Nobody would ever know you’re psychotic if you didn’t go around announcing it.”
Vera flexed her tiny bicep. “Wait till I have a staff of my own.” She added some succulent arrangements to her massive cart. “By the way, we’re going to start hiring next week if either of you ladies are interested. I can’t promise a sane working environment, but we’re going to have fun!”
Dillon leaned on me, both of our shoulders deflating. Because… that sounded amazing. I had loved working for Killian. Even if he had been a dictator ninety-nine percent of the time. And even though I didn’t think Vera would be any different to work for, I liked her a lot.
“I wish,” Dillon grumbled before I could give my answer. “But I’m fairly confident if I quit Lilou to work at Killian’s restaurant, Ezra would cut me out of the will and mail me to Siberia.”
“He wouldn’t do either of those things,” Vera assured her. “At least he wouldn’t mail you to Siberia.” She paused and added, “The cost of postage would likely stop him. He’s a real cheapskate about those things.”
“He would. He’d take it out of my inheritance,” Dillon assured her. “And he would never forgive me, which would be worse.”
“Ah, sibling love,” I groaned. “It’s adorable.” Both Vera and Dillon had brothers they loved. Which made me want a brother. Clearly, I’d been give the short straw with two sisters. We didn’t love each other in that hero-worship kind of way. We loved each other out of obligation, but we didn’t like each other much at all.
“What about you, Kaya? Care to apprentice full-time?”
I bobbled my head back and forth. “Maybe? I want to see how Sarita goes first and I don’t feel like I should abandon Ezra before I try that. Besides, Wyatt would kill me if I left him right now.”
Dillon and Vera shared a look before Dillon asked, “So you guys are official?”
“Official?” My heart jumped to my throat and I started coughing dramatically in an attempt to dislodge it. “God, no. I meant… I meant in the kitchen. If I left him alone at Lilou, he would murder me. And then bring my corpse back to life and make me his sous-chef zombie slave.”
Vera snickered. “Sounds kinky.”
My face was now the same color as the nearby mini rose trees. “Dillon, I can’t trust you with anything!”
She held her hands up. “What? That was juicy! I can’t be expected to keep information like that a secret forever.”
“It’s been one week.” I turned to Vera. “How long have you known?”
She pressed her lips together to hide a smile. “Oh, not l
ong. Maybe like a week?”
I glared at the greenhouse-style ceiling and decided these two chatty Cathy’s could remain my friends. For now. Until someone better came along. And by better, I meant anyone with the ability to keep a secret.
“You didn’t tell Killian, did you?”
Vera’s expression turned guilty. “It’s just that he’s been worried about Wyatt lately. He’s been stressed out because of the promotion. We want to see him happy.” She cleared her throat. “Also, Killian was pissed I didn’t let him in on training you. I needed something juicy to even things out! And you guys as a couple is about as entertaining as it gets.”
I rolled my eyes. “Don’t get any ideas. There’s nothing juicy happening between Wyatt and me.” Except for when we made out this morning. In public. In front of his foster mom.
“Why not?” Vera asked, her eyes darkening with worry. “You’re so good for each other.”
The comfort and freshness of the nursery faded with the intrusion of cold, hard reality. “Not in the long-term sense of the word.” At Vera’s completely fallen face, I quickly added. “We’re having fun. It’s nothing serious. It won’t ever be something serious.”
“Oh, sure.” Vera turned back to add more succulent arrangements to her cart. “Yeah, I only meant we want to see him less stressed out. Jo said he was better this morning when she saw you two.”
I blinked at Vera. “How has word spread this quickly?”
She gave me a side glance. “We’re all on Wyatt watch. We want to see him settled into Lilou and in life. It’s nothing against you, Kaya.”
“Oh, I’m sure it’s not.”
Dillon nudged me with her elbow. “Meeting Jo though… That’s kind of a big deal?”
My shoulders lifted in a casual shrug out of instinct. “I already know Jo. And this morning wasn’t like that. It wasn’t like… an official meet the parents moment or anything. It was—”
“She said she caught you kissing!” Vera practically shouted.
Opposites Attract: The complete box set Page 80
