My feelings of gratitude shriveled into bitter raisins. “Do you mean, this amazing?”
He leaned toward me as if telling me a secret. “This pretentious.”
I scowled at him, hoping he felt the force of my fury. “I don’t know why you think you know me,” I snapped at him. “You don’t know anything about me.”
Sitting up and away from me, he shrugged that one shoulder again. “Money. You have a lot of money.”
“So that makes me… snobby?” He didn’t know pretentious. I could introduce him to a world of truly pretentious assholes that would sneer him under the carpet. But I wouldn’t do that to him. Because no matter what he thought of me, I didn’t think I was better than him. Nicer, sure. Kinder, obviously. More gracious and full of class and poise? Duh. But not better.
He released an impatient puff of air. “Forget I said anything, okay? I’m happy to help. Really.” He shifted the car into reverse.
Hopping off the sideboard, I stepped back, deciding whether to let him have it or let him go. “You know, you keep assuming these things about me. You’re the most judgmental person I’ve ever met, Vann Delane.”
He smiled patiently, like my insults were adorable but meaningless, and I had never wanted to punch something more than I did in that minute.
“I would let the engine run for a while,” he offered, as if he hadn’t just insulted me completely. “Drive around for a bit or something.”
He started to back up but not before I shot back, “And I would try sleeping again if I were you. You might wake up a nicer person.”
If he heard me, he didn’t acknowledge anything I said. I watched him drive across the street again and park at Cycle Life. His door opened and I all but threw myself into my Porsche, desperate to get out of the parking lot before he saw me standing there like a total serial killer, maniacally planning his demise.
“He did help you,” I told myself as I drove home, ignoring his advice to keep the engine running for as long as possible. I could get help in the morning if I needed to. It was more important to defy Vann Delane than anything else at this moment in my life. “So he can’t be all bad.”
Pretentious.
Nope.
Nuh-uh.
He was all bad.
Poor Vera, she didn’t even know her brother was the devil.
Five
Sunday morning, I pulled into Bianca’s tiny backlot with butterflies waging civil war in my stomach. My last night at Lilou had filled me with a kind of hopeful anticipation for what life at Bianca could be. But reality reminded me that it was going to be a long time before I got there.
There being a confident head chef at a successful five-star restaurant.
Tonight, I was starting here. Here being an insecure, flailing, green wannabe chef at a struggling, mediocre restaurant.
Jesus, take the wheel.
Ezra met me on the other side of the door wearing a smile and an obvious look of relief. “You’re here.”
“Did you think I’d mutiny?”
He let out a nervous laugh, betraying the truth. “I’m just glad to see you.”
“I wouldn’t have run away without giving you enough notice to fill in for me,” I told him. “I owe you that at least.”
His happy expression turned sour. “Thanks, I think.”
I looked around the kitchen, worrying about the state of it. It was nothing like Lilou. So there went my shaky hopes of turning this place around by tomorrow. Okay, I didn’t think I could do that. But there was this small part of me that had held out hope that revival wouldn’t take that long or be that hard. Seeing the kitchen from the head chef position sent disappointment crashing through me.
The cooktops were greasy. The shelves under the stainless steel counters were messy and cluttered. I was afraid of what I’d find in the coolers.
“Check your phone early tomorrow,” I told him. “Just in case.”
I felt his frown follow me around the room as I inspected everything before the rest of the staff arrived.
“Do you want to go over the menu?” he asked as I opened one of the dishwashers and found it full. I wanted to growl. Didn’t they know to put everything away so it didn’t sit in there, collecting a funky smell and water stains all night?
“Um, maybe?” There was a roll of knives next to the glasses that someone had forgotten to take home. I tugged it open and found them smudged and not properly cared for. “I might start in here though, before everyone arrives.” I looked back at Ezra. “When do they start to show up?”
He glanced at his watch. “Two or three? I can’t remember.”
“Is that enough time to prep for dinner service?”
“They do a lot of it the night before,” he said. “So, it’s ready to go when they get in.”
I ground my teeth together and bit back the urge to scold him. Of course, my brother, the efficient business man, would prep everything the night before. That would make sense to him. He wouldn’t notice the difference in freshness from the night before versus the day of.
For as much as he prided himself on his ability to cook, he didn’t know the first thing about running a kitchen. Which was fine, when he hired excellent chefs to do the dirty work for him. But right now, I wanted to pull my hair out.
“How long has Bianca been without a head chef?”
“Over a year,” he said. “I’ve had chefs filling in throughout though. She hasn’t been completely rudderless. I’ve stepped in too. Whenever I could.”
I restrained the eye roll that so wanted to happen. “Okay. Yeah, I better start in here. When the rest of the staff arrives, I’ll come out and talk about the menu.”
“Are you sure you’re okay in here?” he asked, sounding doubtful.
“If I’m not, I’ll come find you.”
“Can I help?”
I held up a new rag I’d pulled from an open box full of them. “Not unless you want to get dirty.”
“You think this kitchen is dirty?”
I decided that lying to my brother wasn’t going to do any good. He needed to hear the truth. He needed to face reality—that he never should have waited for me to get experience. He should have just hired the first mildly talented chef he could find.
A first year home-ec student would have been better at this point.
“This place is filthy,” I told him honestly. “I’m surprised you don’t have a rat problem yet.”
He swallowed roughly, working his Adam’s apple up and down. “Are you serious?”
“Your staff has been slacking off in a major way, Ezra. This kitchen is a travesty.”
He rubbed his hand over his jaw, clearly having no idea it had gotten this bad. They’d probably been doing just enough that Ezra thought it was clean.
Or maybe they had never had the direction that they needed to know what acceptable standard in the food service industry was.
I supposed if their last boss was a total bum, then they probably didn’t know how a kitchen should look.
I was going to tell myself that until I believed it.
A sick feeling twisted through me. I’d wanted to ease into this job, take my time, slowly come to terms with the position I had accepted. I did not want to come in like a wrecking ball and dictator the shit out of my staff right out of the gate.
But apparently, my wishes didn’t come true.
Because this kind of negligence required some dictatorship asap.
I realized for the millionth time how lucky I had been to have Wyatt as my first real boss. He’d been diligent with how to take care of a kitchen. And he’d required us to do the same. It was a lot of awful work a lot of the time, but it taught us habits that would be beneficial forever.
Ezra stood there stewing for a few more minutes and then stalked off into the main body of the restaurant. I didn’t know where he was going or when he’d be back, but it didn’t matter. I had work to do.
I took off my chef jacket and hat, realizing now it had been sill
y to wear them to start with, and got to work. I scrubbed. I cleaned. I organized. I dug into the coolers and made sense of them, throwing out a ridiculous amount of rotten food.
By the time I paused to grab a drink of water, I needed a shower and a glass of wine. And yet there was still more to do—but I’d decided to let the staff deal with it.
Whenever they decided to show up.
I wondered if I should find my brother and walk him through all that I had done. But there was something I wanted to do first before I talked logistics with him.
Picking up my hat and coat off a freshly shined counter, I walked to the back of the building, to the tiny office that would be mine.
In Ezra’s kitchens, all four of them, there were two offices. One office for him and one for the executive chef. He didn’t need an one in every building for himself, but it was a kindness for his head chefs, so he wouldn’t be in their way.
When I was in culinary school and Killian had been the head chef of Lilou, Ezra had kept his main office of operations there. After Killian left and out of managerial necessity, he’d moved to Bianca. But lately, I knew he was working from home more and more.
Because Molly also worked from home. For him.
He’d told me once it was more efficient for them to work together.
I’d countered by telling him that was because they were so close to a bed.
Hey, he’d still offered me the job!
Sister perks.
The space was quiet with the restaurant still empty. I flicked on the light and it buzzed to life overhead. There were no windows in this room and it was barely big enough for a desk, chair, tall bookshelf, and a filing cabinet.
A newer computer sat on the desk, the keyboard covered in loose papers and handwritten notes. It would take some time to go through everything and figure out my own system, but I finally felt the reality of the job settling over me.
This was my restaurant now. I was in charge. This would be the place I made or trashed my name.
Oh, how I wanted next year’s who’s who lists to include Dillon Baptiste as Durham’s up and coming wunderkind. The hunger to be known for culinary greatness burned through me, slow and smoldering, new dreams only now awakening.
Until this moment I had been happy to live in someone else’s shadow, supporting their hopes and dreams. But this office, this kitchen, had birthed a need to be something so much greater than support staff.
My happy-go-lucky-fine personality started to slip. I didn’t want to be fine. I didn’t even want to be normal. I wanted greatness and notoriety and to be known for my ingenuity. I wanted to stand out. I wanted to be wholly dedicated and committed and eccentrically weird like only incredible people were.
But my old ways had a strong hold on my soul. The new feelings bumped into years and years of hiding. Into years and years and years of chameleon personalities that slipped into place whenever necessary. I breathed in and I was normal again. Safe again.
Afraid again.
I walked behind the desk and sat down. The leather chair creaked beneath my weight and rolled into the wall. I wrapped my fingers around the edge of the desk and centered myself. Those new feelings burst to life again, stronger this time, tougher.
Power vibrated through my fingertips and my mind spun with the heady feeling of decisions waiting to be made. Closing my eyes, I let my guard drop and the sensation of stepping into myself took deeper root.
I loosed a smile and whispered a prayer of hope. Yes, this was scary. No, I wasn’t ready or prepared. But dang, this was going to be a ride.
The outside door opened and from my vantage point, I could see two chefs walk into the newly cleaned space. They noticed the fresh, sanitary environment immediately. I could hear them commenting on how clean it looked because they hadn’t noticed me yet.
Wanting to make a good first impression, I ignored the pterodactyl-size butterflies flapping prehistoric wings in my belly, quickly threw on my jacket without buttoning it, and met them in the center of the kitchen.
When they turned at my footsteps, I smiled demurely and said, “Hi, I’m Dillon Baptiste, the new head chef.”
They turned to stare at me, sizing me up with shrewd, bullet-proof gazes. A man and a woman, they both looked older than me. Although the woman was older than the man by maybe ten years or more. And they both seemed to have more experience.
Okay, you couldn’t tell who had more experience just by looking at them. But they had a confident air about them. A surety I lacked. And a hardness in their eyes when they looked at me, like they were obviously so much better than me, like I was a toddler compared to their maturity.
But what did I know? The whole culinary adventure could be a mid-life crisis for each of them.
“Hi,” the woman said in return. She had fiery red hair and pretty freckles from one side of her face to the other. Her face was totally bare of makeup and a bandana was tied around her neck. She looked tough. It wasn’t just the fresh face and glint in her eyes. It was something her whole body wore like a flashing sign. She was thick and solid, the kind of woman I could easily imagine in a prison kitchen. “I’m Ashlynn Young,” she continued, as terse and straightforward as I expected. With a nod of her head in his direction, she added, “This is Blaze Ferrand. We’re the sous chefs.”
Giving them a wobbly smile, I held out my hand and doubted myself. It was a sickening feeling, and the emotional switch from proud and energized to insecure and fearful made bile rise in my throat.
I should have told them I hadn’t decided on sous chefs yet. I should have inferred that I might be bringing my own sous chef with me. I definitely shouldn’t have accepted their verbal claim on the position and changed the subject.
But that was exactly what I did. When they finally returned my handshake with limp versions of their own, I said, “Nice to officially meet you. Ezra has told me so much about you already. I feel like we’re old friends.”
They did not laugh or smile. They nodded their heads absently and avoided eye contact.
Damn.
So much for winning over the staff with my charming smile and connections to the boss.
“Where is Mr. Baptiste?” Ashlynn asked. “We didn’t realize we’d have to work with you already.”
Blaze, who was much younger than Ashlynn, but still older than me, had taken to staring at me with his arms crossed over his chest. He wasn’t a bad looking guy. Certainly, more friendly looking at first than Ashlynn with all her mob-mom vibe happening. But I didn’t like how he hadn’t spoken yet. His attempts at intimidation felt childish at best, arrogant bullying at worst. And I hated that it was actually working! I wanted to crawl back inside my office and slam the door shut.
No wonder Ezra hadn’t been able to entice anyone over here.
“He’s out front,” I told her. “Let’s go find him.”
I pushed between the two of them, desperate to get out of this awkward tension. I didn’t know what I expected taking over this kitchen, but it hadn’t been this. They were like toddlers that had gone without adult supervision for too long—spoiled, entitled, and angry for no reason.
And I was playing right into their temper tantrums, I realized.
I wanted to smack my hand over my forehead and scold myself. Instead, I whipped around, causing both of them to stumble to a stop before they slammed into me.
“I’m sorry,” I told them, and then regretted apologizing and showing them any kind of weakness. Be strong, Dillon. Be the badass boss you know you can be. “I don’t want to find him right now. He’ll come find us in a little bit.”
They blinked at me, totally thrown off by my change of plans. Not that they had softened any, but I could tell they didn’t expect me to stand up and take charge.
“Before we get Ezra involved, I want to talk to you about clean kitchen habits. When I got here today, this place was a disaster. If the health inspector had happened to stop by, he would have written us up on a hundred different violations.”
Slight exaggeration, but I hoped they were getting the point. “I realize this place has been without solid leadership for a while, but that doesn’t mean you all can slack off on every day duties.”
They glared at me, clearly despising me for questioning their leadership. Blaze tilted forward on his toes, folding his arms over his chest, choosing to stare at the floor. Ashlynn poked her tongue into her cheek and raised her eyebrows as if waiting for me to retract my accusation.
Nerves bounced through me, bowling balls playing Ping-Pong in my skeleton. I pressed my legs together to keep my knees from knocking. Still, I needed to establish dominance.
Granted, I didn’t come in here today to claim the alpha position, but I also couldn’t let them think I was weak. Or underqualified for the position.
Even though I was both.
“I worked through what I could before you guys got here,” I continued, “but I’m going to write up a checklist for us to use moving forward. Each station will be responsible for cleaning up after themselves. Together the work will be fast and efficient.” I didn’t really have a game plan as far as the checklist went, but we’d used one at Lilou. My plan was to adopt that one.
I thought they might have something to say about that. But they didn’t. Ashlynn ground her teeth together and Blaze continued to stare at his feet.
“When does the rest of the staff arrive for prep?” I asked, keeping my voice polite and upbeat.
Ashlynn shrugged. “Soon.”
“Do you have an official start time?”
She shrugged.
“That will change too,” I said calmly. At Lilou we not only had detailed shifts, we arrived early for them. Wyatt ran his ship with the “if you’re on time, you’re late” philosophy. It looked like I would be adopting that one as well. I cleared my throat. “We’re going to move prep work to the day of. I want everything fresh. Does Jo deliver produce here?”
Ashlynn stared at me. Blaze offered nothing.
I could ask Ezra later. I felt the fire of their hatred and decided I could ask Ezra now. “My plan tonight is to mostly observe,” I told them. “I’ll have the final say in all the dishes leaving the kitchen, but I’d like to see how you work.”
Opposites Attract: The complete box set Page 97
