I breathed in the balmy night air and shed my chef jacket before I started sweating. My car was in the employee lot not far from here, but I realized too late that I’d walked out alone.
I usually waited for Wyatt or Benny to walk me to my car.
The lot was well lit and my car was parked under a streetlight, but I still didn’t like being out here alone. Fear skittered over my bare arms, sending chills down my spine. I hurried to my car, Lilou fading into the background as I hunted for my car keys. Which was when I realized that I’d left one of the overhead lights on accidentally. It was barely flickering in the dark night, a telltale sign it was just about out of juice.
I didn’t even remember clicking the light on. But the evidence that I had at some point today was right in front of me. Damn.
My baby, er car, was ridiculously fast and breathlessly beautiful. She was my absolute pride and joy. Ezra thought he was hot stuff because of his sleek Alfa Romeo, but we both knew mine was the superior automotive vehicle.
His was the economy version of fast. Mine was the real deal.
I mean, Ezra’s Alfa was fine. It ticked a lot of boxes for a lot of people. But mine was hands down just better in every way.
Faster.
Nicer.
Prettier.
Pricier.
The total package.
Porsche 911, candy apple red. Hard top, of course, because I wasn’t a total douche. And perfect in absolutely every way.
But now she wasn’t going to start because I’d stupidly left the lights on.
You’d think, after all the bells and whistles she’d come with, she’d also be equipped with a tiny robot that turned off lights when their driver happened to forget.
The car automatically unlocked as I got closer. I slid into the driver’s seat and wrapped my hands around the leather steering wheel. I switched on the ignition and waited for the revving purr of the engine rumbling to life.
She groaned. She sputtered. She made a sound that in a human would have been considered a hacking cough. I stopped trying to get her to do what I knew she couldn’t right now.
Damn. I turned back to Lilou, knowing Wyatt and Benny would help me. The parking lot was really dark though. And I didn’t love the idea of walking back to the restaurant alone.
It wasn’t that far, my rational mind reasoned.
But far enough, my past hissed into the quiet solitude of the car.
I found that I didn’t want to leave the safety of my driver’s seat though. I preferred the silence here. The loneliness. The isolation.
Dropping my forehead on the steering wheel, I attempted to start her again. She went through the whole dramatic inability to start all over again.
“You don’t want to leave either,” I murmured, finding tears pricking the corners of my eyes. “I don’t blame you. I liked it here too.” Tears wet my cheeks and I had to sniffle quickly to keep snot from dripping over my lips. “But I’m sure we’ll like the next place too. Maybe. Eventually… If they don’t fire us first.”
I sucked in a shaky breath, readying to let out a full-blown sob when a knock at my driver’s side window had me jumping out of my seat and screaming at the top of my lungs.
When I gathered my wits and enough courage to identify the intruder, I saw that it was Vera’s brother standing outside.
Vann Delane.
Not a serial killer. Not a rapist. Not a mugger.
Just Vann Delane.
Quickly wiping at my soggy cheeks with the backs of my hands, I tried the automatic window button first before I remembered the whole car was dead. Pushing open the door, I leaned my head out and faced him. “Yes?”
“I didn’t mean to scare you,” he said. “I thought I heard a cat in significant need of assistance. And found your car instead.”
I pursed my lips together, wondering if he realized the insult he’d just delivered or if it was a total accident.
My Porsche 911 was not a kitten.
Nor did she sound like one.
She was a regal lioness and she could bite your head off if I let her.
Deciding he was just obtuse and not intentionally rude, I said, “My battery died. Apparently, I left the overhead light on all day.”
Vann stepped back and glanced across the parking lot toward his bicycle shop, Cycle Life. “Bummer.”
Letting out a trembling breath, I looked down at my hands and shrugged. “It’s fine. I’ll get Wyatt or Benny to jump me.”
“Are they still here?” he asked, nodding toward Lilou.
“Yeah, we just closed down.” That comment sparked a thought and I found myself planting one leg on the pavement and leaning further outside so I could get a look at him. “What are you doing here? I didn’t think your shop kept evening hours.”
His brows furrowed at my observation. “Uh, I don’t usually. I forgot my laptop earlier.” He ran a hand through his hair. “I couldn’t sleep,” he added, filling in the obvious blanks in his story. “So, I thought I would work. But then my computer was here… Anyway, once I’d come all the way here, I decided to do some things in the shop.”
I glanced down at his outfit as I disentangled myself from the curved bucket seat and stood. He had on a gray hoodie over a plain white V-neck t-shirt and gray and white plaid pajama pants. He looked like a Gap ad.
His pajamas fit his preppy style in every way. It was strange to seem him like this though. Flip-flops on his feet, his long toes peeking out beneath tattered hems. Admittedly, I didn’t know him that well, but I’d seen him enough times that I knew this wasn’t a side of him that many people knew—unkempt, undressed, unpolished.
It made me feel… intrusive. Like I’d walked in on a private moment. But he was the one that had come out to check on me.
“Gotcha,” I murmured. “Anyway, uh, thanks for checking on me.”
His eyes drifted over my wide-leg black pants and tight black tee. I brushed hair out of my face, nervous beneath his perusal. I couldn’t imagine why though. This was what I wore to work every day—unless the wide leg trousers were replaced with velvety leggings. What I was wearing made sense—unlike Mr. Bananas in pajamas over there.
“I could jump you,” he blurted, as if he hadn’t meant to. “I mean, if that’s all you need.”
I blinked at him, taking in his stubbled jaw and his perfectly arched cheekbones. A Gap ad would be lucky to get this guy. He had all of Vera’s beauty but the masculine version of it. “Um, how?”
It was his turn to be confused. “What do you mean?”
“How will you jump me?”
He looked back at his shop and I got the distinct impression he wished he was back there—away from me. “With my car?” His offer sounded like a question. He turned back to face me, punching me in the gut with the judgment burning his gray eyes. “Unless this thing isn’t like normal cars? Maybe you need a spaceship to jump it? Moon juice or something.”
“Moon juice?” I hid a smile behind my palm. “Uh, sure. No spaceship required. I’d be grateful for a jump.” I rested my hand against my throat and willed him to ignore the dirty joke hanging in the air between us.
Maybe I’d been hanging out with Kaya too much, but I expected him to shout, “That’s what she said!” at the top of his lungs.
“Uh, okay. Sure. Let me just go…” he nodded his head toward the parking lot across the street, apparently too mature for easy humor. “I’ll be right back.”
“O-okay.”
I watched him cross the street without using the crosswalk. At this time of night there wasn’t anyone around, so he just jogged right through the middle of downtown. It was a strange feeling observing a person break the law who I distinctly got the feeling never broke the law.
The side door of Lilou opened and shut and Benny and Wyatt walked into the parking lot, laughing and cracking jokes about Wyatt being Benny’s boss. They noticed me immediately, but I explained that Vann planned to jump me.
“I bet he did,” Benny teased.
There it was. Maybe it wasn’t Kaya. Maybe it was working in a kitchen—we were all perverted deviants.
Purposefully ignoring his full meaning, I ran a hand over the top of Veronica and said, “Who could blame him? A chance to get down and dirty with this beauty doesn’t come around very often.”
Benny laughed while Wyatt texted Kaya, telling her he wanted to wait for my car to get going. “Yeah, yeah, moneybags. We get it. You have a cool car.”
I glanced at Benny’s souped-up Nissan and wrinkled my nose. “Psht. You’re one to talk.”
He stuck his tongue out at me, then moved out of the way so Vann could pull his Jeep next to mine. The three of us gaped at him as he jumped down from the cab.
“What?” he asked, noticing our open mouths.
“Nothing,” Wyatt answered quickly. “I guess I just thought you drove something like a Prius.”
“I thought you rode a bike,” I blurted.
He looked at the three of us, shrugging one shoulder. “Nope. I have a real car.” The irritation in his voice rang through the night air. “It’s kind of hard to ride a bike to work in the winter. Also, I’m normal. Every chef I know thinks I go home to a treehouse in the middle of the woods and live off the land. But the truth is, I’m a normal guy. I live in an apartment. I eat sugary cereal and I drive a car.”
Sugary cereal? How did that prove he was normal?
“I’m going to get going,” Benny said interrupting the awkward short silence. He saluted us before running off like a coward.
Wyatt glanced at his phone. I knew he wanted to get to Kaya, which only endeared him to me more. But I needed backup here. I couldn’t be left alone with Vann Delane and his crusade to prove how normal he was to everyone.
My mouth didn’t get the message apparently and I heard myself offer, “If you need to get going, Wyatt… you can.”
He looked up from his phone and said, “Yeah?”
“Sure, I think we have this covered?” I looked to Vann who nodded in response.
“Can you pop your hood?”
Was that a yes to my question? I looked back to Wyatt. “Worst case scenario, I’ll call a tow truck and uber home. I’m not far.” Wyatt started to protest and care for my friend overcame the concern for myself. “Go, seriously! I’ll be fine.”
He glanced nervously at Vann. “All right, but only if you’re sure.”
“I’m sure.”
“The hood?” Vann asked, his irritation back loud and clear.
I waved Wyatt off. “We’ll talk later. I’ll have questions I’m sure.”
Wyatt said his goodbyes, but I barely heard them as I leaned inside my car and pulled the trunk lever. To Vann, I said, “The battery is in the trunk.” The trunk opened with ease and I heard Vann’s sharp intake of breath.
Nervous something was seriously wrong, I hurried to where he stood surveying the clever casing. “Is something wrong?”
He looked up at me, awe glinting in his gray eyes. “You drive a nice car.”
His compliment nearly knocked me off my feet. I mean, it was a good engine. He was right in saying that. It was just strange to hear him admit something positive. “You like cars?” I guessed, surprised again.
“I grew up working on cars with my dad,” he explained. Leaning forward to clamp the jumper cables in place, he continued, “He worked a lot, so it was pretty much the only thing we ever did together. It’s still one of our favorite things.”
I turned and looked at his Jeep again. It was an older version, one that the entire top came off. It looked like it had fresh paint though. And new wheels. In fact, the whole thing gleamed in grayish blue.
“It’s a 1959,” he explained, catching my ogling. “I just finished restoring her.”
Her. He’d called his car a her. Something so simple shouldn’t have made me like him more, but it did for some silly reason.
“I’m impressed,” I told him. “I figured you preferred two wheels to four.”
He looked up at me from between our two cars, a befuddled look on his face. “Just because you cook for a living, does that mean you want to cook for every meal? Or do you sometimes go out to eat? Maybe even to restaurants that don’t carry your specialty?”
“All right, I get your point,” I conceded. “I don’t always want to cook.”
“I love my bikes,” he added. “But riding one to work at one in the morning seemed exhausting.” I smiled unexpectedly and stared at him, working on a witty comeback. “Do you mind starting mine?” He tossed his car keys at me before I could decline.
Catching them reflexively, I followed his bidding. We awkwardly stood there until we thought Veronica had gotten enough juice to get going. After another ten minutes, we’d gotten her juiced to the point that I felt confident enough to go our separate ways.
I stepped out of my car after coaxing her to life. Vann rolled down his window, but didn’t step out of his car. It wasn’t like I expected him to come around and give me a hug or anything, I just hated feeling like I was this big inconvenience to him.
I stepped up on the footboard and rested my elbows on his window frame. “Hey, thanks for your help.”
His smile was the biggest I’d seen tonight. “I should have known you drove something like this.”
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.
The Something about Her: Opposites Attract book four Page 5
