“Break a leg, chef,” he murmured, sounding as hot and bothered as I felt.
“You too,” I croaked.
He gave me one more searing look before he hopped down from my truck and ambled back across the street to Lilou.
I stared at his back in complete wonder as he walked away. I didn’t think my fake review would bring out that kind of reaction from him. I wasn’t even sure what to do with that reaction!
Well, I wasn’t sure until my phone pinged with a notification. What I should have done was shake off Killian’s skin and scent and get to work on dinner service. Instead, I stupidly checked my phone thinking it might be him.
I swiped my phone open and instantly regretted it. The notification wasn’t from Killian.
It was from Derrek.
He’d messaged my personal account on Facebook. The one I’d been reluctant to create just because I was terrified of something like this happening.
The message, from the familiar profile picture of Derrek Hanover, simply said, “Where did you go?”
That was it. That was all he said, but it was enough to have me contemplating running off to Europe again. All I wanted to do was run away. All I wanted to do was deactivate my account and set my computer on fire. My smartphone too, while I was at it. I wanted to curl into a ball on the floor and cry for the rest of the night. Maybe the rest of the week.
But most of all I wanted to go back to before the message, to when I was lusting after Killian Quinn and considering that maybe life wasn’t full of lemons and sour moments. That maybe there was something good out there too.
Only my heart knew better. My hope was wiser than that. Because if I’d learned anything in twenty-six years, it was that if something bad could happen, it would happen.
And Derrek Hanover was the bad thing that just kept happening to me.
So maybe his message was a good reminder. It made me wake up where Killian was concerned anyway. It made me realize that I didn’t want a relationship or to ever be put in a position where I had to trust another man ever again.
I had moved on from Derrek. I had opened a business and learned to manage my life. The only reason for Derrek to be anywhere in my life these days was as a cautionary tale of failed love. And nothing else.
But that’s all Killian would be too. A bullet dodged. An awkward circumstance avoided. I friend that would always stay a friend.
Chapter Thirteen
The next weekend I stood at the pickup window, listening to a customer list off everything he hated about my buttermilk fried chicken and jalapeno waffles. It was Friday night, and so far, things had not gone smoothly at all.
They hadn’t gone well Thursday night either. I contemplated giving up this dish altogether and abandoning profit for the weekend. But I was too stubborn to admit defeat. Plus, I couldn’t afford to give up.
I could agree with the guy that my fried chicken was nothing like his grandmother’s. I’d used a tempura fry on chicken tenderloins. Because they were easier to eat than a hunky breast or thigh. And to be honest, because they were super cheap this week.
My waffles were also nonconventional. I’d grabbed my dad’s ancient waffle iron that hadn’t been used since my mom was alive and made the batter with diced jalapenos and sriracha. I’d been going for a savory/spicy/sweet kind of mashup.
I’d been optimistic in my test run. My waffle had been fluffy. Maybe a little too spicy, but it looked pretty. My chicken had been crispy. And the maple syrup tied everything together.
Unfortunately, made in mass quantities, I wasn’t nearly as proud. I’d made the executive decision to ban all future chicken and waffle ideas until the end of time. Forever and ever, amen.
I just had to get through the weekend first. And then the cleanup process. The interior of my truck was coated in maple syrup, thanks to Molly’s offering to fill up the to-go ramekins. And waffle batter had dried in big, bulbous clumps all over the counter, the floor and me.
And this wasn’t the first customer to complain. My entire night had been one upset customer after another.
Okay, maybe that was an exaggeration. But there had been enough complaints to send me into a tailspin of existential crisis. What was I even doing with my life???
I still had at least two hours left. Jesus, take the wheel.
“Sir,” I tried gently at first. Gently didn’t work. “Sir!” He paused in his tirade. “Would you like your money back?”
He snorted. “Obviously.”
I picked the remnants of my dignity off the ground and accepted the ten dollar bill from Molly. “I apologize again for the waffles being so hot.” I offered him a genuinely sincere smile when I handed his money back to him. “The menu is different every weekend, though. I hope you give us another shot soon.”
He snarled a terse, “Not a chance in hell.” Luckily for me, it was easy to pretend he’d said, “I’d like that as well,” instead.
What separated humans from animals? The incredible ability to plant our feet in denial. Beautiful, blissful denial.
“Is it a full moon?” Molly asked, stretching her neck out the window. “People are cranky tonight.”
I looked back at my fryer and batter-covered station. It hadn’t just been the complaining customers that made the night difficult. I had been overly ambitious trying to fry chicken fresh and make hot waffles for every order. I’d been bouncing around the narrow space all night like a pinball. “Lesson learned, Durham. No more chicken and waffles for you.”
“How about one more?”
I spun around, surprised to see Killian at the window. His gaze moved over me, quick, assessing, amused.
I brushed my hand down my front, realizing how disheveled I must have looked. My white chef’s jacket was covered in grease and syrup and sriracha. I had been fighting my bandana for hours, pulling clumps of batter out of wayward hair that wouldn’t stay tucked away.
He had worked tonight too. But in a white t-shirt that hugged his tattooed arms and low slung black pants, he looked tired, but not like he’d spent hours in the kitchen slaving away.
More like he’d had a grueling day shooting Armani underwear ads.
“No.” I hadn’t meant to sound so serious, but he was pissing me off already, and he’d just got here. I didn’t have the energy to listen to him pick apart my dish. I already knew it wasn’t a keeper.
He laughed, but it was unsure and nervous. “Excuse me?”
I shook my head and tried one more time to muster up manners. “No, you can’t have one.”
Killian stepped closer to the order window, peering inside. “Hey, Molly,” he said as an afterthought.
“Hi.” She stood up, taking a step back from the window. Killian made her nervous.
He made me nervous too. But he also pissed me off. Usually, the anger canceled out the nerves.
His attentive gaze found mine again. “Rough night?”
I resisted the urge to kick the stove. “Chicken and waffles,” I sighed. “I should have known better.”
I could have sworn his lips twitched, but it was hard to tell since they were hidden behind that beard. “Let me try.”
“No.”
“Can I come back there?”
“Why? So you can fix everything? Make it better and remind me how much I suck?” The words tasted like vinegar, whiney and self-pitying.
“Geez, you’re in a mood tonight. It can’t be that bad.”
I turned away from him, pulling a towel down to start wiping up the counter. “It’s fine,” I said to the hard balls of batter that had crusted on the stainless steel.
His voice dropped to a low murmur as he addressed Molly. “How bad was it?”
“Mean customers,” Molly explained. “That last guy was a real jerk.”
Embarrassment sharp and stinging sliced through me. It wasn’t that I cared about Molly or Killian’s opinion of me. But it bothered me that I cared at all, that a few harsh words had upset me so completely.
The door
opened, and Killian stepped inside uninvited. His footsteps echoed around the space while neither Molly nor I moved.
I wanted to remind him that he wasn’t invited. That I didn’t want him in here, but I couldn’t find the courage to even look at him. If I would have been closer to the pick-up window, I would have jumped out of it by now and ran away.
Never to be heard from again.
“I hate bad reviews. I mean, I really hate them. I don’t think there’s a single other thing I hate, actually.” He stepped up next to me, his words honest, but his tone gentle. “Except maybe eggplant. I also hate eggplant.”
I stilled, remembering his reaction to my Yelp review. It wasn’t hard to imagine just how much he hated negative feedback. Even the joking kind.
He’d walked over so he could stand right at my side, not touching, but close enough that his presence invaded every single one of my senses, burrowing so deep I felt him in my blood, my bones… my breath.
“It’s one thing when they come from a critic,” Killian went on. “But it’s physically painful when it comes from a regular, or someone who doesn’t know you at all. Then you know it wasn’t a small technicality or minuscule mistake. Then you know you just suck.”
I smiled, it was small and barely there, but I felt a chink in my pissed-off armor. “I thought you came in here to make me feel better.”
His tone turned teasing. “You’re so young, Delane. So very young. And so very naïve.”
“Stop with all the compliments. Seriously, my ego is like—” I made an explosion sound, mimicking the motion with both hands.
He turned, propping his hip against the counter. “How old are you? Fifteen? Sixteen?”
“Gross, stop.”
His lips twitched again. “What I’m trying to say is that I’m older than you. Wiser. I’ve been doing this for a lot longer than you, and I can honestly say they all sting. Every last one of them. There’s no way to get around the pain. There’s no way to ignore the feeling of incompetence. You just have to ride it out and show up anyway.”
I knew he was right. I’d been here before. It wasn’t like this was my first bad night. Or even close.
But this was the first shitty night that was mine completely. I wasn’t working for someone else. A different chef didn’t have their name on the final project or banner. This was mine. Completely. And I’d screwed up.
“Name them,” he demanded.
I raised my gaze to find his. I’d been perfectly happy staring at his beard, but now I needed his eyes, the strength that was always present there… the courage. “Name what?”
“Name your fears. Your insecurities. Name the truth you heard in the complaint, the thing that’s got you so wrapped up you’re ready to quit.”
Logic started to dawn in my otherwise dark night of pity. I realized he was right. My fears had become a roadblock inside my chest, a tangle of lies and fears and uncertainties. I opened my mouth to say them out loud, but I couldn’t get them out of my mouth. They stayed lodged in my throat, an inconvenient lump growing into a jagged boulder.
“My chicken was tasteless.”
His eyes widened, revealing his surprise. He hadn’t thought I could do it. “You forgot salt. Didn’t you?”
I hated him just a tiny bit more for teasing me. Hated him and liked him. “I didn’t forget it,” I growled. “I just… ugh, I just didn’t use enough. And my waffles were too doughy. I overcooked half of them tonight trying to manage everything.”
He grinned at me. “What else?”
“I don’t think I can do this. It’s too much. Too hard. I don’t know what I’m doing. I’ve never even been in charge of my own kitchen. I don’t know why I thought I could run my own goddamn business.” I slapped my hand over my mouth, surprised that I’d said so much.
Surprised that I felt so much.
Killian had lost his smile, his amusement. Those green eyes glittered brightly above the darkness of his beard, seeing more of me than I ever wanted to show him. “Now do you realize how absurd those thoughts are? You had a bad night. So what? You learned something. You pushed yourself to your limit and found out what you’re capable of. What works. What doesn’t work. And now you can go on with your life. You won’t make this dish. You won’t ever use that antiquated piece of shit waffle iron again.” He did a double take, his eyes widening at the sight of it covered in dried batter, rusted near the rubber feet. “Good lord, what is that thing?” He nudged the chipped handle with the tip of his finger as if he was afraid it would give him some kind of disease. “And you’ll remember the fucking flavor. Yeah?”
I nodded even while I said, “I hate you almost as much as I hate salt.”
His lips twitched with an almost smile. “You don’t hate salt.” He stepped closer. “And you really don’t hate me.”
“I do too,” I insisted. But it was an unconvincing whisper. And a dirty lie.
He ignored me. “You don’t have to worry about doing this, Delane. You are doing it. We’ll rework the menu and tomorrow will be a better day.”
“Does that always work?”
“What?”
“Naming it like that, calling yourself on your own crap. Is that all it takes to move on?”
The hint of something played over his features. Regret maybe? Disappointment? It was hard to say, but whatever it was made me feel cold all over again inside. I knew the answer before he vocalized it.
“No, it doesn’t. But when this therapeutic bullshit fails, we do what we do best.”
“And that is?”
“We cook, Delane. Come on, we’re chefs. So, we cook. Not for them, not for the people judging us. We cook for us. We make whatever reminds us of how fucking amazing we are.”
I laughed, and it was the first time all night I finally felt like myself again. Hell, maybe it was the first time in years I felt like myself again. Not the shadowed, broken version I’d been since Derrek, but the real me. The one that had been rescued by cooking and empowered by the kitchen. “I thought you were going to say drinking,” I told him. “That when all else fails, we drink.”
He chuckled, reaching for a bowl of spices. “Well, we do that too.”
“Hey, Vere?” Molly called from behind me.
Oh, my God, I’d completely forgotten she was here. I whipped around to her, hoping she didn’t comment on how red my cheeks flamed or how absorbed in Killian I’d been for the last ten minutes. “Hi, sorry. Gosh, Molly, sorry.”
She gave me a pointed look, silently calling me out on everything I hadn’t wanted her to see. Her eyebrows danced over her eyes, and she made a silent gesture toward Killian—kissing and then something more vulgar. “Do you care if I take off? I have an early morning tomorrow, and I’d like to get home.”
She was a liar. She had brunch with me tomorrow morning because we’d made plans less than an hour ago.
I narrowed my eyes at her. “Are you sure?”
Smiling innocently, she nodded. “Super sure.”
“You don’t want to wait around just another hour or so?”
She started walking toward the door, collecting her things as she went. “Nope, I’m good. I’ll uh, see you tomorrow, Vera. Bye, Killian.”
“Bye, Molly,” Killian called over his shoulder, fully absorbed in his new and improved spice blend.
I didn’t say anything to her. I was pretty sure I was never going to speak to her again.
Or at least not until tomorrow morning when I met her at brunch.
The door shut behind her and Killian and I were left alone. Suddenly feeling awkward, I moved away from him and focused very intently on anything else. Like my cleaning rag and the greased-over fryer.
“Where did you train?” he asked when I found more surfaces to scrub.
“CAI, Charlotte,” I told him.
He whistled between his teeth. “That’s a good program. You finished?”
I nodded. “Yeah, with a Bachelors. Geez, that was almost five years ago.”
His face scrunched up while he worked through my answer. “So, I met your dad, and your brother owns the bike shop, right?” I nodded, not liking where this was going. “And your mom?”
I rubbed my hand over my heart, feeling that same hollow ache I always got when the subject of my mom was brought up. “She, uh, died when I was little. My dad raised us.”
His silence was a tangible thing that filled up every single space in the truck. It sucked up the remaining oxygen and reached across the galley to touch me, wrap around me… hold me. “I’m sorry,” he said so very tenderly my heart skipped.
I tilted my head, avoiding eye contact with him. “Thank you.” We were silent for a minute while he let me step out of the sharp but also distant grief that came with losing a mother I could barely remember. I only had a handful of faded memories of her. Watching her put on perfume. Laughing while she pushed me on a swing. A family vacation at the beach. There weren’t many of them, but I treasured each one.
People never knew what to say when I told them my mom died when I was young. They usually tried to fill in the emptiness with useless clichés or words of encouragement. I appreciated Killian’s silence. There honestly wasn’t anything to say. Nothing made it better or okay. Nothing said could change what happened. It just was. This was part of my story, the reality I lived with. Killian seemed to get that better than anyone else.
I wanted to ask about his family, but he changed the subject before I got a chance. “Durham is home for you?”
“Born and raised.”
“And the truck is a new venture, right?”
“Right.”
“Where have you been since CAI? Not in a kitchen around here. I would have heard about you.”
I shook my head. As flattering as that statement was, I also knew it wasn’t true. I’d worked for plenty of chefs happy to give me busy work without any real responsibility. “I stayed in Charlotte for a while. Last year, I worked my way across Europe.”
Interest sparked in his bright eyes, darkening them, deepening them. “Worked, as in cooked?”
“Yeah, you know I just hopped from kitchen to kitchen. Nothing fancy or famous. Just your average bistro or café. I wanted some perspective. Some flavor for my resume.”
The Opposite of You (Opposites Attract Series Book 1) Page 15
