by Nina Levine
“I’m gonna get the boys to finish moving all the damaged furniture outside. Can you please get the staff onto cleaning the graffiti once the rest of the glass and rubbish is cleaned up? I also need you to get me an order together of everything we need to replace. Alcohol, glasses, etc. Anything and everything we need for tonight. I’m sorting out the furniture we need to replace.” He stabs at his hair again before muttering, “Fuck, I’m supposed to be at Salty Girl in an hour and a half.”
Wilder manages all of Storm’s restaurants: Trilogy, Salty Girl, Eternity, and Dirty Pleasures. Salty Girl is my favourite with its dark, edgy vibe and eclectic menu.
“Why? Can I take care of it?”
“No, I’ll do it. You get the orders together.”
“What are you doing there?”
“Meeting with Gia to go over her new menu ideas.”
“Either she can wait, or I can do that. You don’t have time today.”
He lifts a brow, looking all amused. “You wanna be the boss today?”
“Well, just sayin’, in the scheme of things, that seems like something that can wait or be handled by someone else.”
He considers that. “Yeah, you’re right. You go.”
“Holy fuck, and there go your control freak pants.” I stare at him as he takes in what I said. “I just said that out loud, didn’t I?” I’m not even a little bit sad that I did. It’s the truth. Wilder takes managing Storm’s restaurants to a whole other level than I’m sure most would. He’s a good boss, but he needs to chill on being in charge of every damn thing.
He nods in response to my question. “You did.”
I gauge his tone and his eyes. He’s not pissed off, but he’s watching me with an expression that lets me know to tread carefully with what I say next. I decide it’s best not to push him today, so I simply say, “I’ll get these orders done and then head over to Salty Girl. I’ll collect the cash for banking from Eternity and Dirty Pleasures, too, so you don’t have to worry about that.”
It takes him a few moments to process my take-charge attitude before he says, “You handle the banking today too. And any staffing issues that come up.”
Holy fuck again.
And there go his control-freak socks.
We’ll be playing strip poker soon at the rate we’re going.
I keep my thoughts on the inside this time.
“Will do.”
He leaves me with my stunned thoughts.
Who knew Wilder had it in him? Certainly not me.
Gia frowns at me when I enter her kitchen. I call it hers because she’s really fucking territorial about it. We let her be, though, because she’s a one-in-a-million chef who we don’t want to lose. “I thought Wilder was coming over today.”
“He was, but Trilogy was broken into last night, so he’s dealing with that. He asked me to go over the menu ideas with you.”
More frowning. Hands on her hips. That Italian temper of hers flaring. I like Gia, but she’s more of a handful than me, and even I know I can be a huge fucking handful at times. “I cooked dishes for him to try. That was a waste of my time, wasn’t it?”
“No, I can try them. And I can take them to him to try.”
“It’s not the same, Scarlett. The presentation and mood are half the success of a dish. He’s not going to get to experience any of that.”
I fight an eye roll. I mean, she’s right that the presentation and mood are important; they’re why I love Salty Girl. But fuck, Wilder knows she’s got that handled; he just needs to taste the damn food.
Do not upset the chef.
“He already knows your presentation and mood are the best in the business, Gia. You don’t need to worry about that.”
She likes what I’ve said. I see that in her eyes. But she’s still upset that Wilder’s not here. I also see that in her eyes and hear it in her huff when she says, “He should have come or at least let me know himself he wasn’t.”
Keep. The. Chef. Happy.
Fuck, this managing people gig is hard work.
“He was going to call you, but I told him you’d understand that he had a lot of other stuff to handle with the break-in.”
Jesus. Give. Me. A. Gun.
She leads me into the restaurant, where she’s set up a table with six new dishes on them. Her presentation is perfect, as is her food. I take photos for Wilder at her insistence and sample everything before packing the leftovers up for him. I then clear the safe so I can bank the takings.
Gia makes it clear she wants Wilder to attend her next dish unveiling, and I promise her to let him know of her request. It takes every ounce of strength I have to bite my tongue and tell her what I really think of her precious request. I get it, this is important to her, but at the same time, it’s an unusual situation Wilder’s taking care of today. It’s not like he intentionally chose not to be here.
As I’m about to leave, she says, “Oh, do you know if Wilder got our application in for the Brunswick Food Festival? It was due yesterday. I reminded him last week.”
“He would have. I’ll get him to confirm with you.”
I have a sinking feeling he didn’t get the application in because that’s something he’d ask me to do, and he didn’t ask me. And I’m certain that’s not because I forgot.
This food festival is something Wilder’s been talking about for months. It’s Salty Girl’s chance to show off Gia’s mad skills and put the restaurant on the Brisbane food map, something I know Wilder wants so the club can maximise the business.
When I reach my car, I search for the food festival website on my phone and call the organiser.
He answers on the first ring, letting me know his name is Simon.
“Hi, Simon, I’m Scarlett. How are you today?” I put extra effort into sounding friendly. Not my forte in life. At all.
“Oh, I’m blessed, Scarlett. How are you?”
Blessed seems a little extra. Hopefully that means this will go in my favour.
“I’m gonna go with blessed, too, Simon. Such a nice way to phrase it.” I never imagined the day I’d tell someone I feel blessed.
“What can I do for you?”
“Well, this is a little awkward. Embarrassing, to be honest. My boss asked me to put our restaurant’s application in for the festival, and my memory is so bad at the moment due to family things I have going on that I can’t remember if I did or not. And Simon, I really, really need to have that application in, or I think I might lose my job. Would you have time to check for me, please?”
I wonder what my karma will be for this lie.
“Of course. What is the name of the restaurant?”
“Salty Girl. And thank you, Simon. I appreciate you taking the time to do this for me.” Who knew I could be so delightful?
Simon taps away on his computer, taking his sweet time before finally saying, “I regret to tell you that you do not have an application in, Scarlett.”
“Oh, wow.” Wow? What even are these words coming out of my mouth? “Umm, goodness, I hate to put you on the spot but is there any way we can get our application in now?”
Simon clears his throat like he’s about to deliver bad news. “Well, ah, it’s not usual practice—”
“I’m so sorry to do this to you, but honestly, I’m pretty sure I’m going to get fired over this, and my family really can’t afford for me to lose my job. Please, Simon, can you help me out?”
It’s not a lie. My family (me) can’t afford for me to lose my job. And honestly, Wilder could fire me. I mean, he blames my memory for so many things that I’m convinced aren’t my fault. He’ll likely blame this on me if I can’t get my new best friend Simon to help me out.
Simon turns silent, and I can imagine him warring with himself over what to do. I feel sorry for him. Really, I do. Well, maybe that’s a lie. Mostly I just feel like I really want him to say yes.
After the longest minute, he says, “Okay, Scarlett, I’ll help you out. I wouldn’t want you to lose your job.�
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“Ohmigosh.” I run all those words together like a pro. Like all the girl squads do. “Thank you, thank you, thank you.” Hmm, three thank yous is maybe a little over the top. I should calm my shit down. “What do you need from me to make this happen?”
Simon spends the next twenty fucking minutes taking my details down and processing the application for me while I mentally kill Wilder for forgetting to handle his shit. I gush my extreme gratitude once again before finally ending the call and refraining from stabbing out a shitty text to my boss detailing how fucking much I want those twenty minutes of my life back and what I think of him for making me give them up.
But we have our application in.
Go me for being team player of the year.
Wilder owes me big time.
A text comes through as I turn the sound up on “Paradise City” and throw my car in Reverse. I definitely need some Gunners in my life today.
I quickly check the text in case it’s Wilder with another directive.
Phoebe: Please stop ignoring my calls. I want to see you.
I shove my phone back in my bag, adding an ignored text to the long list of shit sitting between my sister and me.
Hell will fucking freeze over before I agree to see her.
4
Wilder
“We made it happen,” Scarlett says just after 5:00 p.m. as we watch the staff finishing the set up for the event we’re hosting tonight.
“Yeah. How the fuck that happened, I’m not sure, but thanks for all your work on it.” I look at her. “And for running around to the other restaurants and to the bank.” I wouldn’t have managed today without her. She really came through for me, but then, she always does. She might throw down hostile negotiations half the fucking time, but she never fails to get shit done.
“Jesus,” she mutters after turning her gaze to the new tables that Chelsea helped me find today. She doesn’t say anything else before marching to the closest table and rearranging the flowers in the centre of it.
I watch as she fixes all the table centrepieces and then moves on to fiddle with the rest of the decorations in the room. It’s amusing watching her mutter to herself while working. Scarlett thinks I’m a control freak, and I probably am, but she is too. She’s never happy with any of Storm’s restaurant decorations if they’ve been done by someone else. She always gets in there and fixes them to how she wants them. That was the job Harlow originally brought her on board for, but these days her job is more about being my assistant manager. Not that we’ve formalised that, but it’s what she does.
“What the fuck is Scarlett doing?”
King moves next to me, asking after Scarlett. Those two have had words a few times when he’s been in town. She doesn’t have any time for him, but he’s developed a begrudging respect for her. King appreciates people who stand up for themselves, even if it irritates him. And Scarlett irritates the hell out of him.
“Making the restaurant look the way she wants it to,” I say, yanking my eyes from Scarlett, who’s still commanding my attention in ways that bother me.
She’s tied a knot in my shirt she’s wearing, revealing the tanned skin of her stomach. Skin I’ve seen before. Skin that should not affect me the way it is. I think it’s the sight of my shirt against it that’s causing this. Fuck, I don’t know, but my brain won’t move on from that sight.
King follows me into my office, and we catch up for a few minutes. He tells me his old lady is in a mood at the moment and suggested he should take the number of days he’s planning to stay in Brisbane and multiply them by three. I like Lily. I like how she’s calmed King a little. Before she came along, I didn’t know a thing about him. He would never have spent five minutes telling me about his family, and he sure as shit wouldn’t have pulled his phone out and shown me a photo of Cade, his eight-month-old son, when I asked how he was.
He puts his phone away and says, “Liam called. He didn’t find a lot of evidence here this morning. You got any ideas on who it might have been?”
Before I can answer him, Scarlett knocks on the door. “Wilder, the event organiser just arrived. You want me to handle her?”
I nod. “Thanks.”
Her lips pull into the easiest smile I’ve ever seen on her. “No problem.” The smile disappears as she looks at King and says, “You’re back in town. Staying long?”
King’s eyes darken. “I’ve just worked out why Wilder keeps you around. You’re a ray of fucking sunshine.”
Her glare is stronger than any glare she’s ever given me. And that’s saying something because I cop some filthy ones. “They didn’t warn me you were coming. If they had, I’d have made sure to bring all my sunny friends with me today so we could brighten your day.”
Christ, this is about to get out of hand.
“Scarlett,” I mutter. “Go speak with the event organiser.”
With one last glare at King, she leaves us.
King looks at me, eyes still dark. “Remind me again why you keep her on.”
This is something I ask myself every now and then. Scarlett’s a handful on a good day and hell on a bad one, but she’s damn good at her job. And as much as I could do without her constant arguing and her moods, I admire her grit and determination and fighting spirit. I also like that she’s unapologetically herself. Scarlett doesn’t try to be like everyone else. I never know for sure what I’m gonna get with her. I like people like that.
“She gets shit done that I ask her to do and she gets it done well,” I say to King as Scott joins us. “As for your other question about the break-in, I’ve got some thoughts.”
Scott eyes me. “Ostelin’s crew?”
I nod. “Yeah. What are your thoughts?”
“That it was either them or the Carlton boys.”
“We’ll call around and see them tomorrow,” King says casually, like he’s gonna pop the fuck in for a cup of tea with them.
Scott nods and then jabs his thumb over his shoulder at the doorway. “I just saw Scarlett being nice as fuckin’ pie to some woman out there. Did you bribe her?”
“You shouldn’t be so surprised,” Harlow says, coming into the office and sliding her arm around her husband’s waist. She looks up at him as he drapes his arm over her shoulders. “You guys do know that Scarlett would do anything for your restaurants, right?”
“Being nice to people is usually a stretch for her,” Scott says.
“She’s not not nice to people, Scott. She’s sparing with her warmth, is all.”
King pins his gaze to Harlow. “You mean she’s a cold-ass bitch.”
Harlow gives him a look. “You know that’s not what I’m saying. She’s loyal, and if there’s one thing you all want from the people you work with, it’s loyalty. Stop being surprised when she gives you that.”
King’s phone buzzes with a text, and as he pulls it out of his pocket, he says to Harlow, “I’ll be over for poker night tomorrow. You making your potato bake?”
“Only if you get Lily to send me her recipe for that chocolate cake she makes.”
He grimaces. “Fuck, the chances of me getting anything out of that woman right now are low. I’d have better luck trying to figure out how to make my own fucking potato bake.”
“I’ll send you my recipe,” Harlow says with a grin as he makes a move to leave us.
After King leaves, Scott says, “Good work today, brother.”
I nod. “Yeah, we got shit done.”
Scott glances down at his old lady. “That hangover worn off? You ready to face the kids yet?”
She groans, still looking as seedy as she did this morning. “I want to say yes to both those questions, but it’s hard to get the word out. Why do hangovers feel so much worse when you have kids?”
He chuckles. “Baby, you didn’t have the kids today. You can’t blame feeling like shit on them.”
“Maybe your mum could keep them overnight.”
“No, I’ll take care of everything tonight.”
/> She smiles up at him. “Including me? Will you run me a bath, and massage my feet, and—”
“Including you, but let’s not get carried the fuck away here.”
“You love me, Scott Cole, and we all know you’ll massage my feet if I beg you to.” She puts her hand to his chest. “Take me home so we can get closer to me begging for that.”
With a shake of his head and a glance in my direction that tells me he knows as well as I do that his wife is right, he says, “See you tomorrow night.”
These two remind me of my parents. Maybe it’s that Harlow is a country girl, and my parents are both country born and bred. She handles Scott the same way my mother does my father: with old school love and respect. The kind where loyalty is assumed, promises made are always kept, and hearts are treated with extreme care. And he gives all of that and more back to her like my father does to my mother. Love isn’t a throwaway phrase for them; it’s a practice.
I grab my phone off the desk after Scott and Harlow leave and go looking for Scarlett.
I find her in the kitchen, sitting in the corner on the upside-down milk crate she’s designated as hers. Legs crossed, head down, AirPods in, she doesn’t see me coming, so I take the opportunity to appreciate her curves one last time. After this, I’m going cold turkey. Fuck, I’m hoping I wake up tomorrow and we’re back to normal programming.
Today has been a shitshow of shit I’d rather forget. This morning with Taylor; the break-in here; the clean-up; the mad rush to refurbish the restaurant; Scarlett’s mood swings from snarky to friendly-like-I’ve-not-ever-experienced; my inability to keep my eyes off her body. There’s a lot of shit to move on from.
I pull up the spare crate and sit next to her.
Her eyes meet mine and she pulls out her AirPods. “I’m just taking a minute.”
