Ruin You

by Molly O'Keefe

  Megan and I both laugh, because truer words have not been spoken.

  “We got funding from a private investor out of San Francisco,” I answer quietly and his eyes narrow. His jaw clenches.

  “That answer makes it sound like the mob,” Megan jokes. And it’s not at all a Megan joke and I realize my business partner probably hasn’t had any food and just sucked back three shots of bourbon.

  Which also explains the bonhomie with wandering guests.

  “It’s not the mob,” I make it clear to Simon.

  “It never occurred to me,” Simon says in a flat voice. But then he smiles and I realize the guys smiles a lot. Distracting me.

  And maybe that’s why I haven’t asked him the most important question.

  “You’re not a journalist are you, Simon?” I ask.

  “Would it matter?”

  It would matter so much, he had no idea. “Just want to find out if we’re on the record or not.”

  Megan reaches out and touches my shoulder. Trying to calm me down, maybe. Because I sound aggressive. Accusatory.

  This tone has gotten me fired a few times.

  “Not a journalist. Far from it. I run a charitable foundation set up by my mother,” he says smoothly. “We donate quite a bit of money to various causes.”

  “Sorry,” I say. “There have just…been a lot of journalists.”

  “I understand,” he says, which is far too gracious considering I barked at him like I found him going through my trash.

  “The Pediatric Brain Tumor Foundation is grateful for your support,” Megan says, lifting her glass and Simon touches the edge of his Dallas Cowboys cup to her crystal rocks glass.

  “Well, the treatment of brain tumors is a cause close to my mother’s heart,” Simon says, his face and voice for the moment unreadable. But I try. I look at him — stare at him, really. And I try to read him. And it feels like he’s trying to read me, too.

  I want to tell him not to try, but I like his attention, right now.

  A small alarm goes off on Megan’s watch. “That’s my alarm. If I’m not in bed in a half hour, I’m going to turn into a pumpkin,” she says and gathers up the bottle and reaches for my glass, which still has a sip of bourbon in it.

  “I’ll take care of it,” I say, feeling like a teenager, making some kind of excuse to stay up later with the hot boy at the party.

  Megan glances at Simon. “I’m nearly done,” he says and Megan must have realized what is happening because she turns to me with the death stare.

  The don’t-blow-this-up stare.

  The don’t-make-this-into-your-seventh-birthday stare.

  I say nothing. Make no promise. Because if I have my way, something is going to get blown tonight.

  Good one, I think, like a teenage boy.

  “Simon,” Megan says. “I hope you have a wonderful night here at the inn and we’ll see you in the morning for breakfast service. Don’t keep my chef out too late.”

  When Megan is gone and it is just the two of us, the thousand-square-foot kitchen suddenly feels like we didn’t make it big enough. Not to hold Simon and his hair and the memory of his hand over my mouth.

  “I have no…expectations,” he says suddenly. “What happened earlier — I don’t…expect anything. I just want to be clear. If this feels weird to you or off, I’ll leave.” He gestures behind himself towards the door.

  “You get right to the point, don’t you?” I ask, vaguely uncomfortable with his honesty.

  In the way liars usually are.

  “I find the world an easier place if you’re honest.”

  Oh, the fucking irony. It’s awful. This honest guy has no business lingering around the door of my house of lies.

  I should tell him to leave.

  But, somehow, I can’t.

  “Then why are you staying?” I ask, reaching for more of his honesty. “If you’re not hoping for more?”

  “Because the booze is fine,” he says with that crooked smile, lifting the Dallas Cowboys cup. “And the company is fine. Because it’s kind of special to be at the start of something big.” For a second, my breath catches, as if he is talking about us. The chemistry and the honesty. The scent of lavender. “And the inn feels like it has that kind of magic around it.”

  Right. The inn, of course.

  I’m such a fucking keener sometimes.

  “It’s not how I planned our opening night to go,” I say. “Firing my sous chef and then making out like a teenager with a patron behind the Dumpster.”

  “First of all, we were not behind the Dumpster. We were in some very smelly lavender bushes and nothing about what happened between us was anything like my teenage years.”

  “No?”

  “No.” He laughs. “There was no studying for math finals. No sweaty palms. No awkward offers for back rubs. You came, not me. No one cried and I didn’t even ask you which you liked better, Tolkien or George RR Martin. Star Wars or Star Trek.”

  “Martin and Star Trek, for the record.”

  Simon gasped. “I’m so in love with you.”

  It is a joke. Of course it is a joke, but I feel my body freeze. My face go still. That’s how unfamiliar I am with the word. Even the jokes hurt.

  “See, there, that is very reminiscent of me in my teenage years,” Simons says, reading my sudden freak out. “I — I’m joking. Badly. I’m sure you’re exceedingly loveable, but we just met —”

  “What if I have expectations?” I ask, rushing into the breech because that’s what jokes about love do to me. They make me frantic. “What if I want more?”

  His body, his gaze, everything sharpens. And it’s as if there’s a string between us. Between his body and mine. And it pulls so tight, I have to take a step closer to him.

  “Which room are you in?” I ask.

  My happiness needs controlled burns. Minor sorrows and liveable pain so that the happiness doesn’t get out of control. I need small explosions so I don’t blow everything to smithereens.

  And I can hurt myself on him. Ruin something small so I don’t burn down the whole forest.

  “No,” he says fast and I blink, sucking in a wounded breath.

  I can feel the heat of my entire body as embarrassment burns through me.

  “You…ah…right. That’s —” I’m stammering, stupid.

  So fucking stupid.

  “Penny,” he breathes.

  “I’m…it’s late.”’

  “Penny. Look at me.”

  No way. Absolutely not.

  “Penny.”

  His voice is a command. And in my kitchen, I don’t take commands from anyone but I’m doing what he says. I’m lifting my eyes to his.

  His eyes, so dark and so deep, ignite. My body floods in reaction. Between my legs, I’m slick and hot.

  Ready.

  All of that from a look. From three feet away.

  The idea of what would happen between us in bed is too big to really imagine. But I want it, suddenly and completely, I want him.

  He sets down the Cowboys cup and crosses the three feet, in one giant step. His hand slides around my neck, holding the back of my head in his palm and I immediately relax into the hold of him.

  I surrender and his lip lifts not in that friendly smile. No. Not at all. It’s wolfish and powerful.

  He recognizes my surrender and likes it.

  For such a nice guy, a polite guy, there’s something dark in him. The way he pushed me against the wall. Put his hand over my mouth.

  The way he holds me right now, like he has all the power.

  And I fucking love it. The surprise of it. That beneath that charm is something dark and twisted that matches the dark and twisted something in me.

  I could see, in the open neck of his shirt, the beat of his heart. I touch it, press against the warm but fragile skin until his pulse beats back against my fingertip.

  It feels private and universal at the same time. It feels like connection but separation, too.

>   “I’m going to kiss you,” he says. “But you’re not coming back to my room.”

  “Wh —”

  He cuts me off with his lips. He takes my mouth. My breath. My will. In one touch.

  My body is held up by his hand at my neck, his chest against mine. His other hand slips around the other side of my neck and he moves me, holds me, puts me where he wants me and I am there for that.

  A willing participant giving up my will.

  He tastes like smoky, sweet, good bourbon, and sex and bad decisions. My hand reaches around his neck, holding him to me.

  And that’s when he steps back, his hands gone. His chest gone and I stumble forward, off balance. He doesn’t catch me. Instead, I catch myself against the counter. My eyes blinking open, my body liquid and hot.

  “Good night, Penny,” he says, his voice soft and rough. “It’s been an honor being a part of this night of yours.”

  Again, his charm is so potent, so sharp and sure it slides right between the plates of my armor and hits me in places I stopped feeling pain.

  Or so I thought.

  Simon picks up his Cowboys’ cup and downs what is left of the bourbon before setting it softly beside the bottle.

  “Thanks for the nightcap,” he says. Then he’s gone.

  And I stand there feeling dismantled.

  ELEVEN

  Penny

  MOST OF THE guests who stayed last night come down for brunch with sunglasses on and order Bloody Mary’s and Eggs Benedict and sit on the back verandah looking as if the sun is physically hurting them.

  Sign of a good party, I think, refilling my coffee at the bar.

  “He’s not down here,” Megan says, coming to stand beside me at the coffee station.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Oh, stop,” Megan admonishes me. “I’m just letting you know so you can stop coming out here for more coffee. I’ve never seen you drink this much —”

  “It was a late night.”

  Megan puts her hand on my wrist. “How much later did it go?”

  As much as I want to marshal a good snarky comment about her being too nosey, I can’t brush off her question. She knows me too well and went into business with me anyway. She has every right to be worried about my self-destructive streak.

  “He left about ten minutes after you. Nothing happened.”

  That’s not the lie that makes me feel bad. The lie is in my tone, like she’s crazy for being worried.

  I threw myself at him and he was the one with the good sense to say no.

  Not something I can say to Megan.

  “Don’t get defensive,” Megan says. “Don’t. Think of how it looks if the chef is sneaking into a patron’s room —”

  “Stop. I get it. I do. Nothing happened. I didn’t go into his room and he didn’t come out to the trailer.” Not that I would ever invite him out there. “But, you’re right. I got carried away last night and it’s over.”

  “It’s not over. He’s checked in until Friday.”

  My jaw drops open and something giddy rises up in me.

  He’s staying?

  “No, see that look right there, that’s what makes me nervous.” She points a finger in my face and if she was my boss and not my partner, I might smack that finger away. “Dinner service starts on Monday and we have the supplier dinner on Thursday —”

  “You don’t have to tell me,” I snap. “I get it. Nothing will happen.”

  And I mean it. I do. It’s not professional to be sneaking into some guest’s bedroom after dinner service. It’s something the old Penny might do. Not this new incarnation.

  But…he’s staying?

  Stop being cheap.

  That’s my mother’s sage advice, from when I was a girl.

  Desperation is for dogs. Stop looking for someone to pet you.

  I pour out my third cup of coffee and go back to the kitchen where I belong.

  A FEW HOURS later most of the guests are gone. A few cars remain in the parking lot and the phone is ringing off the hook on the front desk. Three months of weekends are booked and two women have called to talk about private functions. Dinner service for the month is booked.

  The Paintbrush is a total success.

  When the kitchen is clean after brunch, I head out to the gardens and pull a bunch of sage for tonight’s dinner.

  There are six reservations for tonight. We don’t have a menu — I serve what I want to cook. And tonight, I want to cook something new. Egg yoke ravioli in brown butter with sautéed sage.

  The garden smells like my childhood. Like the farm. The sun is hot on the top of my head and the grasshoppers buzz and hop into my legs.

  I crouch down to check the potato beds.

  Soon, I think.

  The peppers need water. The carrots need weeding and so I do it.

  Something is off with the irrigation by the beans and I check all the hoses and find the hole that needs patching. Squirrels have chewed through the rubber. Again.

  I try to remember what Papa did about the squirrels and wish once again that he was alive so I could ask him these questions.

  Papa would be proud. I’m startled by the thought and how true it is. He would be so proud of me. Of this garden. And the inn.

  Only the dead members of my family and the family I’ve made up would be proud of me. How freaking awful is that?

  I circle around the avocado trees and nearly run into Simon, sweaty in running clothes, coming out from behind the corn.

  He’s here, I think, like a teenager.

  “This looks like I’m stalking you —” he glances at the corn he’s standing next to.

  “Pun intended?”

  “I wish I was that clever.”

  “Then what are you doing in my garden?”

  “Stealing your tomatoes, but they’re all gone.”

  “Not gone, just not ripe yet.”

  “Ah, that’s why you’re the gardener. Not me.” He glances around my garden. “Though, this isn’t like any garden I’ve seen. It’s a miniature farm.”

  “If we’re going to be 75% self-sustaining in five years we need to think big.”

  “Good thing you’re a farmer,” he says.

  “Well, my grandfather was the —” I stop, swallow. Did I just say that?

  “I thought your parents were farmers,” he says, his eyes oddly sharp.

  “Family farm,” I say through thick lips. “My mom inherited it. Why…why are you so sweaty?” I ask, desperate to change the subject.

  “I took a run on the trail up the mountain and am just cooling off.”

  “That’s a big run,” I say. I know because when things are really stressful, I run up that mountain.

  “I had some things to think about.”

  Our conversation dries up and I feel compelled to fill the silence. I thought about this all last night, what I would say when I saw him again. How I would try to fix what, last night, I’d been trying to ruin.

  “Simon, I am so sorry —”

  “Sorry?”

  “Last night.” I am wincing.

  “Are you under the impression that I regret anything that happened last night?” He steps towards me and I step back, nearly trampling my arugula.

  “I just…I shouldn’t have put you in that position.”

  “What position?”

  “The position of having to turn me down,” I say through thick lips. Fuck. This is embarrassing.

  He sucks in a breath and I watch a hawk up in the brilliant blue sky.

  “Penny,” he says.

  “Please.” I want to close my eyes but I don’t. “Just…accept the apology.”

  “I won’t. I don’t want it.” I can smell the sweat of him mixed with the dill from the bush beside us and I’m light-headed. “I would have taken you to my room last night. I would take you to my room right now.”

  Yes, I think. Great idea.

  “But my room is tiny,” he says, and I can hea
r the smile in his voice. “Like there isn’t space —”

  “Are you under the stairs?” I ask, the room I insisted on when Megan wanted to make it storage.

  “I am.”

  I wince. “Sorry. That… that is a tiny room.”

  But still, I think, there is a queen-size bed. And then I think of how desperate that sounds and I stop thinking it.

  “Did you miss breakfast?” I shove the conversation into more familiar territory.

  “I did,” Simon says with a wince. “I slept right through it. But I can grab an apple from the basket at the front desk.” He lifts his shirt and wipes at his forehead and I force myself not to look down. But still I manage to see a furry stomach. A muscled furry stomach and I want him to just pull that shirt right off.

  “I’ll feed you,” I say.

  He drops his shirt. “You don’t have to —”

  “I’m a chef, Simon. It’s against my code to let someone go hungry. Particularly if that someone just ran up a mountain.”

  His smile makes me smile. Dumb. This is dumb. So ridiculously dumb. There is no goal. No endpoint. There is just feeling good for the sake of feeling good.

  That doesn’t even make sense.

  “Give me five minutes. I’ll shower —”

  “No,” I say. “You’re good like that.”

  The heat that blooms in me as I say it is almost shocking. As the words slip out of my mouth and fill the air around me, his smile fades and the tension is back. Like a ripple of electricity down my body.

  This would all be so much simpler if he just let me go back to his room with him last night. This bubble of tension would be broken. He’d probably even be gone.

  “Follow me.” I lead the way into the kitchen. I know he’s following me because I can feel him.

  At the prep table just inside the door, Denise and Sean are making pasta.

  “Hello, Chef,” they both say as I come in.

  “Thinner guys,” I tell them, catching sight of the pasta they’ve rolled.

  “Yes, Chef,” they say and begin the process of rerolling the pasta.

  In the main part of the kitchen, I walk to the stove and the mise-en-place fridge in the corner.

  “That’s…hot,” Simon says on my heels.