by Brynn Hale
“You have a better chance of winning the lottery,” I mumble as the station siren goes off.
9-1-1 comes over the com. “2622 Cabot Street, near intersection of 2600 and Brandeis Street, three-car, six injured, including two children, one car on fire.” The details are repeated, and I’m suiting up.
My heart beats sure. My legs are solid. My eyes are keen.
The truck hits the main road, and we’re flying. The sound of the siren invigorates me.
This is what I’m meant to do.
Chapter Four
Reese
You can tell who appreciates you after you’ve gotten a bad review. The restaurant bustles with regulars. Each one says they’ll be placing a Yelp, Google, and whatever other reviews I want them to. And most say that K. Cassidy is a jerk. If they only knew…
My stomach rolls every time they say it. Had I been played by him or…is he sincere? If he is the latter, am I sincerely interested? I chastise myself for even considering it. As attracted as I am to him, I don’t need complications. I don’t need a man to take care of me. I do just fine on my own. And that’s the way it should be.
Will be.
Plus, damp panties don’t mean compatibility. Nope. Just a physical reaction. And although I’m not technically a virgin, the one time I had sex, it was so—to use a technical term that Kelton introduced—“meh” that I haven’t thought about it since. But he makes me think. The bulge in his pants was quite impressive. My body pulses remembering, and I try to forget.
Again.
While the restaurant is full isn’t the time to be thinking about Kelton’s body parts. A friendly face steps through the doors. She’s the one that suggested I remove the door chime, and I did. It was distracting and broke into conversations constantly. Now we played soft music over the sound system and no one jumped every time a new customer entered.
“Hey, Reese!”
“Jessica,” I say as I attack her with a hug. We’ve gone out a couple of times since that first night she came in. She’s new to town, we’re the same age, and we just hit it off. Plus, I know Passion Point inside and out.
“I see you’re super busy tonight. Do you think you could fit two more in?” she asks.
“For my favorite customer, of course.” I hold out a hand to the woman next to her. “Hi, I’m Reese Dynas, owner.”
She shakes my hand. “Hi, Miss Dynas. I’m Vanessa Wolfe, Senior Food Editor for—”
“The Boston Messenger,” we say together.
“Yes.” She smiles, her muted beige lips lifting and hazel eyes peeking from under long blonde bangs. “I hear from my friend’s daughter that maybe the ViewPoint reviewer needs new taste buds and an attitude adjustment?”
“He needs something, that’s for sure,” Jessica says when I say nothing.
But in reality, he actually tastes like chocolate and…cinnamon. Sweet and spicy.
“Let’s see if I have a different one.” The reviewer smiles. “No promises though.”
“Totally understand.” I inhale a deep breath and smile.
I seat them in a booth that has the best acoustics, no draft, no view of the bathrooms, and around people I know won’t interrupt their meal.
I mouth to Jessica, “Thank you!”
And she nods before lifting her menu.
I have no idea how Jessica knows Vanessa Wolfe, and I don’t care. Vanessa can make and break a restaurant.
I run to the kitchen and tell everyone that this is it. It’s time to be on our game. A hundred and ten percent, perfection, even if that isn’t truly possible. I prepare myself for the fact something will happen. It always does. They all straighten their backs. We bring all our hands in and do a quiet cheer.
“Chef Landry, have you thought of a dish to use that purple basil?”
“I’m on it, Reese.”
“Thank you!”
I directed our best wait staff to the table. Everything I can do, I do.
Twenty minutes later, Vanessa is laughing and enjoying her second appetizer—purple basil and garlic hummus with carrots, celery, and sesame thins. I take over a bottle of wine that will match both their appetizers and main course. Their salad is delivered, and they dig in after both inhaling the carrot ginger dressing sparkling on each leaf of spring greens.
I stop by once after their main courses arrive. “How is everything?”
Vanessa wipes her mouth. “This is…”
I inhale when she pauses.
“Amazing, Reese.” She motions to her clean plate. “Inventive, great blending of flavors, perfectly cooked meat, and I’m dreaming already of the next course.”
“Dessert. Definitely.”
Jessica leans over. “It’s incredible.”
“Thanks. I’ll be right back.”
I leave for the kitchen but hear footsteps behind me.
“Reese!” Jessica shout whispers at me. “I know who the reviewer is. I’m so disappointed in him. I gave him a piece of my mind.” Her hands rub my bare arms. “I’m so sorry.”
“No worries. How do you know Vanessa?”
“She went to Warton with my mother.”
“Oh, cool.” I can’t look her in the eyes, and I bite my lip.
Her brown eyes try to get gaze. “What?”
“I know who Kelton Cassidy is, too.”
“Really.”
“And I saw him today.”
“At the station?”
I motion a wait staff to keep moving. “Yes.”
She steps to my left. “Did he apologize?”
“No, he kissed me.”
Her mouth drops open. “What?”
“We argued, he kept getting closer, and then he kissed me.”
“Did you want him to kiss you?”
I bite my lip hard.
Jessica laughs. “Holy shit. You did!”
“We met in the grocery store earlier, and I didn’t know who he was and I thought he was hot then.” I lean in closer to her. “I sprayed whipped topping in his mouth.”
Her mouth drops open. “Wow. So…”
“He’s coming over here in the morning, but I think I’m just going to tell him to leave.”
“Reese, if you like Kelton, don’t let a review change that. He’s a great guy. I promise that there was something else happening when he wrote that review. Boscoe thinks the world of him. I’m not going to excuse his behavior, but I’m going to say that loving a firefighter can be…” She blushes. “Rewarding.” Jessica sighs.
“You and Boscoe make me believe in love.”
She squeezes my hands. “I didn’t really believe in love until Boscoe.”
I cross my arms on my chest. “I do know I don’t need a man to take care of me.”
“And I don’t think that Kelton’s that guy. But I also know that occasionally being taken care of, to have someone have your back, and to want to be there for you can be what you need.”
I think of my parents and that’s true. I just don’t want to find the right guy at the wrong time and not have time for him. But he would probably understand the long hours of the days.
“I’m going to get your desserts.”
“I’ll get back to the table. Vanessa’s really impressed. I imagine you’ll get much busier after this.”
I smile. “I’m okay with that. Thank you again.”
She hugs me. I sink into the move. “You deserve it. Without your restaurant I would’ve been eating Greek food.”
I laugh. “I wouldn’t wish that on anyone.” I wink at her and turn, pushing open the “In” side of the flapping doors. “Bryar, two of your best desserts, please.”
In a minute, I’m back out the door with fried fortune cookies with chocolate and orange marmalade inside and a matcha white chocolate mousse cup with two rosemary shortbread cookies.
I don’t know what the fortunes are below the cookies, but I’m hopeful that Bryar has given them three good ones.
I present the two desserts. “Here you go.” I intro
duce the desserts. “Enjoy.”
They dig in. Soon laughs are coming from their table.
I return to the kitchen because my blood pressure is skyrocketing with every chuckle and giggle. “Jaelyn, can you go see if they need anything? I don’t want them to think I’m listening in.”
“Sure, Reese.” They head off and grab the water pitcher on the way. Smart.
I watch from afar, unable to see what’s going on.
Jaelyn comes back. “They’re finishing last bites. They enjoyed both desserts. They found the fortune cookies to be very enlightening.”
“What does that mean?”
“I guess we’ll just have to find out.”
I walk into the kitchen. Bryar glances back with a guilty look. “What did those fortunes say?”
Bryar’s face flushes. “They said, ‘A lion’s appetite is served by its fearlessness- Matshona Dhilwayo’, ‘Love with abandon, forgive quickly, and hate very little- Reese Dynas’, and ‘Examine what is said and not who speaks- African proverb.’”
A warmth settles over my chest. “Thank you, Bryar.”
“Reviews won’t make or break this. We will, Reese.”
That is right. The review was harsh, but we are stronger than one man’s opinion.
Chapter Five
Kelton
After getting off of my shift, I drive up to Season 617. At the door, I raise a hand to block the morning sun and get a look inside. A light skims across the tile floor from under the kitchen doors to the dining area. I knock on the glass.
I wait and knock again. When there’s no anwer, I look into the parking lot. Her black Mazda isn’t out there, but I saw the delivery truck pull up behind the building when I was pulling in.
I wander around the building. The strip mall is new, a lot of windows and metal, some simple gray brick. I find my way to her bay on the back side, and a guy is unloading the truck.
I walk through the back door while he watches me like I’m not supposed to be there. Maybe I’m not.
“Reese?” I walk around the corner of the stacked ovens.
She steps from behind a wall that might lead to her office.
“Good morning.” I choke out the words at the sight of her. Hair tousled in a bun on her head, fresh faced, and wide green eyes.
“Cassidy,” she says simply, no emotion, and I feel like I’m in the presence of my mother. I’ve hurt this woman. I took what she loved and put holes into it.
I walk to her, holding her gaze. “Can we start over?”
Her brow furrows just slightly. “If there was a start, it would be starting over, but Kelton, we didn’t even get to start.”
“Then let’s start. Reese, I couldn’t stop thinking about you all night. Every call seemed to take forever knowing that I would see you this morning.”
She shivers. I slip off my fleece jacket, holding it out. She turns and lets me drop it onto her shoulders. I lightly clasp her biceps and lean down to her ear.
“Can we talk in private, please?”
A throat clears behind us. “Miss Dynas, everything’s been unloaded. Can you please check the invoice and then signoff?”
I see the door marked “Private”—her office. The decadent thoughts that go through my mind of putting her up on a desk and worshipping every inch of that soft, olive skin.
“Go to my office. I’ll be there soon.” She has a job to do and I respect that.
I stop in the doorway to her office. It’s immaculate. Everything in its place. So different from my parents’ restaurant, where they were always screaming at each other as to where anything was.
I think back to the night that I came here. It was one of those days. I’d had a flat tire, then found out I was passed up for a promotion, and then I got one of those calls from my mother that gave the term “guilt trip” a new meaning—more like extended guilt stay. Jessica read me the riot act by text last night, and I realized how I’d let my emotions get the best of me.
I sit in the chair next to her desk and then stand. I’m more nervous than I should be. Maybe not nervous…excited. I smile, examining a picture on the wall of her and a large group of people. She looks remarkably like half of them, so I assume it’s her family. There has to be forty or fifty people in the picture. Not once did my parents take the time to get a family picture taken. I’m amazed that all those people would take the time out of their schedules to meet in one place to get this one moment in time in a picture.
She steps into the office and catches me staring at the picture. I would say she was probably still in high school when it was taken.
“My family.”
“I thought so.” I turn to face her while she walks to her desk pushed against one wall and jutting into the eight-by-eight foot space. “They’re not exactly supportive of my endeavor.”
And I gave them ammunition to be less supportive of her success.
Reese sits. “Several of my siblings are supportive. It’s mostly my mother and father. My father wanted someone to take over his businesses, and they expected me to be the one.”
“The businesses?”
“Greek Leaf?”
My stomach burns. “Your family owns all those restaurants?”
“Yes, they own all those and I own this one.” She files the invoice into a paper docking station to her right. Everything has a place in her life. But I want a place too.
“Reese, I want to get to know you better.”
“I have a business to run, one you almost burnt to the ground.”
I wince at the metaphor. “Please don’t say that. I know what a charred business looks like.”
“Oh, yeah.” She closes her eyes and shakes her head. “Okay, you made me think that I’m going to fail. I was so happy with the way things were going and then that review demolished the hope. It singed a little of my courage.”
I lean back against the edge of her desk. “What can I do to make it up to you?”
“You can’t. But Jessica Saunders did. She invited a Boston reviewer to dinner last night, Vanessa—”
“Wolfe,” we say together. I mentally slap myself. I know too much and need to keep my mouth shut.
“Yes.” She looks away. “Anyway, she was here and I’m hoping for a review that might just undo the damage that yours did.”
“Is there any way I can help to make this right?”
“I don’t know, and if I’m being honest, last night was one of our best nights ever. So I can’t hate-hate you.”
“Bad PR is better than no PR at all?” I ask with a little hope.
“I guess so.” She stands and in a step is inches from my body.
Our bodies could snap together like magnets, but I fight it. I don’t need to be taking this woman like that. I need to hold out. We’ll combust if I touch her again. I’m positive of that. Her hand lands on my chest, the delicate pressure tingling my skin under my T-shirt.
Her hand presses harder. I take the hint, I step back. And then back another step and finally, my back hits the wall.
I slowly inhale as her breaths saturate the air with aromas of vanilla and coffee. I don’t drink coffee anymore, but I could drink in this woman any day.
Her body presses into mine. She’s giving me what I want, but I need to know that she’s going to be here after whatever happens between us.
I slip my hand into hers. She looks up and licks her lips. I claim her mouth because I have to. There’s no denying the attraction, the desire that’s in her lax eyes. I’ll show her how we can be more.
Her hands work frantically at my belt. “This doesn’t change anything…” she says, as her hand reaches into my jeans. Her warm petite hand slips around my growing cock. “Oh, God, yes. Holy shit, you’re huge.”
I groan at how my cock pulses and my nuts rise up quickly—too quickly.
I cup her chin and lift her head from looking at my cock. “What do you want, Sugar?”
“I don’t want to want you…” She sighs. “But I do.”
I stare into those eyes that now look more green apple than sage, intense and crisp. “Reese, don’t fight it. I want you. I wanted you before I knew you existed.”
“But…you hurt me.”
I close my eyes. “I didn’t know you. It’s no excuse, but that review was done when I was upset. My parents got to me and I took my sour attitude out on you.” I open my eyes. Sure, the food wasn’t perfect, but two-stars wasn’t enough. “I’m really sorry.”
She looks up, a gloss of tears in her eyes. “Why do you have to be so infuriating and yet so sincere?”
I sigh. “Nature and nurture. My life has been a shithole of the worst of both.”
Her hands cup my face. “I’ve never met a man who could disarm me like you can, Kelton Cassidy. You’re…broken…”
I’m not exactly broken, but she’s not far off. I’m… fissured. The pieces are still together, but looking into her face, I know this woman could shatter me into a thousand pieces.
I reach down and clasp her ass, the round mounds contouring to my hands. I lift her and turn her so her body is up against the wall.
She squeals with delight. “Are you sure you can hold me up?”
“Reese, I’ve been training my whole life for this. I’m going to take you up against this wall and make you scream.”
Her face brightens. The sadness dissipates quickly. We don’t have to be sad anymore. We have each other. I have her.
“I’m sorry for the review, Reese.”
Her hands cup my face. “No more worrying about it, by either of us.”
I smash my mouth to hers. I can’t help myself. Kissing her feels too right. Like the stars have fucking aligned for once in my life. I’m where I’m supposed to be. No one is asking me to leave or be somewhere else. I don’t have sirens going off in my head, and everything is…
Reese.
My tongue twists with hers, undulating slowly, enjoying every moment. The heat the woman gives off is an inferno. Her body grinds against mine. I shift my stance. My jeans drop to the ground.
Convenient.
I lift her hips a little higher and make sure we’re lined up to where I can grind against her pussy. Through our few thin layers—my thin boxers, her yoga pants, and maybe…panties—I can feel a dampness. She’s wet for me and I roll my hips letting my cock brush over that hard nub.
