Players to Lovers (4 Book Collection)

by Ketley Allison

  My voice surprises them both. Pedro’s hand drops from Alan’s—the waiter with the soft green eyes—bicep. They drift apart and stare at me.

  “You?” Pedro says.

  He can’t even see my bottom half under the table, yet I feel his eyes rake me from head to toe anyway.

  “Yes, me. I’ve been a bartender, waitress, or hostess for years. Sometimes all in the same eatery.”

  Pedro mouths eatery like it’s a foreign word.

  “Why not?” Alan says to Pedro.

  “I can think of—well. You’re not in the proper attire,” Pedro says to me.

  “She can borrow my spare uniform,” Alan pipes in, despite Pedro’s shush face.

  Alan takes a look at me, but not in the way Pedro did. “A few tucks and folds, and we can make it fit.”

  “But you’re the chef’s … special guest,” Pedro says to me.

  I want to assure him there’s nothing special about me. That I’ve come in and set fire to both Ash’s and my planned course in life, and he buys me clementines while we try and figure out our new paths.

  “I’ve been itching to do something useful since stepping into New York City,” I say. After dabbing my lips with a napkin, I stand. “And I’d like to help him out. To thank him.”

  Gears twist and creak in Pedro’s head, probably wondering what I want to thank Ash for, who I am, and how I came to sit in the prized table probably reserved for many of the guests mingling at the bar.

  I show him nothing. “Thanks for the uniform, Alan. Where can I find it?”

  “I’ll take you. Calm down, honey,” Alan says to Pedro. “This is a gift horse. You like gifts. Accept this present from our special guest.”

  “I promise, I’m experienced,” I say.

  “I … oh, Lord.” Pedro sighs. “I’m desperate enough to do it. Try not to have the boss catch wind of this. He’s hard to read on a good day.”

  “Blame it on me. Tell him I wanted to pay off my dinner the old-fashioned way,” I say, then follow Alan through another door to the staff lockers.

  Alan’s black button-down shirt and slacks are way too big but narrow enough that with expert folding of the sleeves and hems, a few safety pins in the back and a strategically tied black apron sash, I can pass as a hostess at Apron.

  I pull an emergency hair-tie I always have from my wrist and throw my wayward hair up into a bun.

  Alan takes a step back and purses his lips. “Can we lose the glasses?”

  “Is there something wrong with them?”

  “It doesn’t scream front-of-the-house. It whispers backroom accountant.”

  I roll my eyes. “Tell it to me straight, why don’t you.”

  “Hey, it’s New York City. What can I say?”

  Unfortunately, I believe him. “I have contacts in my purse. Hang on.”

  Alan turns away while I peer into the fogged-over mirror and put the contacts in, not because he’s attempting to give me privacy—he saw all my goods when I stripped and he poked and prodded a uniform onto my body—but because, as he loudly declared, people touching their own eyeballs grosses him out.

  “Done,” I say, and spin from the mirror. “Well?”

  “Hang on.” Alan sorts through his duffel and pulls out a cosmetics bag with more make-up than a suburban teenage girl who loves department store shopping.

  “Holy,” I say. “That’s a ton of make-up.”

  He pulls out a black eyeliner pencil and wipes the tip with an alcohol swab before handing it to me. “Pedro and I do drag on weekends, and some weeknights. I’m always prepared.”

  “More prepared than I’ll ever be,” I say, then turn back to the mirror and draw on little wings at the corners of my eyes. “I can’t remember the last time I wore make-up.”

  “Here.” Alan hands me red lipstick next, prepped with another alcohol swab. “Try this on.”

  I do, harking back to my days before data-entry and computers became my job, enjoying the familiar flicks of my wrist and smacking of my lips. I miss those moments when I felt free, when my phone was silent because no family member had the number, and all I had to do the next day was make sure I had my passport.

  “What’s your drag name?” I ask him as he gives me a tissue to blot my lips.

  “Alana Bama.”

  I smile. “And Pedro’s?”

  “Peppercorn. But don’t you dare tell him I told you.”

  “Never.” But I giggle, picturing the stern, sphincter-clenched Pedro as a pink Peppercorn.

  “Okay. What do you think?” I ask Alan.

  “I think,” Alan muses, “That in pants and a long-sleeved shirt, you give Stephanie a hell of a run for her money.”

  “Stephanie?”

  “The last hostess,” Alan says, enunciating the last syllable. “Official word is, she made too many mistakes, but I overheard her talking to Lara, one of our bartenders, saying it’s because the boss slept with her and didn’t want her around anymore.”

  The drop in my gut has nothing to do with the lime residing there.

  “Oh?” I manage to respond as Alan cups my elbow and directs me out of the staff room.

  “He’s known for it. Before he opened this place, he made the rounds on a ton of waitresses I know, and hostesses, and Lord knows who else. It would come as no surprise if Steph was number one-thousand-and-two—oh, shit.”

  Alan freezes in the brick corridor we’re wandering through before entering the dining area.

  “What?”

  “You’re his friend, right? You’re here as his guest. Fuck, I’m an idiot. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t be gossiping about my boss, never mind to his fucking friend. Or are you family of his? A cousin?”

  “No, I’m not—I can’t really—”

  “Double triple fuck. I can’t handle my own mouth sometimes. And I don’t even know your name.”

  “Sophie,” I say, latching on to the chance to change the subject.

  Alan lays a hand on my arm. “Well, Sophie, I apologize profusely. Come to one of my shows, and I’ll make it up to you in spades. Until then, here comes Pedro. Good luck.”

  Alan drifts away, and Pedro snaps his fingers, ushering me through the dining room, past the multitudes of people and noise that didn’t bother me before, and to the front podium, where menus and people await.

  You asked for this.

  You wanted to thank Ash.

  While you’re staying at his place, and he’s sleeping around.

  While you’re carrying his baby.

  Deep breaths. I must breathe deep, because if I don’t, I’ll ruminate on all the ways I’m an idiot and how maybe, just maybe, I should’ve accepted child support payments by the court and nothing else from this man.

  Most of all, I pity myself. It was my decision to say yes to Ash and come back with him. It was my choice to keep this pregnancy. Ash and I had a one-night stand, where all I wanted to do was lose my virginity and go back to being free. Not once did Ash tell me he was a good guy, that sleeping with him would mean loyalty and stability and sweetness. He had no obligation to. I didn’t want him to.

  I thought my heart was safe here in New York. That my brain had talked enough sense into me. This baby is more important than Ash, than me, than the things we do and mistakes we make.

  Everything I do, I must do for the little lime growing inside me.

  Remember that.

  “Hi, welcome to Apron,” I say to a waiting couple at the podium with a smile plastered to my face, forced so wide, it hurts. “Can I get a name for your reservation, please?”

  14

  Ash

  The kitchen is chaos.

  Calls for orders, line cooks throwing together vegetables, sous chefs searing meats, steam crawling toward the ceiling and sweat dotting our brows, every single one of us here in the back has a job to do. Sometimes four. And I take on all of them.

  Dishwasher, if needed. Chef, waiter, busboy. I’ll do it all, because my restaurant means my name, and nothing an
d no one will tarnish it.

  It’s been hours since I left Sophie to dine on my food, time crushing into increments of orders, substitutions, desserts, and an unexpected Merlot shortage. I haven’t made any appearances in the dining area, too busy to mingle, but I’ve peeked over a few times to where Sophie was seated and, noting the new party of four seated there, assume she called Charlie and made it home.

  In the midst of wiping spots of sauce off coffee bean encrusted rib-eye plates, I glance up into the dining area, getting a gauge on how the dwindling crowd is doing up front. We have maybe one more round of service to go before Apron closes for the night.

  And what I see is not Pedro.

  I squint.

  Straighten.

  Throw the stained dishtowel over my shoulder and navigate through the other chefs until I’m in the kitchen archway.

  I grab the first waiter I find. “Who’s that?”

  The man follows my gaze to the woman in black at the hostess stand, the dark color doing nothing to disguise her shapely ass.

  “No idea, sir.”

  I cock my head. She hasn’t turned around, but the more I stare at it, the more I recognize that peachy rump.

  No fucking way …

  “Find Pedro for me, will you?” I say to the waiter who’s already scampering out of sight.

  Instead of waiting for my manager’s location, I head to the front, nodding absently to compliments passed my away, but being forced to pause at a few tables and smile beguilingly at a few VIP guests.

  At last, I make it to the front, and the closer I get—yep, it’s Sophie Addison, dressed in my waitstaff’s uniform, hair up in as tight a bun as she can with all those wayward curls, voice calm and assuring as she speaks to guests and taps away on a tablet like this is her third week working here.

  She finishes discussing seating arrangements with a young couple, and I sidle up next to her, cupping her elbow gently and saying into her ear, “Care to explain?”

  Sophie looks up at me, and I forcefully have to tell my fingers not to clench her arm.

  She’s removed her glasses, her beguiling stare on full display, rimmed in black kohl that punches seduction into my gut. Her lips are a devil’s red, and I want to cover them instantly and take the demon for my own.

  “I was told of the abrupt loss of your hostess,” she says. Then adds, “Ash?”

  I blink the surprise of her away, my hand falling from her elbow. “And you were second-in-line to host?”

  Sophie doesn’t answer. She turns back to the couple. “This is our head chef and owner. Isn’t he handsome?”

  The woman nods with enthusiasm, the man bringing his lady a little tighter to his side. I’m too busy wondering what the hell Sophie is up to.

  “The food will absolutely blow you away,” Sophie continues. “Allow me to escort you to your table.”

  Sophie certainly talks like she knows what she’s doing. I don’t move from the front, instead following her with my eyes as she leads the couple to a middle table, pulls out a chair for the woman, and lays down their menus. Her face lights up when the man says something, and she laughs casually, her plump red lips thinning with mirth, then nods and says something in reply.

  There’s a tap on my arm.

  “You’re the head chef?” someone says nearby.

  Clearing my throat, and the vision of her, I focus my attention on incoming guests. I accept compliments on both the decor of the restaurant and my tattoo sleeves, forgetting that I’d rolled up my sleeves and didn’t roll them down before entering the dining room.

  Sophie returns, and I politely cut off the question from a man as to why I have a dragon’s tail on my forearm and shouldn’t it be a chef’s knife since I’m a chef, and ask her, “Can we talk?”

  She frowns down at the tablet, containing an electronically efficient seating chart that I found so necessary a few hours ago and is now annoying the shit out of me. “There’s still a lot to get through. I’ve just gotten a handle on this thing.”

  “Yes, and apparently since it’s me you work for, I’ll make sure your hourly pay isn’t docked for the break.”

  Sophie’s lips pull to the side. “I don’t expect to be paid. I’ve just eaten dinner here—”

  I spot Pedro in the corner of my eye and take the advantage. “Pedro. Man the front, like you are supposed to. I need to take our new employee to the back for a discussion.”

  “I can explain,” Pedro says. “It was so packed, and waitstaff needed—”

  “I don’t care.”

  Pedro’s mouth clamps shut.

  “Sophie?” I say. “With me.”

  Sophie sends an apologetic look to Pedro before following, which I don’t find pleasant. It means the two of them conspired.

  We walk through the kitchen, dodging traveling plates and burgeoning smells of rosemary, thyme and lemon from my new fish dish, before reaching the stairs to the second floor.

  It’s much colder in the corridor, the heat of cook-fires falling behind as we ascend the staircase surrounded by red brick walls. Sophie’s footfalls are light behind me, but she doesn’t ask incessant questions, or launch into excuses and explanations.

  After unlocking my office door, I allow her entry first, before coming in myself and shutting the door behind us.

  “Why didn’t you just ask?” I say to her.

  Sophie shrugs. “It was a last-minute thing. I overheard Pedro discussing the problems up front with Alan and figured I could help.”

  “By jumping in on one of our busiest nights without any prior training?” I’m not about to admit that by all appearances, she was doing a great job.

  “It was better than what Pedro was doing.”

  “Should you even be on your feet this long?”

  “I’m pregnant, not disabled.”

  The snap of her tone gives me pause. “What’s going on?”

  Her shoulders slump, and she doesn’t take any of the available seats in the office. “When I was listening to Pedro, I realized how restless I was. The idea of working and being busy was like a siren’s call. And before you get your pants in a twist, I’ve hosted before. Many times.”

  I try to read into what she’s saying. “You’re not locked in my apartment. You can leave, do what you want, any time.”

  She nods. “I can’t argue with that. You provide me with anything and everything I could possibly need.”

  I don’t hear satisfaction in her tone. Sincerity, yes, but something hollow remains within it. “There’s still something wrong.”

  “I … this was something in my control, Ash. A decision I could make on the fly. God, I miss making those kinds of choices, you know? The ones with little consequence? Like, hey, let me work for a few hours, make a few bucks, meet some strangers. And when I’m done? I can eat more delicious food. Such a win-win. No life-altering effects with that kind of evening on my docket.”

  A snap of clarity hits me between the shoulders. It never occurred to me that Sophie would be struggling with the pregnancy as much as I was. That she could be suffering with the what-ifs, ruminating over the future, wondering how the paths she chooses will affect the little one when it’s born.

  “I didn’t know that being here in New York was a difficult decision for you,” I say.

  “That’s because you don’t talk to me.” Sophie’s voice cracks, but she breathes through it and recovers. “I have no idea what you want, Ash. The minute I learned you didn’t want to be a father, I started figuring shit out. For myself. For the lime.”

  “The—?”

  “Lime. Yes. That’s what I’m calling it. Then you show up at my apartment, promising me the world, so long as it didn’t have you in it. You give me your home, your car, your food, your friends—the list goes on and on.”

  I push my brows together. “And … you don’t want that?”

  “You just don’t get it, do you?” She stares at me, unblinking, eyes watering. “I liked you, Ash. You’re gorgeous. Mysteriou
s. Funny. Devoted to your craft. I had the biggest crush on you. And maybe, if I could’ve just had sex with you then walked away, I could’ve kept living my life as is. I was happy, in my personal sense. You could’ve walked away and lived the way you wanted, with this restaurant and your women. But that’s not what turned out for us. I got pregnant. There’s a piece of you inside me that will always be there now, no matter what. And you’ve made clear it’s a piece you’re willing to part with. But stop giving me your home, your car, your friends. Stop giving me smoothies. Your kindness is painful.”

  “I’m only trying to help.”

  “I know that. I know. But it only makes me sad. It’s partially my fault, for accepting this, thinking it’s the best way to lessen both our guilt. But Ash, it only hurts me more. Doing this. Being here.”

  I don’t know what to say. Her words are so deep, I can’t snag them. I’ve dealt with many women. Angry, upset, passionate, loving, composed. But I’ve never dealt with this.

  Sophie sighs, and the way she stares through the space between us and into me, I’m sure she sees every scratch of indecision etched into my bones, every ounce of attraction that keeps building for her, despite the very real fact that she is not a woman I can fuck around with. I can’t tell her that this pregnancy, this lime, is not a baby, not to me, not yet.

  Her stomach isn’t showing, her body hasn’t changed. But for the words I’m pregnant, Sophie is a woman I can’t shake from my mind, and one I would have bedded, again and again, until she was out of my system.

  Though, I’m not so sure Sophie is like the others. Even before this. She’s entered my system through a different, hidden vein.

  But Sophie doesn’t see any of this.

  She doesn’t, because with crestfallen precision, Sophie moves around me and to the door. I hear it open and shut quietly, her descending footfalls indecipherable through the wall between us.

  I don’t know how far she gets before I turn on my heel. Or what room she’s in by the time I pull open the door and slam down the stairs. If she’s made it out of the kitchen when I burst into it, looking for her.

  There. A blonde head, moving through the white and black of my staff, headed for the dining room.