Southern Hotshot: A North Carolina Highlands Novel

by Peterson, Jessica

  He taps the whisk on the side of the pot. Grabbing two spoons, he dips one in the pot and blows on it before offering it to me. With eyes bright, his grin is somehow rakish and cute all at once.

  “What?” he asks, furrowing his brow. “You not like grits?”

  I need to stop staring, and I really need to stop my heart from swelling so much and so quickly it explodes. But I can’t.

  This is a Samuel I’ve only caught glimpses of—a guy who’s relaxed, effusive, joyful. He looked this way talking about soccarat and sobre mesa. His grin is so different from the big, flashing smiles he gives the rest of the world. It’s soft. Sweet.

  It’s real.

  “I love grits,” I manage as I take the spoon. Our fingers brush, and I’m suddenly short of breath. “Thank you.”

  He grabs a spoon for himself, and we eat our grits at the same time.

  I would never in a million years think of grits as an aphrodisiac. But Samuel’s grits?

  Lord Almighty, they’re making me feel all kinds of sensual. They’re just the right balance of toothsome and creamy. Perfectly seasoned. I savor them and I taste the bite of the sharp cheddar, the slight sweetness of the heavy cream he must’ve used, and the salt and starch and the satisfying richness of the corn.

  I can’t help it.

  I moan.

  I actually moan, and then turn bright red because I’m in a nice family house at a nice family dinner, but here I am having a downright explicit moment all thanks to grits.

  Samuel’s chest barrels out on a laugh. The sound is deep, satisfied, contagious, and I laugh too, holding a hand over my mouth so I don’t spew food everywhere.

  “So you’re saying they give Eli Jackson’s grits a run for their money?” he asks.

  “The last thing I want to do is add hot air to your ego. But yeah. Yeah, those are really, really good. And with this?” I pour him a taste of the Amarone and pass it to him. “It’ll take the entire meal over the top.”

  He sips, then moves the wine around his mouth.

  Then he moans, rolling his eyes in exaggerated pleasure.

  “Am I interrupting something?” Annabel walks into the kitchen, baby on her hip, and heads for the refrigerator. “Or is the wine really that orgasmic?”

  Samuel sets down his glass and nods at me for more. “I’ll definitely be drinking it at my orgy later.”

  “Wow,” I say. “Your Sunday nights sound a lot more interesting than mine.”

  “Right?” Annabel takes a teething ring out of the freezer and holds it up. “This about sums up my plans for today and really every day from now until forever.”

  “I hope some good food will help.”

  “It definitely helps.” She puts a hand on Samuel’s arm. “Thank you. For everything. I really appreciate all that you’re doing for Beau and me.”

  He lowers his voice. Looking out the window at Beau, who’s chatting with Rhett by the fire outside, he says, “I’m trying my best to get my brother to see some sense.”

  Annabel’s smile fades. “I’m trying, but so far I’m failing.”

  “He’ll get there. I’ll keep reminding him what a bonehead he’s being. You keep being you. And Miss Maisie, you just keep being the cutest damn baby ever, all right?” He tickles Maisie’s foot, making her smile.

  I’m not the biggest kid person. But not gonna lie, it makes my heart melt to see Samuel being so affectionate and playful with Maisie. I’m seeing a whole other side of him tonight, and it’s working some kind of murder on my resolve to keep things fucking professional.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Emma

  “In the meantime,” Samuel continues, glancing at Annabel, “you let me know if Beau needs some new breakfast recipes to make for you. He told me how much you liked the bread pudding. I’ve got some good ones up my sleeve. As a matter of fact, why don’t I drop off some lemon and thyme scones in the morning? I’ve got homemade dough ready to go in my freezer—my own riff on Daddy’s lemon pancakes. You’ll just have to pop ’em in the oven and have a cup of coffee while you wait. Beau’s making you coffee, right?”

  “The scones sound amazing. And yes, Beau makes a pot of coffee every morning,” Annabel replies, laughing. “He’s totally spoiling us.”

  “The fact that your man makes you real food and good coffee doesn’t mean you’re spoiled. Means he’s taking care of you right. The way you should be cared for.”

  Be still my beating heart.

  Watching Bel and Samuel, I can see they have a genuine friendship. That surprises me, considering what a curmudgeon Samuel can be.

  Then again, when he’s like this—happy and at home and generous—I get how he could be a great friend. I get how he and Bel could be close. If there’s one thing I’m getting from Sunday supper so far, it’s that Samuel loves his family. I can see him being the type of guy who’d do anything for them and the people they love, Annabel and Maisie included.

  I’m more curious than I should be about what’s going down between Bel and Beau, and how Samuel is helping them out. Not because I’m jealous. But because a guy who cares that much about his people is quite possibly the sexiest thing ever.

  And those scones? I wouldn’t mind having one for breakfast. After I had Samuel, of course.

  He feeds his people, and he works hard for them, but most of all, he seems to get them. He doesn’t judge them or try to change them. He wants them to be happy.

  Why doesn’t he want that for himself?

  And how could such a good guy be such an asshole too?

  “Speaking of good food, dinner’s about ready.” Samuel grunts as he lifts the cast-iron pot out of the oven and sets it on a trivet beside the stove. “Why don’t y’all go grab a seat?”

  I push up the sleeves of my sweater. “I’ll help.”

  “You don’t have—”

  “I want to. I may even let you boss me around a little bit.”

  “Don’t you dare,” Milly says, coming in from the porch. “I hope you’ll give him the swift kick in the ass he deserves.”

  Samuel rolls his eyes, but he’s grinning. “You do that on the daily, sweet sister, so I’m set, thank you very much.”

  I help, but so does everyone else. Samuel garnishes the food. I pour the wine. Hank changes the music, and June helps Annabel change Maisie’s diaper. Beau lights candles, and Milly fills water glasses.

  And while it’s pure chaos getting everyone seated, served, and settled, it’s a fun kind of chaos. At one point, Samuel is coming out of the kitchen carrying that giant cast-iron pot while I’m heading back in for Maisie’s bottle, which Bel left on the table out on the porch. I’m about to step aside to let Samuel pass, but instead, he raises his arms, just like he did yesterday.

  And just like I did yesterday, I grin and duck underneath them. I decide a beat too late that it’s a bad idea to let my arm graze his stomach like it did at the luncheon.

  So it grazes. My body electrifying at the contact. I could be imagining it, but Samuel leans into the touch, close enough that I can smell the detergent on his clothes.

  Again. He’s not wearing his cologne again.

  A bubble of light is rapidly expanding inside my torso by the time I actually sit down to eat.

  “Brother, you did it again,” Hank says, wiping his mouth with a monogrammed napkin that could only belong to Milly. “Best thing I’ve eaten all week.”

  Rhett snickers. June elbows him. “Don’t be crude.”

  “I try, Mama, but it ain’t easy.”

  “You’re the one who’s easy,” Milly says, wagging her brows at him as she eats a forkful of collards.

  Rhett smiles. “I am as God made me.”

  “Y’all,” June says.

  Maisie starts to fuss in Annabel’s lap. Swallowing his first bite, Samuel sets down his utensils and holds out his arms. “Hand her over. I’ll play uncle while y’all eat.”

  “You sure? She’s pretty unfun this time of day,” Bel says.

  �
��Of course I’m sure. Eat.” Samuel’s eyes find mind across the table. “That goes for you too, Emma. Did y’all know our new sommelier here has exquisite taste in wine but thinks protein bars count as real food?”

  “No!” Beau gasps.

  June takes my hand and gives it a squeeze. “I’ll pray for you.”

  Milly just solemnly shakes her head.

  “Thank God you’re here,” Hank says. “I hope we’ve saved you before it’s too late. Eat up, girl.”

  So I eat. And I answer questions and ask some of my own between bites.

  “Why wine?” Milly asks. “I mean, I totally get being obsessed with it. But what made you decide to, you know, devote your life to the stuff?”

  I feel the heat of Samuel’s gaze as I ponder my response. He’s had to get up from his chair in the hopes of helping Maisie chill out, and now he’s doing laps around the dining room while bouncing Maisie in his arms. Every so often, I’ll glance up, and he’s looking at me with this funny gleam in his eyes.

  “I was pre-law throughout all of undergrad,” I say. “I took the LSAT, got into law school, and was set to enroll the fall after graduation. Everyone in my family is a lawyer, so it just seemed like the thing to do.”

  Hank’s eyebrows pop up. “Literally every member of your family?”

  “Literally. My grandparents, my mom, my dad, my sister…everyone. Needless to say, I felt a lot of pressure to follow in their footsteps. I wasn’t crazy about going into law. As a matter of fact, when I committed to law school, I had this terrible feeling in the pit of my stomach, like I knew it wasn’t the right move. It just didn’t feel very me.”

  Milly winces. “I don’t like where this is going.”

  I shrug. “I just didn’t have a particular calling or passion for anything else. My sister had gone to law school a few years before, and my parents were ecstatic about how well she was doing. So I figured I’d go to law school, keep everyone happy, and go from there. And then Spain happened.”

  I glance up to see Samuel looking at me again. “What happened in Spain?” he asks. His eyes are intent on my face, his jaw tight, like he really wants—needs—to know where this story goes.

  “It was spring break my senior year. United was running this insane sale on tickets to Europe, so my friends and I hopped on a plane to Madrid. We took a train to Grenada, which is this cool town in the south famous for its Moorish architecture. On our first night out, we met some of these cute Spaniards at a bar—”

  “Okay, I changed my mind. I really like where this is going,” Milly says, leaning an elbow on the table and resting her chin in her hand.

  I smile. “I wish I had a better ending for you. Nothing crazy happened, but the eight of us sat at this table outside a tiny restaurant overlooking the Alhambra, a gorgeous medieval Moorish palace right out of a Game of Thrones episode. We ate tapas and talked for hours and drank bottle after bottle of this red wine that was maybe ten euros a pop. I still remember how it tasted, how warm the air was while I tasted it, and the happy buzz it gave me. It made us philosophical. Funny. It allowed us to bare ourselves, our true selves, in a way we never had before. As I drank and ate, I realized I’d never talked so frankly with my friends like that. I finally shared how I was feeling about law school, how I had that awful feeling in the pit of my stomach. Saying it out loud made me realize just how wrong the whole thing was. And a lot of that had to do with the fact I was falling in love at that table. Not with a person, but with the truth.”

  “That’s beautiful,” Samuel says. The look in his eyes turns my heart inside out.

  “And naïve.” I swallow. I notice Hank is looking at me too. “I followed that feeling I got at the table—the warm, deep, happy peace that filled me. Again and again, it led me back to wine. Food. A table full of friends. Sharing stories and truths and fears. Look, I get it. At the end of the day, wine is grape juice that gets you drunk. But when I drink it—even just a taste, a sip—I feel seen. Or maybe I allow myself to be seen. It liberated me. When I came back from Spain, I kept following that feeling. It led me to drop out of law school to work in a restaurant cellar instead.”

  Hank’s eyes go wide. “Bet your parents loved that.”

  “They did not.” I smile tightly. “But I get it. They want me to have a nice life, you know? I want that for myself too. So I’ve worked hard to put myself in a position where I can get it. I know that will make them a little proud at least. Still, it’s taken me a long, long time to come to grips with the fact that following my heart meant letting down the people I love. It’s something I still struggle with, especially when I see how my sister’s crushing it in her law career.”

  “Ballsy,” Samuel says. He’s full-on staring at me now, and I have to remember what a dick he was when I first met him or I’ll be falling hook, line, and sinker for the naked admiration in his eyes. “Such a ballsy move, Emma. I mean that as a compliment. I got lucky—my dad and I loved the same things, and were good at the same things, right down to the position we played. If that hadn’t been the case, I don’t think I would’ve been brave enough to do what you did.”

  I meet his eyes. “Give yourself more credit. You’re braver than you think.”

  He holds my gaze for one long, heated beat. I can feel the entire table watching us. I want to look away, but I like this sensation—the feeling of Samuel and me being the only people in the room.

  The sense of belonging and safety that gives me.

  Grabbing my wine, I break eye contact and take a long, thirsty sip. Milly’s looking between Samuel and me with a knowing expression on her face.

  My own face burns.

  “Moral of the story, you fell in love with what wine represented,” Hank says, breaking the silence. “Not necessarily the wine itself.”

  “Exactly.” I clear my throat. “So, Hank. Tell me how you got into guest relations.”

  I get seconds, then thirds of cornbread, using it to sop up the ridiculous gravy Samuel was talking about. Everything is insanely delicious. We go through four bottles of the Amarone, everyone getting just tipsy enough to let loose and laugh. June tells a story about the time she found several pairs of Samuel’s Ninja Turtle underwear underneath the kitchen sink. Upon closer inspection, she discovered they were covered in brown skid marks.

  “Apparently, Samuel was afraid to tell me he pooped his pants,” she says. “So, at the age of six, he hid his undies, thinking I wouldn’t find out.”

  Samuel shrugs. Maisie is asleep on his shoulder. “What? I still hide my dirty undies there. Sometimes, I just get scared shitless.”

  “Seriously, dude, you need to stop getting poopy pants drunk,” Rhett says, howling.

  Beau slaps the table. “What a shitty thing to do.”

  Milly’s rolling her eyes and biting back laughter. “Y’all and the poop jokes. They’re not that funny.”

  “They’re not,” June says, wiping the tears from her eyes.

  I’m laughing so hard the sides of my torso ache.

  By the time we finish dessert, this particularly delicious strawberry strudel type thing, I’m painfully, happily full. Despite working in some of the best restaurants in the Carolinas, I don’t normally eat this well. I don’t have the time or the energy to cook for myself, and Blue Mountain is one of the few places that serves its staff a meal before service.

  “Need a ride home?” Hank asks, handing me the pot he just washed.

  I’m in the kitchen helping clean up. Again, everyone plays a part. Milly wipes down the counters while Rhett loads the dishwasher. Samuel’s filling dishes with leftovers for everyone to take home with them, and Bel and Beau are using dining room clean up duty as an excuse to make out with each other. Hank washes dishes and I’m drying them. There are people and plates everywhere, but it’s weirdly soothing to be in on the action.

  “I’ll take her,” Samuel says.

  “That’s okay,” I reply a little too quickly. “I want to pick Hank’s brain anyway about room service
stuff.”

  It’s not a lie. But the whole truth is I don’t trust myself to be alone with Samuel right now.

  I’ve seen so many sides of the man today. Fierce, loving, funny, generous, cocky. Sensual. I’m attracted to the whole package.

  But I need to accept that we can only be friends. I need to commit to the fact that another man I can have is interested in meeting me.

  With that in mind, I’ll try chalking up my attraction to Samuel to a simple case of shared passions—food, wine, sobre mesa.

  There.

  Done.

  I hope.

  Chapter Twenty

  Samuel

  I give Milly a ride home after supper.

  “Why are you following Hank so closely?” She turns her head to look at me. “You’re gonna rear-end him.”

  My headlights don’t do shit to illuminate what’s happening in Hank’s vintage Bronco ahead of us. I still try to creep closer, thinking if I hit just the right angle, I’ll be able to see what he and Emma are doing. Laughing? Touching?

  So what if they are? But they wouldn’t be, would they, because Emma doesn’t get involved with coworkers.

  Then again, she got involved with me.

  I tighten my grip on the steering wheel. I hate this jealousy, especially when it’s aimed at my little brother. It’s unworthy of the man I’m trying to become.

  “Hello? Earth to Samuel.”

  “Sorry.” I blink, easing up on the gas. “There. That better?”

  Milly’s looking at me. I look back.

  “What?” I ask.

  “You and Emma seem to be getting along.”

  “What about you and Nate Kingsley? I hear y’all are getting friendly.”

  “Stop trying to change the subject. You’ve been happier than usual lately. Since Emma arrived, as a matter of fact. With the exception of right now. Right now, you look kinda…scary.”

  “What? No, I don’t.”