Total pages in book: 160
Estimated words: 153268 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 766(@200wpm)___ 613(@250wpm)___ 511(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 153268 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 766(@200wpm)___ 613(@250wpm)___ 511(@300wpm)
“You must know some servers looking for a job.” I began pacing. Service opened in less than thirty minutes, and I had left Taylor, my sous-chef, to handle the kitchen while trying to extinguish this fire.
Rhy gave me a concerned look. “Not anyone desperate enough to work for your grumpy ass. Flip side? You’re about to run off to London to open your shiny, new restaurant.”
Flip side, my ass. He knew me better than that. My perfectionism wouldn’t allow this ship to sink, even if it had a hole the size of Antarctica at the bottom. Descartes was still mine, until it closed. I’d die before I failed.
“Hold on a minute.” Rhyland held up his finger, brows pinching into a tight V. “Why are you dressed like an Italian mobster who got lost at a Neiman Marcus store?”
I looked down. I wore a black dress shirt and designer slacks, a departure from my signature Henley and black, ripped denim uniform.
“Is it a crime to look good?” I really didn’t need him riding my ass about Cal right now.
“Hope the fuck not.” Rhyland pulled another beer from the fridge, uncapped it, and slid it my way across the bar. “I’d get life without parole, and do you know what they do to people like me in prison?” He gestured toward his face.
“Ten hours of community service and sex addiction rehab?” I asked conversationally. Someone needed to keep his ego from overtaking the continent. I was doing the whole nation a service.
“Oh shit.” Rhyland slapped the back of his neck. “Artem Litvin passed away. You went to his funeral today, right?”
Better get it over with. Rhy was going to find out sooner or later that Cal was in town. “He was the one teacher at school I didn’t want to set on fire.” I shrugged, bringing the bottle to my lips.
“So you saw Cal.” Rhyland’s eyebrows were floating somewhere above the atmosphere.
“Briefly,” I grunted.
“Wanna talk about it?”
“Hard pass. She did enough talking for the entire decade.”
“Still adorably weird, I see.” He plastered his palms against the designer bar between us. “Well, if you wanna talk about it, we can grab a beer after we close.”
Rhy and I never “talked” about things. We bickered and taunted. Sometimes even brawled. Had I really been that pathetic growing up? I remembered being in love with her, but I didn’t recall handing her my nuts in a flower bouquet for Valentine’s Day.
I banged the empty beer over the bar after one sip, pointing at the thick butcher block between us. “Clean up the condensation before we open. This is not amateur hour.”
“Just remember you are not that kid anymore.” Rhyland produced a rag from a drawer behind the bar, slapping it over his shoulder. He made his way back to me. “You know, the one who’d have stayed here getting a McJob if it meant she let you in her flowery corduroy pants.”
“Shut up.”
“Eyes on the prize, Row. You can’t afford to veer off plan. You have a new restaurant to open.”
“Listen to yourself,” I snarled, fingers tightening around the shape of my cigarette pack in my front pocket. “I’m not changing shit for anyone.”
“She eats saltine crackers with a fork.” He slid the rag over the butcher block, wiping the condensation and ignoring my words. “Anyone deserves better than that. Even your sorry ass.”
I still remembered Cal sitting with those saltines at my kitchen table, acting a fool because she didn’t like the way the salt clung to her fingers. Rhy was right. The woman was barely civilized. I had no business thinking about her, let alone pining after her. Was she even a woman? She was still acting like a child. She needed a babysitter, not a boyfriend. And I wasn’t interested in either position.
“Enough,” I barked out. “I’m at no risk of liking Calla Litvin again. Not from afar and definitely not up close. You’re wasting your breath talking about her. You have twenty-four hours to find us two new servers.” I rapped my knuckles on the bar. “Get your ass in gear.”
Rhyland downed the rest of his beer, heaving out a sigh. “Denial ain’t just a river in Egypt.”
I flipped him the bird, trekking my way to the kitchen. “No fraternizing with the patrons!” I called out, as I did every night.
“No promises,” he called back, as he did every night too.
The evening couldn’t get worse if a meteor landed directly on my fucking head.
I was wrong.
The evening got worse.
Exponentially so and at a plane-crashing speed. Hot mess would be putting it mildly.
On the outside, it looked normal. Expensive utensils clinked in harmony; chatter rustled through the aromatic air. There was laughter, hushed conversations, and upholstered chairs scraping softly. The kitchen sweltered, the scents of sweet marjoram, thyme, and rosemary clinging to my nostrils. I loved the sensory overload that came with helming a restaurant. The fast-paced culture of it. It drowned out my fucked-up thoughts and forced me to focus on the here and now. And there were a lot of fucked-up thoughts, courtesy of my messy childhood.