CHAPTER TWO
Finn
definitely seen something, though I wasn't sure what. Something, or someone, slipping out of sight in the shadows, but when I turned my head there was nothing there. Nothing except the darkened street and the moon overhead.
"We need fucking streetlights," I muttered to myself as I opened the door to Indigo. I made a mental note to call the town about that tomorrow.
One more thing on the list. But tonight, we were ticking a big one off and I was excited.
I walked in to the restaurant, nodded at Jackson and sat down in front of the test dish. The pretty line cook stood in front of us both with a pleased little grin.
I glanced at Jackson. He raised his eyebrow noncommittally. I gave a small nod in return and bent over the plate in front of me.
It was delicious. Every bite a delicately composed symphony of taste. The more I ate, the more I stared at her. She gave a smug grin in return. She was good and she knew it.
Could she be the one? After all this time? My breath was coming in short gasps now, like I'd run a marathon, and in a way, I sort of had. But maybe, just maybe it was coming to an end? Was the finish line in sight?
"What do you think?" she asked, a glimmer of hesitation in her voice that made me clench my fist. How could she wonder when it was so obvious? She was it, she was the one, she was...
"...Not working for me, sorry," Jackson sniffed.
I twisted in my chair to glare at him. "Are you fucking kidding me?" I hissed, throwing my napkin down and gesturing at his full plate. "You've had one bite!"
But Jackson was already pushing his chair back from the table, the elegantly plated remains of the test dish sitting in front of him, barely touched. Frantic hope was still coursing through my veins, but it ebbed away when I looked at the stubborn set of his jaw.
"Goddamn it," I exhaled.
The pretty little line cook's smile dropped into a frown. "Really?" she whimpered, breaking my heart into a million fucking pieces. I opened my mouth to comfort her, maybe tell her to ignore the asshole to my left, but Jackson cleared his throat.
"You're good at what you do, honey," my best-friend-the-asshole said patiently. "But what you do is not what I am looking for."
I gritted my teeth to keep from protesting. We'd agreed on how this would go a long time ago. I was in charge of the business, everything that had to do with turning this restaurant into the money-making cash cow I envisioned. Jackson had agreed to defer to me in all of the hiring decisions.
"Except my kitchen," he'd declared. "That belongs to me."
Fucking chefs, man.
The pretty little line cook pouted for a second, then, seemingly over it, she threw down the custom apron we'd loaned her for the demo, with the old version of our logo still emblazoned across the front. We'd gone through three design changes since that version because, just like everything else that had to do with opening this new restaurant, Jackson and I had argued viciously about it. Or rather I'd yelled — and thrown a couple things too — while he sat that with that fucking arrogant smirk on his face. "I don't care about this shit," he'd told me for the millionth time. "I just want to cook. When can I cook?"
"You want to cook?" I hissed at him now, as the line cook gathered her knife set. "Then you need to fucking hire a staff!"
"I am," he said with an exasperated eyeroll. "I'm trying to find the perfect fit."
My blood felt like the sizzle of water against a red-hot pan. "Perfect doesn't fucking exist!" I exploded.
Jackson's mouth betrayed no sign of hearing me, but I knew him well enough to see it. That tiny little glimpse of panic in his eyes. He would never admit to it, hell I think he'd rather stab his eye out with his boning knife before he admitted it, but he was scared.
Good.
I was too.
We'd sunk everything into this move. A fresh start for both of us, and I believed with all of my heart that we were on to something. Moving to Reckless Falls right as it was poised to go from dusty old family vacation spot to a world-class, high end resort town, that could only be good for us. I knew Jackson was looking to earn his second four-star chef rating, and me, I was ready to use all the shit I'd learned about making money for other people to start making some money for myself.
"Let me see you out," I said to the line cook with a sigh. She wouldn't meet my eyes as I led her through the unfinished front end. The smell of just-cut lumber and the strangely astringent scent of unhung drywall hung in the air. The front atrium was still hung with plastic to keep out the elements, and I ducked under it first to sweep it out of her way.
It was only then that I saw the red spots blazing on her cheek. "He's a fucking asshole," she hissed furiously.
I took a deep breath. "I know," I told her, in all seriousness. "But he's a genius. And he's never wrong."
She stared at me, openmouthed as I opened the door. "Good luck," I told her.
Then I let the door close and dug the heels of my hands into my eyeballs before I headed into my unfinished office to yell at a few of our suppliers.
After what felt like only minutes, the plastic that hung in my office doorway crinkled. "Are you ever coming out of there?" Jackson asked.
I leaned back in my chair and stretched. "Why?"
"Because I'm heading out."
"What time is it?"
"Two thirty in the morning."
I rubbed my eyes furiously. "Jesus. How?"
Jackson shrugged.
"Jesus," I repeated, leaning back in my chair. “This place eats time. And here I thought I'd have a new hire to celebrate..." I glared at him
"She wasn't right," Jackson repeated from the other side of the plastic sheeting. "All flash. No foundation in the basics. If that's the kind of bullshit graduate the Culinary Institute is putting out these days, I need to give Tom a call."
I looked up, pressing my lips together to keep the torrent of anxiety from spilling out. "Okay," I finally said, shoving the plastic aside and heading back out into our raw space. "So we're supposed to be opening in time to catch the height of the summer season." I pinched the bridge of my nose between my fingers. "But, Jacky-boy—" Jackson's eyes narrowed at this hated nickname, so of course I made sure to use it again. "Jacky-boy, can I be frank with you? You're fucking everything up."
He regarded me with that same amused grin he always wore. Like this was all a big joke and didn't matter to him because he knew I'd fix it.
And most of the time he was right.
"You told me that I was in charge of hiring the kitchen staff, Finn."
"Yeah, but when I said that, I thought you might actually fucking hire someone."
"No one in this shit town knows how to julienne a carrot much less cook a steak sous-vide."
I glared at him. He shook his head. "Don't fucking say it."
You could have hired half the staff at your old place if you'd just played nice. "I'm not saying it," I said. I'd already said it a billion times before.
Jackson's lip curled. "Yeah but you're thinking it loud and clear."
"You know I'm right."
"Nothing wrong with burned bridges, so long as you're on the right side," he intoned loftily.
"Jacky-boy you didn't burn them. You fucking nuked them from orbit."
"Yeah well," he mumbled. And without another word, he turned on his heel and headed back to the half-done kitchen.
I took a deep breath. We'd been working sixteen hour days. I was hemorrhaging money like crazy and Jackson still hadn't worked out a menu he was happy with. The opening date I'd announced in all the press releases, the one that had seemed to comfortably far away, was closing in fast. Only a month to go.
I sighed again, rubbing my eyes, and when I opened them again, it was like I'd seen the light.
The light next door that was.
She was working.
Indigo was situated in a prime location in a new strip of waterfront development carved out of an old marina. All around us were the shells of new construction, some finished, some still unfinished and looming over us like dinosaurs skeletons in a museum.
But there was one place that was open and ready for business and it sat right next door to us, across a shared alleyway that led to the back. The huge plate glass window I'd had installed here on the corner to give the widest possible view of the water also gave a pretty nice view of Honey Bee's, a sweet little bakery run by her.
Her. That's what I called her, because I didn't know her name. I just knew that seeing her bustle around in her shop at night — baking all those sweet things in preparation for the morning — was the brightest damn spot in my day lately.
Maybe once the restaurant opened I'd have time to go over there and actually say hello.