CHAPTER EIGHT
Finn
, I hung up the phone. I tried to shove the hanging plastic sheet out of my way, but it slid down my arms, raising static electricity that had it clinging to my clothes. "Goddammit, when the fuck am I getting a door?" I shouted to no one in particular. I wrestled myself free and stood out in the middle of the open space and shouted to be heard over the noise of the workmen's hammers. "Kyle!"
Our brand new general manager slid off the stool where he'd been perched double checking a shipment of cutlery. "Yeah boss?" he called, coming over to me.
"I just got off the phone with Jasper Hill Winery," I said, trying to keep from raising my voice. "They said they delivered a shipment last Thursday."
Kyle widened his eyes a fraction. I knew he was a recent Culinary Institute grad, but still. He had no business looking so young. And with those kicked-puppy-dog eyes, he looked even younger. The kid was going to need to toughen up fast before this industry chewed him up and spit him out. "They said that?"
"They did," I said carefully. "And the signature on the delivery slip is yours?"
"Oh right!" His face broke out in a smile. "Yeah, I remember now."
"Why do I have no record of this new inventory?" I seethed.
He cocked his head to the side. "You should. I put it on your desk. Remember I told you?"
"No," I gritted. "And you should never just put it on my desk. You should have entered it into the system yourself to keep something like this from happening."
He cocked his head even further, so his head was almost at a forty-five-degree angle to the ground. "But boss," he said, with his brow furrowed so deeply he reminded me of a Shar-pei. "You told me not to do that."
Now it was my turn to wrinkle my brow. "I did?"
He nodded. "Last week. You said no one was to touch the computer except you."
"I did?" I had absolutely no recollection of this. "Well that wasn't very smart of me."
Kyle grinned. "I thought you must have a method."
I blinked. "I do, yup, definitely," I said, trying to recover my poise. "Do you remember where you put the inventory slip?"
He nodded. "Right on your desk."
My desk was a brushfire waiting to happen. I swallowed, not wanting to seem as out of control as I felt. "Good," I nodded. "Thanks."
"You got it, boss," Kyle said, then went back to his cutlery.
I stood there for a second, feeling completely adrift. There was no way I could have missed that inventory slip, especially since I was looking for it.
But clearly, I had.
I was losing it.
"I'm going out," I called back to the kitchen. "Need to clear my head."
Jackson emerged, his chef's whites somehow immaculate even in all the dust and chaos. "You okay?" he asked.
I pinched the bridge of my nose between my fingers. "Not sure," I confessed. "Hope so."
Pushing my way out the front door, I blinked to emerge in the evening sunlight. My stomach growled a little, reminding me that Jackson hadn't served family meal yet. He was down in the weeds with his menu, working through a form of writer's block, and I knew not to push him too hard lest he shove right back.
But damn, I was really getting hungry.
I stretched up, lifting my face to the sun for a moment before dropping to touch my toes. I'd been missing gym time in the crush to get everything ready for opening day and I was definitely feeling it. Probably was the reason my mind was so fogged up that I'd missed an inventory slip all together.
I took a deep breath, and as I did, I heard the sound of a motor turning down the quiet dead-end.
My body reacted before my mind did, turning so I could face her head on as she drove up in her old-man car, the back covered in bumper stickers. She lifted her fingers off the steering wheel in greeting, then came to a screeching halt in front of her store.
Jackson and I had spent this morning scrubbing every trace of graffiti from those bricks. The solvent Jackson found probably murdered a few brain cells, but it was effective as hell.
And Bee was noticing. I couldn't help but grin and she threw her car in park, and stepped out of the driver's seat, staring at her newly pristine storefront.
Her mouth opened and then closed silently, and then she turned towards me. I could see the question forming on her lips, but she swallowed it back down again. "How are you?" she called instead.
A weird sort of tug-of-war was going on in my head. On the one hand, I hated that she didn't know I had helped her this way. Doing things without getting credit for them? That wasn't my style.
But on the other hand, I liked that I'd made things a little easier for her. From what I'd seen, she'd done everything herself. No team, no family members helping out front. She seemed to be all alone in the world and trying to make her own way through stubbornness and sheer force of will.
I understood that on a deeply personal level.
"I'm good!" I called out in answer to her question. "Getting an early start tonight?"
"I needed to come in early to—" she paused and looked again at her clean storefront. "I, ah, had some things I thought I should take care of."
There was a pinched, exhausted look to her face that ignited something inside of me. Jackson always laughed and called me a mother hen when I checked up on his health. But I couldn't help it. And Bee looked like she needed a good meal and a nap. And maybe an hour or two of my face between her thighs.
The thought was too goddamn tempting for words. “Have you eaten?" I called.
"What?"
"Food? Dinner?"
She came closer. Her eyes were wide and wary and I felt a strong urge to punch whoever it was that had made her so cautious. "What?" she asked again.
"Have you eaten?"
"I'm a baker," she said with a cheeky little grin. "I have to taste my batches."
I licked my lips and smiled back. Her grin was infectious. "I mean, real food."
"You're saying my cupcakes aren't real food?"
"Man doesn't live by cupcake alone."
"Yeah?" she bit her lip, eyes shining with mischief. She ran her fingers along her side, taking in her full, heavy breasts and wide, sensuous hips. I swallowed hard. "But woman sure can."
"And it's clearly working out well for you," I told her, stepping closer.
Her breath caught in her throat. At first I wondered what I was hearing. Was it fear? But then I saw the flush that spread across her cheeks. I pressed my lips closed to contain the growl of desire that roared up my throat. "You think so?" she asked, her voice a little higher than usual.
"If cupcakes are what gave you this body, then yeah." Her eyes flashed a little, and I wondered if I'd pushed too far.
But her full pink lips fell open a little and then curled upward into a smile.
"I'd like to try them," I told her. "Your cupcakes and..."
"My buns?"
My throat suddenly went dry. "Yeah," I choked out. "Your buns." Holy shit, my dick was about to rip through my pants. She was close enough that I could smell her, and my breath was coming so rapidly that her scent filled my lungs. All the stress of the restaurant was falling away and the world seemed to dial down to a pinprick where all that mattered was the shape of her lips and the overwhelming need I had to taste them. Right now.
"Finn-y!" Jackson's voice cut through the haze in my head. "Food!"
Anger flashed in my brain. I turned to see him standing there in the doorway with a smug fucking smile on his face.
"Jackson's calling you," Bee said helpfully. She was looking over to the restaurant with an odd expression on her face. I didn't like it. I wanted her to be looking at me again.
But the spell was broken. She took a step back. "Enjoy your dinner," she said politely.
"You should come over," I said hastily. "Try the menu we're working on."
"Yeah, I'd like that."
"How about now?"
She seemed amused. "I've got work to do tonight."
"But we already cleaned off the graffiti for you."
Her eyes flashed and suddenly her expression was cool. "You did that?"
"Yes," I said, nodding my head and completely disavowing Jackson. "I saw that..."
"You didn't need to do that," she said.
Her voice was icy. I was confused. "I know, but it seemed like you needed the help."
"I don't need help," she said through gritted teeth.
"No, I know but..." How did I keep fucking this up with her? "We just wanted..."
"What do you mean 'we'?"
I rolled my eyes inwardly. Fucking amateur mistake, Finn. "Me and Jackson did it. This morning."
She straightened up and squared her shoulders. "Thank you both," she said stiffly. "But I can take care of myself."
And without another word she turned and headed into her shop.