Chapter Ten
“You look like hell.”
My lip curled at Dillon as I slid across from her in the vinyl-cracked booth. “Good morning to you too.”
“I mean, clearly something’s up,” she went on. Not the least bit apologetic. “Are you feeling all right? Do you have the flu?”
“No flu.”
“It’s cancer then.” She leaned forward, sliding her hands toward me over the Formica tabletop. “Oh my God. You have cancer. Don’t’ worry, friend, you also have me. We’re going to fight this, K. Fight it with all we got.”
I threw my hands in the air before she could touch me. “Has anyone ever told you how obnoxious you are?”
She grinned at me. “Nope.”
“You’re obnoxious.”
Her expression didn’t falter. “Yeah, but that doesn’t count because you love me.”
“I’m reconsidering actually.”
She stuck out her tongue and handed me a menu at the same time. Saturday mornings we always grabbed brunch at the Blue Pelican. It was this hole in the wall dive that served the best corned beef hash on the planet.
“This is how I know I’m right,” she murmured. “You’re so grumpy today.”
I raised an eyebrow. “I thought you knew you were right by how I looked?”
She waved a hand at me. “I was giving you a hard time. I mean… your eyes are a little bloodshot today, but the eyeliner helps. It looks good on you. You never wear it.”
Staring hard at the menu in front of me, I didn’t comment. I didn’t usually wear makeup to work, especially not eyeliner. I was more of a waterproof mascara and hydrating primer kind of girl. But Dillon was right about my eyes. And the bags underneath them. Also, how my hair had decided to misbehave and get all wild on me—even with half of it knotted on the top of my head. I was a mess today.
“It’s okay,” I relented. “I didn’t sleep at all last night. I’m exhausted.”
“You need a night off.”
I smirked at her. “That isn’t going to happen.”
“You’re all…” She made hand gestures that put her at a cross between a zombie version of Frankenstein and a chipmunk having a seizure. “Tightly wound.”
She had no idea.
The waiter stopped to take our order. Dillon got the roasted tomato and poblano egg white mini quiches and I got a cup of coffee.
“Are you sure you don’t want something to eat?” our regular server, Dan, asked.
“Um, maybe the oatmeal? With the berries and brown sugar.”
Dan’s eyebrows raised, but he didn’t comment. Dillon wasn’t as kind.
“Oh my God. It is cancer.”
“Shut it.”
“Oatmeal, Ky? Oatmeal? How bad is it? Stage four? Stage five? Oh my God. Is it stage ten?”
Staring at my gorgeous, talented, super ditzy friend, I wondered whether to bring up Wyatt now or tackle her severely irrational fear of cancer. “I think cancer only has four stages. I think stage ten is dead.”
She pounded a dainty fist on the table. “That’s not the point!”
I needed to put her out of her misery. That was the kind thing to do. But I couldn’t seem to get the words to leave my mouth. They sat on my tongue, making it numb and immovable.
Rip the Band-Aid, Kaya. Tear that motherfucker right off. “Wyatt and I made out last night.”
She slumped back against the booth and blinked at me. She didn’t even have to say a word. I felt her judgment fill the small restaurant like helium in a balloon
“Obviously making out with Wyatt was a mistake,” I told her. “Obviously it won’t happen again.”
She still didn’t say anything, and I decided I should have let her believe it was stage ten cancer.
“I stopped by his office to talk to him about… I can’t even remember what now. But we were alone, and one thing led to another…” Although I was still fuzzy on all the details. One minute we were standing there and the next I was trying to climb him like a spider monkey. “And suddenly we were making out.”
She finally spoke, her eyes as wide as I had ever seen them. “In his office?”
I pressed my lips together and nodded.
“Holy shit, Kaya!”
Covering my face with my hands I moaned. “I’m a terrible person.”
“You’re my hero!”
I peeked through my fingers and saw glee on my friend’s face. Her reaction couldn’t be right. “Huh?”
“You made out with Wyatt fucking Shaw.” She laughed. “That’s legendary status.”
“Shh!” I demanded, leaning closer. Saturday morning brought out our industry en masse. Either they were gossiping or working while gossiping. And the last thing I wanted was for this piece of information to get around town. “Please. Nobody can know.”
She looked truly affronted. “Why not? Don’t you think every female in this city has been trying to get in that boy’s pants for years? He’s basically a locked box. I’ve played around with the theory that he’s secretly wearing a chastity belt. He’s never looked twice at me.” She didn’t say it in an arrogant way, but I couldn’t help but smile. She of all people wouldn’t understand Wyatt’s lack of attention, not when she got plenty of second glances and third glances and fourth glances everywhere she went. “But suddenly, our dear Kaya has the keys.”
Her grin made my cheeks blush tomato red. “That’s wrong. All of those things you’re saying are wrong.”
She laughed at my flustered denial. “Kaya, he’s into you! Like so into you. I see it now. How could I have been so blind all this time? The man has it bad for you!”
“You’re out of your mind,” I insisted. “It was a fluke. A mistake. He hasn’t been sleeping. And I haven’t been… sleeping with other people. And it was like the wrong time and the wrong place and we both got caught up in the… the… the whatever it was. It was a one-time thing that can never happen again.”
She didn’t hear a freaking word I said. “This explains why he’s always glaring at you and yelling at you and making you do everything over. He doesn’t hate you at all! He’s got the hots for you!”
My blush turned from embarrassment to irritation. “First of all, no. Just no. No to all of that. Second, I’m pretty confident—because I have dated guys before, just not recently—that when guys like you they don’t spend their time glaring at you and yelling at you, living to piss you off. They do different things. Like ask you on dates. And do kind gestures and buy you things. And smile at you.” Although he did smile at me, didn’t he? Yeah, okay, maybe not very often, but more often then he smiled at other people.
Shit.
Stop it.
He didn’t like me.
“He has kindergarten syndrome,” Dillon decided. “He’s treating you how a little boy on the playground treats his crush.”
“That is the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. Wyatt hates me. He’s threatened by me. Maybe he tolerates my presence in his sacred kitchen because I’m good at what I do, but if he ever has a chance to replace me, he’ll take it.”
At that moment a text flashed across my phone from Wyatt. Stopping for coffee. Want one?
I quickly clicked my screen to black so Dillon didn’t see it.
She crossed her arms over her chest and jutted out her chin. “Okay, let’s go with your theory then. He hates you. That explains why he’s always staring at you when you’re not looking and why he makes you work every single night and why he wants you to stay late with him. That’s definitely the reason he made out with you last night in his office. Be real, Kaya, there’s been weird, kinky tension between you two for weeks. Maybe even months.”
My eyes narrowed. “Don’t act like I’m the crazy one! Up until approximately three minutes ago you thought he hated me too. One tiny piece of new information doesn’t change years of hard evidence.” Of course there were other pieces of evidence I was choosing to omit from the conversation, but she didn’t need to know that.
Shaking her head at me, she continued laying out her case. “Up until three minutes ago, I agree that I didn’t understand his behavior and that he’d definitely singled you out. It was easy to assume he hated you because Wyatt’s an asshole and it’s hard to read him. But, lucky you, it turns out he doesn’t hate you at all.”
She had a point, but I couldn’t give in. The change was too sudden for me to wrap my head around. There had to be another explanation to his attraction one-eighty. “He’s working all the time. He doesn’t have time to meet anyone right now. And he’s been acting weird ever since he got the executive chef position because he’s not sleeping well. What happened is, he got desperate. I am also,” I cringed admitting the truth of it, “a little desperate, and when the two of us were alone together something… snapped.”
“He’s not sleeping well?”
“No.”
“How do you know that?”
Another text from him lit up my phone. I’m getting you one. If you don’t want it, I’ll drink it. The text box ended, but I knew there was more I just couldn’t see it. My fingers itched to check it.
I hesitated answering Dillon’s question because I didn’t want to admit the truth. But after a few beats of trying to ignore my phone, I finally fessed up. “He told me. He wanted me to… to help make sure he was getting everything right.”
“Hmm.”
“Don’t hmm me.” I pointed a finger at her that let her know I meant business. “I’m his sous chef. Obviously, he would count on me for something as important as that.”
“That’s another thing.” Dan showed up with our food, interrupting our conversation while he set it in front of us and made sure we had everything we needed. I took the opportunity to sneak a look at Wyatt’s message.
I’m guessing you’re an iced coffee kind of girl. Cream? Sugar?
When I hadn’t answered, he’d come back with, I’m getting you cream and sugar.
He was right. How did he know that? I mean, there were other options I liked. But during warm months, iced coffees were my jam. And always with cream and sugar. Always.
When Dan walked away again, Dillon leaned forward and dropped her voice again. “He asked you to stay as his sous chef right away. On day one. He didn’t even have to think about it. It was like the second he got promoted, he knew exactly who he wanted by his side.”
I rolled my eyes. That was the least interesting clue out of the bunch. “That doesn’t mean anything. Who else would he ask?”
“Benny.”
“Benny’s not far off from sous. He’s like an honorary. They’re BFFs.”
“Doesn’t that make it strange that he asked you and not Benny?”
“I’m a better chef than Benny. And I was a sous for Killian,” She gave me a look. “Besides, Wyatt’s not the kind of guy to pick his friends over more qualified competition. They might be close, but Wyatt cares about the kitchen more than friendship.”
She tilted her head thoughtfully. “Okay, you have me there.”
“I have you everywhere,” I insisted, except in my recent text messages. “Stop trying to make this more than it is. Whatever happened last night was the product of too much hatred, too little sleep, and a weird moment of insanity. It’s not going to happen again. Ever.”
Dillon’s mischievous smile filled my stomach with nerves. “Don’t be crazy. This is Wyatt Shaw we’re talking about. Have you seen the man? God, he’s so sexy. That body. All those tattoos. His hair! His hair is obnoxiously amazing. Kaya, if you get a chance to do that again, do it. Do it for me. Do it for the women of Durham. Ney, do it for the women of the world. Be our tribute.”
I found myself laughing before I could discourage her craziness. “You’re ridiculous.”
“Was it good?”
Rolling my eyes, I suddenly found my oatmeal to be very interesting.
“Kaya!” she hollered at me.
“God, what? Don’t yell at me!”
She was still grinning like a fool. “Was. It. Good?”
I held her eyes, my expression turning serious and furious all at once. “It was fucking amazing.”
She threw her head back and cackled at the ceiling. “Ha-ha! I knew it. I knew he would be good!”
“Okay, seriously, do you have a thing for him? Because you’ve never said anything, and I didn’t mean to step on your toes and—”
Her laughter died, and she wrinkled her nose at me. “Don’t be crazy. I have no thing for Mr. Mysterious and Broody, okay? I like my men open, honest, and much less… yell-y.”
He was very yell-y.
“But,” she went on. “I’ve always felt like there was more to him than what he lets the world see. I mean, Ezra and Killian think the world of him. And they are the two opinions I trust most in the world. Clearly, he’s not all mean, scary boss. It’s nice to see that there’s a soul to him. That’s all.”
He definitely had a soul. There had been times when we were sous chefs side by side that I’d even thought we were friends, maybe even good friends. Yeah, we always found something to clash over, but he had layers. He was so much more than the version I faced off with in the kitchen every night. Not that I would admit that to Dillon. “Being a good kisser does not automatically make someone a nice or decent person. Do you remember when he threw your trout in the trashcan? The whole entire plate and everything? He is the definition of mean, scary boss.”
She shrugged. “I’d killed that trout. And I’d managed to drop half the roe on the ground and tried to get away with it. He called me on my bullshit.” She buried her face in her hands for a moment and groaned. “I was so green. I’d been working there for all of two weeks or something and seriously contemplated quitting. Yeah, fine, he’s terrifying. But he’s also right most of the time.”
“What about when he’s wrong?”
She held my gaze, leaning forward so I could see the honesty in her expression. “Then we know you have our backs. And he knows it too. That’s why you’re sous and Benny’s not. He respects you, Kaya. Give him a break.”
I took a bite of my now cold oats. “Fine, he respects me. He knows I’m not going to take his shit. That’s as far as it goes with us. The rest was … sleep deprivation.”
“Yeah, yeah, keep telling yourself that.”
“I will. Thank you.”
She laughed, but finally dug into her cold breakfast too.
“Don’t tell Ezra,” I whispered, nervous that mentioning her brother’s name would put the idea in her head.
“What?”
I lifted my eyes and met hers, more afraid of this request than of accidentally making out with Wyatt again. “You can’t tell Ezra that I made out with his executive chef. First, it’s complicated because Wyatt is my boss. I don’t know the exact protocol for intra-kitchen relationships, but I’m positive they’re frowned upon. And second, when I apply for Sarita for real, I don’t want Ezra to think Wyatt’s good opinion of me is skewed. If he even has a good opinion of me. I… I would like to get Wyatt’s recommendation without it feeling like a sexual favor.”
“Wyatt would never—”
“Yeah, maybe Wyatt wouldn’t. But I don’t want the perception to be there. I don’t want Ezra to think that…”
“Ezra wouldn’t,” she promised. “I know my brother and I know how much he respects Wyatt. He would never assume that about either of you.” I opened my mouth to argue, but she held up her finger and added, “Besides, other people’s opinions matter very little to Ezra. He’ll only hire a person one hundred percent qualified for that job. He would never take someone else’s word for it.”
“I don’t know if that makes me more nervous or less so.”
She laughed at me again. “Seriously? Chill, Kaya. You’re so worked up about a few kisses with one of the hottest men on the planet. You said it yourself, it’s not going to happen again. Relax and take what happened as the compliment it is. Wyatt Shaw thinks you’re a sexy beast. Own it, friend. And stop worrying about all the rest.”
I sucked in a steadying breath and let the truth in her words ground me. She was right. I didn’t know what Wyatt was thinking, but I knew myself. I was strong-willed. Independent. Tougher than fucking nails. I had self-control for days and days.
Even though Wyatt and I had made out once, that didn’t mean it was going to happen again. I had that power. I would just avoid him altogether and try not to find myself alone with him ever again. And also, maybe I wouldn’t look at him for a while either, because Dillon was so right about him being one of the sexiest men on the planet. I had acknowledged that long ago.
The point was, I wasn’t going to accidentally fall into his arms again and let my mouth land on his. Consequently, there was absolutely nothing to worry about.
Besides, kissing him had been a fluke.
A weird, crazy, unbearably hot… fluke.
Tonight, we would be able to work together without any of the tension that had plagued us recently and we’d get back to our normally scheduled hate-fest. I would spend tomorrow night working with Vera at Sarita and I would be one step closer to the dream.
My dream. The one that took me away from Lilou and into my very own, five-star kitchen.
No man was worth losing sight of that dream.
Not even Wyatt fucking Shaw.
Another text blinked across the screen of my phone. Get here already, woman. I want to see you.
The butterfly riot that marched across my belly was enough to call me a liar, but I mentally held my ground. Goals, Kaya. Dreams. A lifelong legacy that did not include my boss. I just needed to focus and stop daydreaming about that kiss and those deep brown eyes and all those secret smiles that I was too quickly growing addicted to.