Chapter Five
A week later, an incessant buzzing woke me from the deepest sleep. I groped the other side of my gigantic bed in search of it. The last remnants of my dream flickered in and out of my consciousness. Fingers in my mouth. Biting, but not in a mean way… A hand at my waist… under my shirt… sliding up toward my breasts… then changing direction and heading to an even better place…
The buzzing stopped and started again. I woke up all the way this time realizing the vibration was my cell phone.
Growling at the king-size bed that seemed a little ridiculous for a single girl, I finally cracked open my eyes and found the damn thing buried in my pillows. I’d forgotten to charge it. Crap.
That’s what I got for falling asleep reading on my Kindle app. This bed was one of my few big indulgences. I was a wild sleeper and sometimes even this king didn’t feel big enough. But I preferred to fall asleep in the very center and unfortunately my charging cord didn’t reach this far.
Hopefully whoever had decided to disturb me at the ungodly hour of eight-thirty in the morning didn’t need more than eleven percent of my cell battery to convey their message.
“Hello?” I asked, sounding like an eighty-year-old chain smoker.
“Uh, can I speak to Kaya, please?”
The voice sounded vaguely familiar, but since coffee wasn’t in play yet my brain wasn’t up to the task of figuring out who it belonged to. “This is her.”
“Oh my God, Kaya?”
“Uh, yes.”
The voice burst into laughter. “I thought you were a man! Did I wake you up?”
I pushed up on my elbow and tried to decode what was happening on the other end of the phone. “Yeah, you did wake me up.” I yawned, opening my mouth as widely as humanly possible and asked, “What guy?”
“I’m so sorry, but I seriously thought a man had answered the phone. Like maybe you had an overnight guest and he’d answered your phone.”
Not an awesome way to start a Friday morning. “Who is this?”
“Vera.”
Vera? Why was Vera calling me? More importantly, why was she waking me up with insults?
I yawned again.
“I’m sorry,” she said again. “I didn’t realize it was so early. Between taking shifts at Sarita and working to open our restaurant, I literally never know what time it is anymore. Unfortunately, I’m awake all the time.”
“That sounds rough.” I did my best to sound sympathetic, but I didn’t know if I pulled it off.
“And you don’t sound like a man,” she added quickly. “Your morning voice just surprised me.”
Clearing my throat, I gave her a break. “No, I get it. I have the worst morning voice.” And morning breath come to think of it. I stretched my legs, pointing my toes and working out the kinks in my muscles from last night’s late shift.
“I do too,” she said quickly. “I blame the kitchen. All those flames and smoked meat. It can’t be good for us.”
She was right about that. Not that either of us would even entertain the idea of changing careers. “I don’t mean to be rude or anything, but why did you call?” As lovely as it was to chat with Vera, a person I barely knew, I really had to pee.
“Oh, right! I was wondering if you would like some lessons.”
“Lessons?”
“Like in the kitchen?” she asked, confidently.
Again, she was insulting me. Only it didn’t sound like Vera realized it. Was she offering to teach me how to cook? “I don’t know what you mean…”
She laughed again, and the sound relaxed some of my bristling back. “Can you tell I’m operating on zero sleep?”
Her question made me think of Wyatt and I got the strangest urge to call him and see how he was doing. Then I remembered how obnoxious he was, and my fingers stopped itching. Almost.
“Here’s the deal. Killian and I can’t keep up with Sarita and Salt. We’re doing what we can now as a favor to Ezra while he’s out of town, but I know when he gets back, Killian won’t be able to tell him no. In a surprise turn of events, he feels responsible for Sarita’s downfall because he left Lilou first, and all the other chefs assume it was because he got tired of working for Ezra. Which is kind of true… but we also had this amazing opportunity and we couldn’t say no to our dream anymore. Do you know what I mean? Like we had to go for it or die trying.” There was a thoughtful pause and she added, “We still might die for it.”
It was silent for long enough that I worried she’d fallen asleep on the other end of the line. “I’m still confused.”
“What I’m trying to say,” Vera said slower and I could hear the smile in her voice, “is that I can’t do Sarita anymore. I need to be done with it as soon as possible. Which means Sarita needs a captain. Which means, I’m willing to coach you right into that head chef position if you want my help.”
I sat up fully and picked up my jaw off the bed. “How will you have time to do that?” It was the first question that came to mind and it popped out of my mouth before I could swallow it. I shouldn’t have cared about her schedule or whether this one extra thing in her life was going to burn her out. I should have said, yes please, and buried my conscience in a big hole somewhere.
“Well…” There was a tone to her voice that I was starting to recognize as her mischievous side. “You get nights off, right?”
“Two.” I admitted quickly. “I mean, I used to get two nights off, but lately Wyatt has needed more help than Killian did.”
“We’ll get you those two nights back,” she said decisively. “I mean, off from Lilou. We’ll work together at Sarita. My plan is to have you there enough that eventually you just become the boss, and nobody even realizes we staged a not-so-hostile takeover.”
Vera was officially my hero. “That’s not a bad plan.”
I could hear her smile return to her voice. “I know.”
“I’m more likely to only get one night off though.”
“We can work with one night,” she compromised. “Just make sure Wyatt gives it to you.”
“You’re kind of an evil genius, Vera.”
She laughed. “I know that too.” She seemed to think of something at the last minute and her tone changed completely. “Oh, I forgot to ask if that’s too much for you. I’d like to work with you as much as possible so that means you probably won’t get many nights off. And by that, I mean, you won’t get any nights off.”
Waving my hand in the air, even though she couldn’t see it, I didn’t bother to worry about my nights off or sleeping or the non-existent social life I wasn’t motivated to fix. I could tend to those things later. After Sarita was mine. “I’m used to working every night. It’s not a problem. I can take a day off after I’m the boss.” I rolled my eyes at myself because when I was the boss, my work schedule would get even crazier. “Or when I’m dead.”
“That’s the spirit,” she championed. “You’re awesome, Kaya. This is going to be fun!”
Fun wasn’t the word I would have used for it. But it was an amazing opportunity that I would be a fool to turn down.
“When do we start?” I asked her.
“When’s your next night off?”
I squished my eyes shut and tried to remember. “I think it’s supposed to be Sunday, but I can’t remember if Wyatt asked me to work it or not.”
“Make sure you get it off,” she ordered. “Tell him you have a family obligation or something. Or that you have to fight a zombie outbreak somewhere. I don’t care, just make sure he knows you can’t work.”
“Got it. Zombie outbreak. I’m sure he’ll understand.” The truth was, that might be the only reason he’d understand.
“Oh, and Kaya?”
“Yes?”
“Let’s keep this between us, okay? I’m not totally sure how Ezra would feel if he knew I was interfering this much. I mean, he’ll find out eventually, but the Sarita staff is on board with keeping it hush hush for now. As long as you are?”
“No problem,” I assured her. “I’m not sure Wyatt would be super pleased to find out I was doing whatever it took to get the hell out of his kitchen.”
We laughed together and after confirming our plan and farewells, we hung up. My phone was left with three percent battery and I’d landed the opportunity of a lifetime. That was a pretty amazing start to a Friday.
There was just enough charge left to tap out a quick text to Wyatt that said, Don’t forget I’m on proteins tonight! Also, if there’s a zombie outbreak, I expect paid time off.
He responded immediately. I don’t understand why that would warrant time off? Even zombies need to eat. New menu item, Brains Tartare.
I rolled my eyes at the phone, because only Wyatt would try to keep his job during the undead uprising. This is why you’ll be the first to go.
He texted the zombie emoji and wrote, Then you can finally have my job.
I sent him the emoji of the thumbs up, when what I really wanted was an emoji of the middle finger.
I scooted to the edge of the bed, plugged my phone in and then hightailed it to the bathroom for the whole getting ready thing I was forced to face every morning.
Truth—I didn’t mind waking up. It was when I was forced to move and do obnoxious tasks like take a shower or put on deodorant or wrestle my hair that I could live without.
But I did what I could to maintain my place in civilized society, and by the time I walked out the door with a mug of coffee in my hand, I was only fifteen minutes late and my phone had gotten all the way up to fifty-seven percent. Win-win!
I met Dillon at the side entrance of Lilou and couldn’t contain my smile. I wondered if she’d had anything to do with Vera’s call this morning, but I was too chicken to ask. If she did, I wanted to give her a giant hug and possibly one of my kidneys should she ever need it. If she hadn’t been the one to share my number with her, I didn’t want to spill the beans about our secret project. I trusted Dillon completely, but I didn’t always trust what she was going to say. I wasn’t even sure she always knew what she was going to say before she said it. There were a ton of times I was positive she heard what she said at the exact moment everybody else did.
I loved that about her. And sometimes I was also embarrassed of her. But mostly it was love, love, love between us.
Except when she said things like, “Another day, another opportunity for you to not kill our boss.” She yanked the heavy side door open and we sauntered inside.
“Hey, he starts it.”
Without missing a beat, she said, “Oh, I’m sure he does. If you’d like to get together at snack time, we can discuss it further over Goldfish and juice boxes before you two are excused for recess.”
I gave her a side eye. “Was that a preschool joke?”
“Mmm, more like kindergarten I believe. But seriously, Ky? He starts it? The only thing Wyatt is starting with you is a fire in your pants.”
The gum I had been chewing lodged itself in my throat and I promptly began choking on it. Bracing my arms against the wall, I dipped my head and coughed enough times to dislodge the murderous piece of Trident. Then I turned my meanest, I-mean-business glare on my friend. “I’m sorry, what?”
She shook her finger at me. “Don’t even try to pretend like there isn’t something kinky happening between you two.”
Kinky? Aw, hell. “That’s the most ridiculous thing you’ve ever said. We hate each other.”
She didn’t put up with my surly attitude and turned her head enough that I could see her eye roll. “Oh, yeah. You hate each other real hard.”
Ignoring the suggestive tone, I decided not to punch my best friend in the bicep and take the high road. “I hate you.”
She nudged me with her shoulder. “Only, in reality, that means you love me,” she crooned, grinning ear to ear. “See how confusing that is? You say one thing but mean the other. Maybe Wyatt is having trouble deciphering what you mean too.”
I slowly exhaled and tried desperately not to laugh at her craziness. It would only encourage her. She didn’t need any help from me.
She walked to her station and started prepping her portion of tonight’s service. Thankfully, that ended her bothering me about Wyatt.
Argh.
Although now that I was here, I remembered that I needed to find Wyatt and talk to him privately.
I abandoned my prep work and headed out to find him.
“Where are you going?” Dillon called after me.
Without looking back, I said, “Wouldn’t you like to know?”
“He’s in the cooler,” she said in a quieter voice.
“How do you know?”
She nodded at the kitchen clock. “He’s doing inventory.”
Sure enough, it was the right time and day for him to be counting all the things that needed to be refrigerated and order what we didn’t have or more of what required restocking.
I turned away from his office and headed the other direction to the giant walk in cooler. “Better bite him more discreetly this time.”
I held up my middle finger and wished a rash to her underboobs. Take that, smart ass.
Wyatt was squatting when I found him, reaching to the very back of a shelf. I shivered, and not because of the cold. The air changed with him so close. It tensed and sparked and amplified every nervous emotion rushing through me.
He turned his head when the doors opened. He nodded to acknowledge my presence and went back to fishing for missed leftovers.
“Hey, Wyatt. Can we talk for a minute?”
He turned around to look directly at me, his eyes dark and ambiguous and unreadable in the poor light of the cooler. “We’ve needed to talk a lot lately.”
His observation made me itchy. I didn’t know how to respond to that. Or even how to think about it.
We had needed to talk a lot lately. That was normal between chefs and their sous chefs.
But Wyatt and I weren’t normal, and none of our recent talks felt normal either. It was probably best if I fled this restaurant as quickly as possible. Especially because I couldn’t even name what was going on between us. Only that it wasn’t normal or appropriate or even in the realm of usual for either of us.
“I can come back at a different time…?” I offered timidly.
He stood up slowly, inch by slow inch, until he towered over me. “Now’s fine.”
Clearing my throat, I had a second of panic that I still sounded like a man. My morning voice had mostly disappeared after two cups of coffee and a Fiber One bar, but now I was too nervous to use it. Not a common trait for me.
Damn Dillon and Vera—getting inside my head. I was perfectly content to hate Wyatt in the normal way before they ever said anything. And now I was second guessing all my loathing for him because of other people’s opinions. Dumb. It was dumb. And I wanted us to go back to normal.
That meant ignoring my friends altogether and focusing on our usual relationship status—enemies. Mortal, arch, ride or die enemies.
“What’s up?” He crossed his arms and faced me. Suddenly, I felt very nervous.
I bit his finger and now I could never be his mortal enemy again. How stupid was that?
“I wanted to make sure I could have Sunday evening off.”
His face scrunched up. “What day is it today?”
“Friday.”
“And you want Sunday off?”
I hid my wince at the harsh tone of his voice. “No, I already have it off. I want to make sure I keep it off.”
“Hey, if you’re not on the schedule, you have nothing to worry about.”
“You say that…” I braved his gaze and let him see the nerves I wasn’t successful at hiding. “But I haven’t had a day off in maybe a month. A little over a month?”
His jaw ticked. “Are you complaining?”
I swallowed. “Not formally.”
His head dipped and if he was anyone else, I would have sworn it was to hide a smile. “Okay, so you want Sunday night off. Got it.”
“Thanks.”
“I mean, it’s one of our busiest nights, but if you don’t feel obligated to come in, I suppose I can’t make you.”
The cooler was dark, lit only by a few bulbs not bright enough to reveal if there was a twinkle in his devilish eyes or if I was imagining it. Was he teasing me? Or was he serious?
“I have other plans,” I said neutrally. “Or I would be here. You know I would be here.”
“Sure. It’s fine. You’re allowed to do other things besides work.”
I shrugged. “We both know that’s not true.” One of his eyebrows lifted and I could tell he was preparing for a fight. “Not because you’re a slave driver. Although you are. It just comes with the territory. This is what we signed up for.”
Wyatt ran a hand over his face and nodded. “I guess it is.” He turned back to the cooler shelves and started moving things around, organizing them where they should be located on the shelves. It was amazing how quickly things got out of order here. By nature, we were all meticulous and anal with our equipment. But one hectic dinner service shot our best intentions to shit. Someone had clearly forgotten their cooler duties last night.
I hoped it wasn’t me.
“Thanks again, Wyatt. I’ll be here every other night this weekend.” I smiled at the back of his head. “You can count on me.”
He looked back at me over his shoulder. “Yeah, thanks for that.”
I stood there longer than was socially acceptable, holding his gaze and wondering what the hell to say. He’d never said thank you before. He’d never shown any acknowledgment that he even noticed I was going above and beyond for him.
“You’re doing a good job.” The words were out of my mouth before I could swallow them. There was just something so vulnerable in the way he was looking at me. And the bags beneath his eyes seemed blacker and bigger than yesterday, and he hadn’t yelled at any of us about the cooler. Instead, he was in here organizing it. This wasn’t his job. He was the head chef. He wasn’t supposed to stoop as low as this.
His eyebrows drew together. “What do you mean?”
“With this.” I spread my arms, gesturing to the cooler, the kitchen, this fucking enormous job he had. “With Lilou.”
“You don’t have to—”
“I’m not,” I assured him. “I’m not saying that to make you feel better. You’re doing the best you can. And it turns out that the restaurant hasn’t burned to the ground yet, and we’re still booked solid for the next four months, and you haven’t made anyone cry in at least three weeks. Wyatt, you don’t suck at this.”
Half his mouth lifted in a slow smile, and a rogue butterfly took flight low in my belly. And it must have been on fire, because the quick heat that spread through my body made me lightheaded.
Obviously, that was the butterfly’s fault.
“Six months,” he murmured in a low rumble.
“Huh?”
“We’re booked out for the next six months.”
I tried my best to keep my expression neutral, but my traitor eyes bugged, and my eyebrows rose, giving me away. I cleared my throat and desperately grappled for sarcasm. “There. See. I told you so.”
The other side of his mouth joined in and he hit me in the chest with a full-fledged smile. What kind of witchcraft was this? Holy hell, Wyatt didn’t smile enough. He should definitely smile more. Who knew someone so scary could be so beautiful?
“So you think Killian picked the right guy for the job?”
And there it was—the poison that killed the magic of his mouth. I rolled my eyes, finding it much easier to be annoyed with him again. “Let’s not get crazy. Maybe he picked the right guy, but the right person for the job was me.” I added a winning smile to soften the blow.
He only laughed, which irritated me even more. “You’re so full of yourself, Kaya. I’ve never met anyone like you before.”
I rolled my eyes again and turned to walk out of the cooler. “Yeah, well, you’re welcome.”
His arm darted out and made a barricade across my middle. His warm skin in the cool air of the refrigerator rocketed through me, kindling the already dangerous fire burning through me. “Is it a date?”
Rotating my head so I could glare at him, I tried to process his question. “Is what a date?”
He didn’t look at me though. Even though his arm was wrapped around my waist, he refused to meet my eyes. “Sunday night. Is that why you want the night off?”
My breath caught in my throat and I lost the ability to form words. Why did he want to know? And what was I supposed to say? I couldn’t exactly tell him the truth. Vera had asked me to keep our rendezvous on the down low. Beyond that, I didn’t want him to know I was moonlighting at Sarita. If missing Sunday night was a big deal, I couldn’t imagine telling him I wanted to leave permanently. Especially in his current sleepless state.
But lying wasn’t exactly an out either. First, he would eventually figure everything out. Like when I handed in my two weeks’ notice and confessed my move across town.
“Not a date,” I admitted. “But it’s a commitment I can’t reschedule.”
He looked at me. His head lifted, and he shocked me with his rich, fathomless brown eyes. The intensity swimming in them knocked me back a step. It felt like I’d overdosed on chocolate, my stomach churning from the sugary sweetness that I shouldn’t have greedily inhaled.
Ironically, he caught me with the arm that had trapped me. Otherwise, I would’ve fallen directly on my butt.
He didn’t acknowledge my moment of klutziness and I was grateful for his small kindness.
When he was satisfied I wasn’t going to topple over again, he dropped his arm and moved out of the way to let me pass. “Okay.”
I waited a beat longer, but he turned back to the shelves again. Conversation over. He had work to do and no more time for me.
Okay, fine. I didn’t need more time with him. He’d given me his blessing to have Sunday night off. That was the whole reason I’d gone in there to begin with. That was a win.
So why did it feel like I’d somehow lost?
I pushed through the rubber curtains hanging in front of the cooler entrance and rubbed my forearms in an effort to cool down. Or heat up. Or stop the hairs on my arms from standing straight up. Or maybe I was doing all three.
God, Wyatt. What the hell?
The shocking part of the whole exchange was that I had been expecting to hear Wyatt step back from his question. I expected him to assure me my dating life was none of his business. Or that I could date whoever I wanted.
But he hadn’t said any of that.
Now I was overanalyzing every single word and looking for hidden meaning, and I hated him even more for making me obsessed with thinking about him.
But at the same time I also hated him less. And that was even more confusing.
I rubbed my temples feeling a headache start to take hold. Sunday night couldn’t come fast enough. I needed time away from this kitchen. I needed to clear my head.
And my libido.