Chapter 29
ALEX
To: Judd Kincaid
Re: Device/Access Request
_____________________
December blew in like a son of a bitch. I was angry all the time, and the only thing that seemed to open the pressure valve was taking sexual pleasure in my biggest enemy.
I knew exactly what Judd Kincaid was doing. He was waiting me out. Like I was going to change my mind eventually and give him another chance.
He was wrong.
Our fight had been a gift. I’d made the mistake of falling for a thrill-seeker once. Now I was preventing myself from making that mistake again.
It was the weirdest possible coincidence that Judd had been put in my path twice, but now I could do what I should have done in the first place: look at things logically and rationally, and realize that I didn’t want to develop real feelings for someone whose job put his life in danger regularly.
I couldn’t handle it. It was as simple as that.
But sleeping with the man without letting myself fall for him? No problem. In fact, yes please. Sign me up.
The first week in December, I’d shown up at his place and insisted on sucking his dick. Not because I cared about him, obviously. But because I wanted more practice sucking a man off for when the time came that I was ready to jump back into the dating or hookup pool.
Did I get immense satisfaction from seeing his eyes roll back in his head and hearing his fists pound the wall behind him while I drove him quickly to orgasm? Yes, yes I did.
But again—and this was crucial—not because I cared about him at all. Only because it meant I was good enough to go out there and hook up with other guys without feeling like such a green newbie anymore.
Because I wasn’t. Thanks to Judd Kincaid, I was no longer a virgin or inexperienced. I was a regular guy who wasn’t intimidated by sex.
In fact, the more I thought about it, the more I realized I didn’t need Judd to get off with. I could get off with anyone.
I could plan a motherfucking Costco run up to Billings if I wanted.
So when an opportunity for a date with someone else practically landed in my lap, I took it.
Maddox was apparently working with a social media influencer from out of town, and the guy needed a date for an event he was filming. The guy was hot. His Instagram was straight fire, and I was 100 percent here for it.
Probably.
I’d quickly agreed, reveling in my new life as a single guy who was absolutely up for dating new people.
And then my cousin Rosie had caught wind of it and had quickly shot off a bunch of texts while I was in the middle of my personal grocery shopping on a weekday afternoon.
Rosie
Say no to the InstaGay.
Why? And how do you even know about this?
Rosie
I heard it from Maya who heard it from her brother.
Maddox asked me for a favor. And you have to admit it’s not a bad favor.
I linked her to his Insta.
Rosie
So the man has abs that are more visible than other people’s. So what? What would your crush say if he saw you on a very public date with a beautiful influencer?
I stood motionless as the blood drained from my head and face.
What crush?
Rosie
Fine, we’ll play it like that. Let’s say you had a crush on… Oh, let’s say the sheriff.
That is abhorrent. Guy’s a total snooze.
Rosie
Oh, really? Fine. Then let’s say it’s the FIRE CHIEF. Anyway, imagine if he caught wind of you carrying on with the pretty boy from out of town and it made him feel some kind of way. How would that make YOU feel?
I stared at the screen of my phone long enough to get bumped by Mrs. Hoffman’s cart. “Sorry,” I murmured, moving further off to the side by the endcap, where bags of beef jerky tried hard to jump into my cart uninvited.
She was right. If Judd Kincaid accepted one of these dates with Adrian Hayes, I would lose my fucking mind. Which meant it would be mean and hypocritical if I did it.
Did my sister put you up to this?
Rosie
No, but Uncle Blue knows this guy is into you and asked me at Thanksgiving what the deal was. I told him the truth, that I had no idea. But between you and me, Grape? The two of you look at each other like something’s going up in flames.
I took a deep breath and shot off a text to my father.
You’re a meddler who needs an intervention.
Papa
Your sister asked for those classes, I swear!
What are you talking about?
Papa
Her WSET classes… Why? What are YOU talking about?
Ella is taking wine classes?
Papa
Can we pretend this entire exchange never happened?
Someone else tried to squeeze past me in the narrow aisle, so after texting Maddox and Adrian with a lie about why I couldn’t go on the date, I slipped my phone into my pocket and got back to shopping.
Five minutes later, Karim called me about a food delivery at work, and I sighed. Who was I kidding?
I didn’t have time to date. I was too busy at work to even do a Costco run, let alone a Costco run.
“Juni, I need you guys to pick up the pace,” I said, rushing into the kitchen two nights later to check on an order a customer was asking about for the third time.
“How do you expect me to cook with this thing here?” she cried, shooting an evil eye at the fire extinguisher mounted next to her elbow. “Move it to the other side.”
We’d had this conversation too many times to count. “I can’t move it to the other side because the other side has the eye rinse thing and the first aid kit,” I explained for the millionth time. “The pizza oven takes up most of our wall space, Juni. You know that.”
“Take your pasta and go,” she barked, nodding toward the order she’d just completed.
I slid the dishes onto a large tray and carried it out into the dining room, apologizing to the customers and throwing in a gratis dessert for their wait time.
Unfortunately for Juni but fortunately for my holiday bank account, the place got busier as the night wore on. We’d already been busy from two office holiday parties, and now it was a group of ice hockey kids and their parents coming to celebrate a win from the looks of things.
We managed to keep up with the flow once Tavo came down to pitch in. I appreciated the assist, and Karim even shot me a quick Thank fuck as I showed him a few simple tasks he could do in the kitchen.
Too bad it wasn’t enough.
At ten past 8:00 p.m., the kitchen’s Class-K fire extinguisher lost its months-long battle with Juni Song.
I heard a crash, quickly followed by the sound of broken glass and a collective gasp from the kitchen staff and a grunt from one of the booths in the back.
A familiar grunt.
How Judd Kincaid was in my restaurant without me knowing was beyond me.
But it was a zoo in there, and his back was to me in a tall booth.
On the other side of the booth was an older woman I didn’t recognize.
But I definitely recognized the air of authority in her and the firefighter-looking patch on her black sweater.
Fuck.
I raced into the kitchen to see a giant hole in the single window over the sink. Juni had gone right back to cooking, but I could see from the flush on her face and the slight satisfaction in her eyes—and the lack of fire extinguisher on the wall—that she’d finally taken aggressive action.
“You could have just taken it down and slid it under the table,” I cried. “Juni, what the hell?”
“I will pay for the window,” she said calmly.
“Damned straight you’re paying for the window,” I snapped. “And you’re paying the fine I’m going to get from the—”
“What exactly is going on in here?” the woman from Judd’s table asked, standing just inside the door to the kitchen from the front of the house.
“Nothing,” I said quickly. “It’s fine. Just one of those busy Friday nights during the holiday season.”
Unfortunately, that was when the inspection tag on the buckle that normally held the extinguisher to the wall fell off with a little plink onto the floor.
We all stared at it. And then the woman glanced up at the empty extinguisher mount.
She looked from me to the man who’d come up behind her. “Chief Kincaid, is there a problem here? It seems the restaurant which just came off a permit suspension is already back to regrettable standards.”
The chief was clearly annoyed. “Looks that way,” he said in his gruff voice. “But looks can be deceiving. There’s probably an explanation, right, Mr. Marian?”
Maybe it was my own personal hang-ups that caused me to shoot myself in the foot, but I refused to accept his kindness. “Nope. Just a simple decision to yeet the extinguisher during a busy shift.”
Kincaid’s eyes closed, and the woman sighed. “Judd, I trust you will write this up appropriately?”
“Yes, ma’am. Of course.”
She turned to leave while Kincaid glared at me. “You had to be a smart-ass in front of the state fire marshal? Really, Alex? Christ.”
Then he turned his glare to Juni. “You want to tell me what you’d do if the kitchen caught on fire right now? And don’t tell me it won’t because we both know shit happens.”
Surprisingly, my head chef looked a little remorseful. “There are other extinguishers.”
He sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. “The citation will be in your email in the morning, and today’s your lucky day. It comes with more inspections. How fun for both of us.”
And then he was gone.
And Juni Song was lucky I didn’t have homicidal tendencies.