Thirteen. Baby, It’s Cold Outside and Hot in Here
Thirteen
BABY, IT’S COLD OUTSIDE AND HOT IN HERE
Fiona Leonard. Even her name slinks into rooms all sexily.
The Sweetville Fiona is still mile-long legs and a face so sculpted it’s like she had no choice but to get a pixie cut, lest the world be denied the chance to see her ideal features in full.
But the legs are sheathed in neat trousers instead of a miniskirt, and she’s French tucked a white button-down into them.
In the understated clothes, Fiona looks a mile chicer than any of the other competitors.
I might have been Grant’s girlfriend, but she clearly thought she “got” him more.
Like Grant, she had ambitions beyond the restaurant where they worked.
At one of the cooks’ apartments for an after-hours party, she was drunk and announced to me and Grant that she wasn’t a hostess as much as she was a businessperson and then, right in front of me, full-frontal leaned against his side and said that someday she’d love to run a restaurant where he was the culinary director.
Back when we were dating, Grant always insisted nothing was going on with them.
I had no reason not to trust him. But it was hard to believe that with someone like Fiona around, he’d pick me.
Now, as soon as I draw my gaze away from Fiona, I cast a look at Grant.
His lean is gone and he’s standing up straight.
He beams at Fiona, the twinkle in his eye making me instantly jealous.
And maybe correct about them belonging together.
Corey rejoins me at the counter, where I’m lost in a sea of thoughts, none of them about cookies.
“So, the pantry looks pretty good in terms of the essentials.” He opens his SweetHart’s Bakery backpack and takes out a tin of Dutched cocoa and a container of cloves.
“But I brought some stuff and was thinking the cookie could be a little you and a little me. This is imported cocoa—I’m particular—and some cloves to satisfy my annoying baker-guy standards.
” He smiles hopefully, his eyes crinkling at the edges.
“These are a little higher quality than the usual grocery store stuff.”
“I like it,” I say somewhat distractedly.
Grant hugs Fiona, and they chitchat animatedly. Grant points to something he’s written down, and Fiona claps her hands with excitement. While gazing at him. If she hasn’t made him her culinary director, she seems to have made him something else.
“I thought you’d make a joke about me carrying around my own cocoa and cloves,” Corey says. He’s smiling, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. And I know why. He’s disappointed that I’m not teasing him. Grant is screwing everything up.
But fine—maybe Grant and Fiona being together is exactly what I need to really go all in with Corey. Closure.
I see Grant excuse himself and head for the pantry.
I watch him slip inside and say to Corey, “I’m going to peek at the pantry and see if anything inspires me. I have to bring something to the table—like, literally.”
I can tell what I’ve said rubs Corey the right way because he perks up.
“You have no idea what you bring to the table,” he says.
The words wash over me warmly. This whole afternoon, Corey’s been giving me signs that he might like me like me.
That’s why it’s so important I prove to myself that there’s nothing left with Grant, so I can move on.
“Send a search party if I’m not back in five minutes,” I say. Corey smiles, allowing his dimple to make a showstopping appearance while his green eyes shine double as they pick up some of the glow from the twinkle lights.
I duck behind him and cross the ballroom for the pantry, letting out a long, slow breath at the doorway.
The space here is divided in two, with half of the room reserved for flour, sugar, and other shelf-stable ingredients and the other half a kind of refrigerator behind a sliding glass door.
Grant is inside the fridge with his back to me, surveying a shelf of various kinds of butter.
I slide the door open and step into the space.
The chill of the fridge bites through my turtleneck, but it feels good.
I realize I’ve been sweating this whole time and make a note to tell Zav he was right.
Grant glances sideways to see who’s come in.
When his eyes land on me, his open, butter-admiring expression retracts inward like he’s pulling away without actually moving.
“So,” I say, watching my warm breath cloud the air in front of me.
Grant crosses his arms over his chest. “So,” he says. “You’re a baker now.”
Even in the cold space, the heat radiating off Grant makes its way to me.
When we were together, no matter how cold the Chicago winter was, I could rely on Grant to be toasty and warm.
So much so I’d call him Hot Dish, which was a type of Midwestern casserole that Grant, culinary artist or not, couldn’t deny enjoying.
I shrug. “It’s the holidays. I thought I’d see what’s in my grab bag of a personality.”
“Your partner seems to know what he’s doing,” Grant says. There’s a sharp edge to his compliment of Corey that pleases me. Here I thought he hadn’t even noticed I was working with a Sweetville hottie.
“Corey? Well, we’re old friends,” I say. “And he is a talented baker.”
I wait for Grant to roll his eyes at me putting the words “talented” and “baker” together.
Instead, he turns back toward the butter.
I can’t see his expression when he says, “That’s nice.
Best of luck to you both.” His tone is so cold I’m actually surprised to see his breath steam the air in front of him.
“Oh, and we’re not going to talk about your partner?” I say. Grant spins back around. I raise both my eyebrows and cock my chin up, trying to resemble someone spunky and impermeable.
“Fiona? Yeah, she stepped up to help,” Grant says.
“Are you in town to visit her? She’s still in Chicago, right?”
He purses his lips, then draws in a sharp breath through his nose. “Actually, she lives in New York now. We work together. She came here for a reprieve from the city.”
I step backward, hit by his statement as hard as if he’d started pelting me with sticks of butter.
I’ve stalked Fiona online for so long, but I’d always assumed she was wearing her knee-high boots and perfectly donned red lipstick out for drinks with friends in Chicago, not in New York.
And not just any New York but Grant’s New York.
They work at the same restaurant? Is this a real-world truth or just a Heartfelt World one?
“Wow. Really. Is…”
Before I can get the whole question out—before I even know what my question is —Grant is answering.
“She got a front-of-house job at the same place where I work. It’s the kind of spot you really want on your resume, and you know she’s always wanted a restaurant of her own,” Grant says.
“We’re friends. And she’s actually a good baker, so having her as an extra set of hands is a huge help. ”
“I’m sure you love her extra set of hands,” I say. I back up so that I’m leaning against the glass sliding door. I can’t get far enough away from Grant right now.
“Jill. You are so good at making things up. We’re friends. When she moved to New York, I was at a low point, and it was nice to have a familiar face in an unfamiliar city.”
A low point? Grant had moved to New York for his dream job.
After we parted ways, I assumed that everything had been going great for him.
And every time I had another setback in LA, I’d have a good cry imagining Grant’s career and life in New York being the exact opposite of mine on the opposite coast.
When I don’t say anything, Grant takes a gentle step closer. He bends his head down so that he can look right at my face—something he doesn’t have to do with tall Fiona—with a concerned expression. “Why do you care so much about Fiona, anyway?”
Why do I? Why have I always? It was never Fiona, exactly, but what she signified to me. My insecurities.
Maybe I do care if Grant is with Fiona now, but the truth is I can’t afford to care.
So I pull myself up to my full height and take three steps toward Grant, watching as he rearranges his posture so his body is taut and contained. Is he afraid I’ll touch him, or that he’ll touch me?
“I don’t,” I say, and reach past him for a stick of butter. “I came in here for this.”
As I go back to my station with Corey, I’m clenching my fists so tightly the butter spurts out of its wrapper.