Chapter 11
CHAPTER ELEVEN
ADDISON
“We need more cherry tomato halves for the salads,” one of the servers calls out, after poking her head in the fridge and apparently coming up empty.
“Already on it,” Sam says as he dumps a carton of the tiny fruits onto a cutting board, using his other hand to corral them as they try to roll off the edge.
The lunch rush feels like it will never end today, but my kitchen staff is great, so everything has been running smoothly.
I drizzle a cream sauce as artfully as I can over a plate of fried pork chops before pushing the plate across the line and turning to dress the next one. We keep up our steady rhythm for another forty-five minutes until things finally slow down.
And, of course, once I get a blissful minute to breathe, Brenden comes barging through the kitchen doors demanding coffee. Or not exactly demanding. Begging, more like. But still.
“Calm down,” I tell him. “That pot’s fresh.”
He happily dashes over to the machine and pours himself a cup.
With his caffeine addiction fed, I expect him to leave, but he doesn’t.
He leans his back against the counter and crosses his arms over his chest while holding his mug.
The look he gives me suggests he’s about to say something that will annoy me, but after a few moments of staring, all he says is, “So?”
“So what?” I ask, grabbing a rag to wipe down the serving line.
“How was it having a visitor at your house?”
I narrow my eyes at him. “Fine.”
“Just fine?” he asks, pitching his voice a bit higher in a teasing tone.
“Mmhmm.”
Whatever he expects to get out of me, he isn’t going to. I do my best to ignore his eyes on me as I clean up so I can get ready for the dinner service. Occasionally, I hear the sound of him sipping his coffee, which he must be trying to do as loudly as humanly possible.
Finally breaking, I groan and say, “Can you spit out whatever nonsense you’ve got for me, and then get out of my kitchen so I can work?”
He beams at me like I actually said something nice to him. This man is deranged, I swear. “I couldn’t help but notice that you’ve been smiling to yourself quite a lot lately. And sometimes you look...”
“Look what?” I snap. And at this, Sam wisely exits the kitchen, leaving us alone.
Brenden smiles again. “Distracted.”
Distracted. Yeah, I won’t try to argue that.
After experiencing Riley Rowland waking up in my house and coming downstairs wearing a tiny pair of silk sleep shorts and a white camisole top with no bra, of fucking course I’ve been distracted. Believe me, if I could erase that image from my brain, I would. Probably.
I mean, I should, at least. Because I’m not supposed to want her the way I do. But I do.
“Have I not been handling my job properly?” I ask in an attempt at deflection.
This pain in the ass sees through me, though. “You know I’m not concerned about that. Come on. I’m dying to know what happened with you guys.”
“What the heck do you think happened? Nothing. She’s a gorgeous, famous country star, and I’m—”
“Hot,” Brenden says, cutting me off before I could say that I’m a nobody.
I give him an unamused look. “How would you know?”
He laughs. “Oh, please. Just because I’m gay doesn’t mean I can’t see when a woman is attractive. And I can also see that she checks you out when you’re not looking.”
Oh.
Well, that’s interesting.
My cheeks heat, and I can only hope they’re not red enough to be noticeable.
I’ve picked up on the way Riley looks at me sometimes even when I am looking, so it’s not that I don’t believe him.
But I can’t have this conversation with him.
Not at all, preferably, but especially not here in the kitchen where any of the staff could walk in.
I know that Riley got photographed kissing a woman, but she’s still not officially out or anything even close.
And I’m not going to betray her trust by letting Brenden know that she’s in the process of figuring out her bisexuality.
So even if I wanted to have this conversation with him—which I don’t—about the potential for something happening between me and her, I can’t.
“I think you should stay focused on your own relationship and not worry about me,” I say.
“Like I’ve told you before, I’m not interested in dating.
I’m not interested in getting all stupid over someone like you have, and getting comfortable again, just so they can fuck me over.
Love is for suckers. Nobody stays in love with someone forever. ”
There’s an extended silence after I finish my little rant. I didn’t exactly mean to go off like that. I only wanted to put an end to his prying. But when I see the hurt look on his face, I’m immediately hit with a wave of guilt.
“Shit, I’m sorry.”
He shakes his head. Bringing his mug over to the sink, he pours out the rest of the contents and then rinses it. There wasn’t much left, but if he’s wasting even a drop of coffee, he must really be upset.
“I’ll leave you alone,” he says, turning for the doors. “Didn’t mean to bother you.”
“Wait,” I call out. He did mean to bother me, but he didn’t mean to upset me. Not the way I upset him. When he turns back around, I give him an apologetic smile. “Please ignore everything I said. Seriously.”
He shrugs noncommittally, and I sigh so hard it blows a loose strand of hair out of my face.
“Just because my relationship didn’t work out,” I say, “doesn’t mean I think yours won’t. I know it will.”
“You can’t actually know that, though,” he says, with a combined head shake and shrug this time. “But whatever. Travis is the person I want to be with, and I know he wants to be with me. That’s all I can ask for right now.”
I pull my apron over my head and untie it from my waist, setting it aside before I go over to him. He still hasn’t bounced back to his normal overly-smiley self, and that’s my fault.
“That man is fucking obsessively in love with you,” I tell him, grabbing both his forearms and shaking them so he looks at me. “I really didn’t mean what I said. I might be bitter, but you don’t need to be. I’ll try harder not to rub my cynicism all over you.”
That gets a small laugh out of him. “Hey, if I can handle Travis’s grumpiness, I can handle yours.”
“True.”
“If you really want me to back off, I will. I honestly thought there could be something happening between you and Riley, and I thought I was helping by suggesting she stay with you.”
“And saving your own ass because you had no other room for her,” I add, but with no bite to it.
He smiles sheepishly. “That too.”
I should keep my mouth shut and let the conversation die here.
But for some inexplicable reason, I find myself sighing again and offering him a bit of the truth.
“You’re not wrong about something happening with us.
Nothing has, but... it could. Maybe. At least, on my end, I might want it to, but I don’t know about her. I’m not saying she’s—”
“It’s okay,” he says, saving me by cutting me off again. “You don’t have to tell me. But I promise if you do want to tell me anything, I can keep my mouth shut. I wouldn’t go blabbing gossip all over town.”
“Thanks.”
“And you probably think I’m just nosy like everyone else around here, and that I like to pry into everyone’s business, but that’s not me.
I genuinely want to be your friend, and it seems like you haven’t really made any other friends besides me and Travis here, so if you ever need someone to talk to about anything, it doesn’t have to be your love life. ..”
It’s easier to give him a real smile now. “If I do, I’ll talk to you.”
He grins and does a pretend hair flip. “Oh my gosh, did we just become besties?”
“I hate you.”
“No, you don’t!”
Rolling my eyes, I admit, “Fine, I don’t. But don’t get any ideas about us having sleepovers and painting each other’s nails, okay?”
He’s laughing as he pours himself another cup of coffee and takes it out of the kitchen.
The dinner service wasn’t nearly as busy as lunch, so by the time I’m done with the cleanup and ready to leave, I’m feeling more relaxed than earlier.
I also had time to notice during the slow dinner that Riley didn’t show up in the dining room to eat.
And that doesn’t bother me, of course. She probably went out with her brother. That’s nice for her.
As I’m leaving, I decide I’ll go out the back way and take a lap around the porch. Because it’s a nice evening, and I’ve been inside all day. The fresh air is good for me. It’s not so I can check if a certain singer is hanging around outside.
But when I head down the small corridor toward the back, my ears pick up the faint sound of music playing. It doesn’t seem like the radio. It’s an instrument. A piano.
The inn’s ballroom that we rent out for functions is back here, and as I get closer, I realize the music is coming from there.
The double doors are closed, but I’m certain there’s nothing happening in the room tonight, so curiosity getting the better of me, I slowly open one door and cautiously peek my head inside.
What I find probably shouldn’t surprise me, but for a few moments, I stand there frozen, taking in the sight of Riley sitting behind the grand piano in the corner of the room.
Her long hair is loose, cascading in red waves down her back.
And her head is bent, making some of the hair fall over her shoulders as she focuses on the keys.
She hasn’t noticed me, so I watch her for longer than I should, letting the beautiful music she’s playing wash over me. The melody sounds familiar, but I can’t place it.
I still can’t make my feet move, can’t slip back out of the room and walk away.
Especially when she starts singing. I recognize it now as a Sam Smith song.
Her voice somehow glides under my skin, making my entire body vibrate with it.
And now when I finally move, it’s not to leave the room, but to step farther into it.