Chapter 11 #2
“I missed the sound of your voice.”
“Oh, shut up,” I say. I doubt Caleb has missed one thing about me. He made that crystal clear.
“Well, I’m trying to decode your seven-page meeting recap and accompanying documents—”
“I sent those five minutes ago,” I say. “You couldn’t possibly have reviewed them already.”
“Of course I haven’t, Brooke.” The way he slowly says my name, making it two syllables instead of one, gives me goosebumps. “I knew you were Type A, but this is next level. The reason I’m calling is because I’m waiting with bated breath to see your event design proposal.”
“I’m sure you are,” I say, sarcastically.
“Fine. I called you because I got your text and I’m in the middle of cooking and I couldn’t text back.”
“It’s called voice-to-text, you should try it sometime.”
“I’m old school.” He laughs. “I have to prep most of the day tomorrow. Do you want to come by the Market sometime in the afternoon?”
“Hold on, let me check my calendar,” I say, putting him on speaker. He laughs and all that does is make me more nervous that he’s going to screw up the time of an important meeting. “How’s two-ish? I have a rehearsal at four.”
“That works. My favorite color is blue.”
“Huh?”
“For your calendar. Make me blue.”
“You can’t be blue,” I say. “I have a system!”
“C’mon, what’s the worst that could happen?”
The worst that could happen is forgetting something important, dropping the ball, messing something up, letting Mom down. The list goes on. But I’m not letting Caleb see that part of my crazy.
“I don’t know, but I don’t plan on finding out.”
“Alright, fine. I’ll see you at two tomorrow. Bye—”
“Don’t even think about saying babe,” I say.
“I think you kind of like it.”
I’m afraid he might be right.
“Goodbye, Caleb.”
Fridays are chaos in the office. Organized chaos, but chaos nonetheless.
While everyone else is leaving work early to begin their weekend, we’re just getting started.
You’d think a dozen wedding planners would make the office look like a bomb of rose petals and tulle exploded, but nope.
We move around each other gracefully, preparing supplies, making last-minute changes to timelines, and putting out pre-event fires.
Planners buzzing around is a calming white noise to me.
There are six weddings this weekend. By the time I get to the office at eleven, half the staff is out and on site at their respective venues, including Maddie.
We’re doing tomorrow’s wedding together, but she’s working with Kelsey tonight, filling in for an assistant who claims she’s sick.
The thing is, I overheard her complaining about missing a girls’ trip earlier this week.
She’s not going to last in this industry if she isn’t willing to give up her weekends.
It leaves me handling tonight’s rehearsal on my own.
Fortunately, I have a few interns working on last-minute preparations, tying ribbons on ceremony programs, and ironing specialty tablecloths we had delivered to the office this morning.
There are few things I hate more than fresh linens with creases on a wedding day.
Meanwhile, I’m failing miserably at making the groom’s last-minute request a reality.
Requests like this one always disrupt my final day of prep, but this is a disruption I’m happy to get behind.
Unfortunately, I’m having zero luck making it happen.
I’ve called most of the McDonald’s in the county, asking if they can make a hundred Happy Meals for tomorrow night.
The groom wants to surprise the guests by putting one on each seat of the coach buses driving them back to the hotel.
I’ve been at it for over an hour and haven’t made much progress. One franchise can do a few dozen. Another said twenty. I can cobble together the rest and pay our interns overtime to drive around town to get them, but that’ll add to the logistics and the stress.
I take a break to send final timelines to tomorrow’s vendor list, updating my own timeline as they inevitably change arrival times or day-of contacts. Then I head to meet with Caleb.
Foley’s Market isn’t what I remember at all.
I haven’t set foot in here since Mom and Paul were still on speaking terms. And even though the current working partnership has their blessing, walking through the doors feels like crossing enemy lines.
I half expect Mom to jump out from behind a display and yell gotcha, Brooke!
It’s completely different from what I had in my head; there’s something about being here that’s oddly comforting.
The smell of baked goods wafting through the air pulls me toward the back of the store.
I pass a display of flowers and several cases of prepared foods.
Foley’s is the go-to for party dips, show-stopping desserts, or a ready-made dinner when you don’t feel like cooking.
It might be the only takeout establishment in town that I don’t frequent, enemy lines and all.
I’ve been tempted to pop in on more than one occasion, but I’m always convinced that someone will recognize me and it’d get back to Mom. Not worth the risk. Until now.
The bakery case stops me in my tracks. It’s an absolute dream for me and my sweet tooth.
A dozen varieties of cookies and cupcakes.
There’s key lime pie, my favorite. It’d be okay to pick up a few things on the way out, just this once, right?
In the name of research. I reach the counter and ask the teenage boy wearing a green Foley’s apron where I can find Caleb.
He pauses and gives me an apologetic frown. If Caleb stands me up for a work meeting, he’s in for it. The boy turns to the door behind him. “Caleb, the prissy, preppy wedding planner is here,” he calls.
Excuse me?
He quickly leans forward over the case. “I’m so sorry,” he whispers. “One of the wedding coordinators said she’d give me ten bucks if I said that to you, and I want to buy some flowers for my girlfriend.” He shrugs sheepishly. Sweet kid.
Two can play this game. “Ten bucks, huh? I’ll give you twenty to tell me who it was?” Curiosity has gotten the better of me.
His eyes go wide, and he tells me the name I suspected. She applied for a job last season. I liked her, but Mom won’t hire anyone who’s worked here, and since Spencer Soirees isn’t mine yet, my hands were tied.
“Thank you,” I hand him a twenty and walk past the bakery case, eyeing the key lime pie again. Yeah, one of those is coming home with me.
I pause at the opening between the bakery and the kitchen. I expect there to be several kitchen staff chopping, dicing, mixing…whatever cooking entails. I wouldn’t know. I’ve never been much of a cook.
Instead, I find Caleb alone at one of the long stainless steel tables, prepping some hors d’oeuvres.
Looks like pigs in a blanket. Is it even a wedding if there aren’t pigs in a blanket?
He’s wearing a black short-sleeve shirt that hugs his arms and the same green apron as the teenager at the counter.
He’s got his worn-out Hartford Whalers hat on, those brown waves peeking out.
And it’s on backwards. The ovens must be on because it’s hot in here.
Leaning against the wall, I watch him methodically roll each little cocktail frank in a blanket of pastry dough. Even from here I can tell they’re perfectly uniform. His forearms flex with each roll.
I hate how much I’m enjoying this. A man who can cook, that is. Not Caleb specifically. Though seeing Caleb in action is definitely piquing my interest in his ability to cook well for our clients.
“Are you going to keep swooning over there or are you going to show me your top-secret proposal?” Caleb doesn’t look up from cutting more strips of pastry, but there’s a smirk on his face. I push myself off the wall, brushing my hands over the front of my navy shift dress.
“I wasn’t swooning!”
I might have been swooning at little. At the idea of a man who can cook.
“Sure you weren’t—”
“Don’t you dare call me babe.” I point my index finger as I walk over to stand across the table from him.
“I wasn’t going to call you babe, Brooke,” he says. “I was going to say ‘sure you weren’t checking out my wieners.’”
“Excuse me?”
Caleb points to the counter. “Wieners. Hot dogs. Cocktail franks.”
I shake my head, but my lips betray me and form a smile. “I wasn’t swooning over you or your wieners. Please tell me that you don’t call them wieners in front of clients.”
He laughs. “Nope, pigs in a blanket. I only call them wieners in front of my favorite wedding planner.”
“Your favorite prissy, preppy wedding planner?” I raise my brows at him. “You know one of your wedding coordinators paid him to call me that?”
He looks up from his task, and I can’t read the look on his face. It’s a mix between anger and embarrassment. “Shit, I’m sorry—”
I’ve been called way worse. “It’s okay, Caleb. I am a little bit prissy. And preppy.” I am carrying a monogramed L.L. Bean Boat & Tote, after all.
“Let me wipe this down and we can review the proposal.”
Standing in the middle of the kitchen, I take in more of the space. It’s huge. And clean, almost spotless. I expected chaos and mess and, well, for Caleb to look out of place, not like he fits right in.
Two cooks come into the kitchen as Caleb finishes wiping down the prep table.
I listen as he speaks to them. He’s firm but kind as he lays out his instructions for the rest of prep and they listen attentively.
For the first time, I see that Foley’s will be in excellent hands whenever Paul decides to retire, and despite what he said years ago, Caleb’s right where he belongs.
Watching him is bringing me back to a place I cannot afford to be.
It’s getting harder and harder to shove that down deep, far away from my busy summer plans.
“Brooke?” Caleb’s voice shakes me out of the trance I’m in.
“Yes, chef,” I drawl. The words fly out of my mouth before I even realize what I’m saying.
I clasp my hand over my mouth and freeze.
Caleb looks at me with raised brows and nods to himself, his lips in a thin line trying to keep his composure and leave me with one shred of dignity.
No chance. I can hear the two cooks giggling across the room.
“Oh my god. Pretend I didn’t say that. I’ve been binge-watching The Bear. ”
Caleb blows air out of his mouth. “Oh, it’s too late for me to do that, Brooke.”
My cheeks are on fire, and with this fair skin, I know my embarrassment is on full display for Caleb and the cooks. Did they turn more ovens on? I’d very much like to melt into a puddle right here, never to be seen or heard from again.
“Knock it off, you two,” Caleb says to the chefs. “C’mon, Brooke. Office is in the back.”