Chapter One
Aubrey
Two Years Later
My boss was out of her fucking mind.
What else explained her marching backward up the stairs to the thirtieth-floor lobby of Matice Enterprises in a Hugo Boss dress and Louboutin stilettos while she cooed words of encouragement to the dozen burly men who trailed her, carrying what had to be over a thousand pounds of steel, glass, and wires?
“That’s it, gentlemen. Almost there. Easy. Easy. There you go. Very nice.”
Jillian crested the stairs to the landing and guided the movers to the center of the room, where they set down what looked like something between a disco and golf ball on steroids attached to a jumbo flagpole.
“Isn’t it marvelous?” she said as she joined me along the wall while the men got to work attaching wires and arranging pieces.
“Definitely,” I agreed. “What is it?” I didn’t need to know to see it was pretty.
“A replica of the Millennium Times Square ball complete with 504 crystal panels and over 600 halogen bulbs.”
“And it’s going to…?”
“Drop tomorrow at midnight to bring in the New Year.” She said it as if it was as simple as whipping together a cheese plate.
I glanced toward the sparkling globe again, where the workers seemed to be constructing some platform near the towering wall of windows. Through them, the glass skyscrapers of Philadelphia’s Center City gleamed. “You mean…inside the building?”
“That’s right. The drop will be shorter, naturally, so they’ll adjust the speed of descent, and the fireworks will remain outside, but with the confetti cannons and light show, the overall impact should be about the same.”
Filthy rich and out of her fucking mind. I hoped to be even half as delusional when I reached her age.
She turned her full attention to me, her auburn bangs swooping perfectly across her forehead. “How’s the kitchen looking? Do you have everything you need for the party?”
I snapped into work mode and handed her the printout.
“Just need you to approve the timing for the courses.” It was all appetizers and desserts that would be served cocktail style, but I’d planned a progression for the dishes that would offer both the variety and excitement of a sit-down chef tasting.
“The kitchen’s all set, and I’m finishing prep this afternoon. ”
She nodded along as she read over the page, then handed it back. “Perfect. You’re going to shine.” Pride already gleamed in her eyes, and I could tell it was pride in me as much as the catering division of her restaurant we were launching tomorrow night.
Arden Catering, offshoot of Ardena Restaurant. All mine to lead, run, and grow.
I wished I shared Jillian’s overflowing confidence it would be a hit. As it stood, my insides bubbled like caramel just thinking about it, and it was too soon to say if it would turn out silky and amber or a clump of charred rock.
It wasn’t that I doubted my skill. Shove me in a room full of strangers, and I might be the last to speak, but that was the beauty of being a chef—my food spoke for itself.
It deserved Jillian’s pride. I wanted to soak it up and let it saturate the parts of me that hadn’t had a grandma to praise my homemade cookies in six years or a mother figure to brag to her friends about me in two.
But this other part kept getting in the way—the one that felt as if a loaded food pallet had been set on my shoulders and was slowly crushing me to the ground.
I wasn’t sure when in the past few months it had arrived or what the problem was.
Only that a heaviness I couldn’t shake kept the smile I returned from feeling all the way real.
It had to be nerves. After all, I had a mountain of prep work to tackle and a catering debut for three hundred people to pull off. That would put anyone on edge. Except for maybe Jillian.
Back in the kitchen, Evan hauled in the last box of food and set it on the stainless steel prep table. Between his fitted jacket, styled blond hair, and dimpled chin, he made it look more like a Gap photo shoot than manual labor.
He glanced around and whistled. “I was worried all this food wouldn’t fit, but that was before I knew you’d be cooking in a kitchen the size of my dad’s house.”
A house might have been a stretch, but my one-bedroom apartment would fit with square feet to spare. “Perks of the boss owning a near-billion-dollar company,” I said.
He took in the vast space filled with boxes of raw ingredients. “Is Jase swinging by to help?”
“No, he’s at the restaurant with the guys getting ready for tonight.” I would have loved to have my old crew with me—not just Jase, but Zach and Luis too.
But it was both a Saturday night and the day before New Year’s Eve, which meant Ardena would be slammed, and Zach and Luis would be needed there as line cooks as much as Jase would be needed as its head chef.
One of those nights when the ticket machine never stopped printing and the flow of the kitchen took on a life of its own.
Based on the reservations, Jase anticipated it being one of the restaurant’s busiest nights in the little over a year since it opened.
A wave of longing passed through me at missing out. A few months ago, I would have been at Ardena alongside the others, prepping for the onslaught.
Zach with his heavy-metal playlist burning out his speaker while Luis tried to sneak in a Taylor Swift song.
Jase grumbling about not knowing how they could stand the noise despite secretly liking it.
The four of us talking and laughing at jokes as we crossed off each item of the mise en place, building the energy that would take us through the night.
I hadn’t been a part of it since taking on the role of head caterer three months ago. There was no time with a new prep kitchen to set up, menus to plan, and staff to hire. All tasks I’d done in some capacity as Jase’s sous chef, but never ones I’d been in charge of on my own.
Now, I was in charge of it all: the planning, the prep, the execution. Since I had yet to find any staff, I was also in charge of getting it all done in time.
I would. I was good at my job.
I just wished I had my team to do it with me.
“He’ll be at the party tomorrow night,” I reminded myself as much as Evan. “And I’ll have Zach helping me in the kitchen for most of it.” I wished I could bring him over to the catering side full-time, but Zach was happy where he was as a line cook.
I’d been happy where I was as Jase’s sous chef, but the time had come to move on. I’d known it would at some point. I just hadn’t expected it to be so soon.
When Jillian and Jase approached me with the catering idea at the end of summer, there was no question it was the right move for Ardena.
We’d just catered a hugely successful symposium that had garnered more than a little interest, and a dedicated catering team was the perfect way to capitalize on it.
Then they’d asked me to head it up, and I couldn’t tell them no.
I hadn’t wanted to say no. I’d enjoyed catering the symposium, and it meant the world that Jillian and Jase trusted me to do this.
Just nerves, I assured myself. That was all the weight glued to the pit of my stomach was.
“Speaking of tomorrow,” Evan said, “I came up with a plan.” He wore the same look as when he’d decided we should run for senior class office so we could change our high school’s official mascot to a sponge.
“No,” I said, grabbing a box of produce to load into the walk-in.
Evan grabbed one too. “You don’t even know what I was going to say.”
“Yet I still know my answer is no.”
“You might actually like this one,” he said as we placed the boxes on a shelf.
“Will I?”
“Probably not, but you should hear me out anyway.”
I sighed.
Evan grinned. “Okay, I figure since you’ll be working all night, you won’t have time to scout out a kiss for midnight.”
I pushed past him for the door. “No way.”
“But I’m already going to be scouting for a kiss of my own. I can easily keep an eye out for a guy for you.”
“And what? You’ll drag him back here thirty seconds before midnight and ask him to smoosh faces with me?” That landed solidly in my “nightmare scenario” column.
Evan shrugged as if that was a perfectly normal expectation. “Yeah.”
He was as delusional as Jillian.
“Absolutely not.” I rounded the prep table to grab another box, bringing this one to the counter with the cutting board I’d set out earlier.
“I’d pick a good one,” he said, trailing me. “And it’d be healthy for you. It’s been forever since Patrick, and this is the perfect opportunity to try something new without any pressure.”
Three years was hardly forever, though I could see how it might feel that way to Evan. He rarely went more than a week between hookups.
I set out my phone and pulled up my prep list. “I’m not kissing some random dude you pick out for me in a crowd just to have a New Year’s kiss. I’m not that desperate.”
“I never said you were desperate.”
“Your plan kind of did that for you.” I peeled an onion as my phone buzzed on the counter.
“No, my plan—”
His sudden silence had me glancing up to find him staring at my phone. Gabe’s name filled the notification pop-up with the first part of his message visible.
Gabe: You would love it. Next time I’ll…
I lowered the onion and took a deep breath before meeting Evan’s stare.
His nostrils flared as he held his voice steady. “You’re still texting him? After he bailed again?”
“He didn’t bail on Christmas,” I said, careful to keep my tone neutral. “His flight got canceled because of a storm.” And he’d apologized to his dad and me about fifty times for missing it despite there being nothing he could have done short of gaining the ability to control the weather.
He’d have apologized to Evan too if Evan would have bothered to read the message.
Evan’s jaw tensed. “Doesn’t mean you have to keep texting him.”
“Someone should.”
I’d been that someone for the better part of two years. The only consistent thread of connection Gabe had to his home after everything shattered.