Chapter 2 #3
“Maybe you shouldn’t start off your first day in a new town where you’re applying for a new job insulting the locals and their beloved institutions.”
“Aren’t half these places brand new and not even open yet? How could they be beloved, they’re be-closed.” He gestures with his strong chin my way, wide smile on his face and looking for a laugh that I don’t give him.
“That’s besides the point.” Ugh, he is insufferable. “Smoky Heights is a small town. Word travels fast. I bet management has already heard what a prick you are.”
“Only way they’d have heard that is if you told them that, bella.”
He shoots me a wink that makes my stomach flip.
Turn. It turns my stomach.
At least that’s what I’m trying to convince myself.
“I wouldn’t be so sure,” I grumble, getting back to my flowers.
“Guess I can just message Aurora.” He sighs in the open doorway, reaching for his phone. “She offered to help if I needed anything.”
My eye twitches. If he tells Rory he’s waiting for me, she’ll be up my ass. Apparently he’s some hot-shot chef from New York. Even the voice in my head sounds mocking, the way only siblings can be to one another.
“I’ll make a call,” I tell him, begrudgingly.
“Thanks, you’re a doll.”
Holding the phone up for a second, so it looks like I’m doing it, I wait until he turns around again—after waving one of those beefy paws at me in thanks—and I go back to my flowers.
I wait minutes. A lot longer than I need to. Then I pull out my phone and send an email.
To: Wilder Amante
From: Heights Bites
Re: Your Interview
The gardener told me you’re waiting at the café. I regret to inform you on such short notice that I won’t be able to make your interview today after all.
Best of luck,
Management
Heights Bites
Going through the motions of tamping down soil, I put on a convincing act should Wilder take a closer look at me from inside the restaurant. But I’m watching from the street as he pulls his phone out of his black pants, uses an oversized finger to swipe open the screen, and reads the message.
His head falls back, knees giving a bit so he bounces with the news, like it’s a physical blow.
A smirk yanks up one side of my mouth, and I don’t even feel bad. This jerk is going to step off the bus in my hometown and start mocking us? Judging us like he’s superior? Just because he was some hottie of a chef in NYC doesn’t mean I owe him anything.
My restaurant is going to do just fine with the two line cooks I already hired. Sure, one of them is a volunteer firefighter, and if he gets a call, he might have to go, but we’ll cross that bridge when it burns, or however the saying goes.
We’re all going from no restaurant in town to having one, which is a big step up if you ask me. The kinks will have to work themselves out.
Self-satisfaction brimming over in my icy heart, I take my time finishing up with the flower boxes.
I chose the perfect blend of buds to complement the café and the trees framing the street to make the place even cuter on the limited budget I’m working with.
Rory better appreciate this, Miss You Don’t Need Any More Landscaping.
When I get my phone out to check the time, I realize it’s past noon now.
It’s been almost an hour since I sent the email.
My stomach grumbles, but I ignore the bitch, cocking my head to the side and trying to peer hard enough into the restaurant to figure out why the fuck Wilder hasn’t come back out of it yet.
I know the back exit is locked, so he would’ve had to come this way.
Curiosity gets the better of me—and real talk, I’m melting out here anyway. I could go for a bathroom break and a cold drink.
Leaving my potting supplies and the flower boxes on the street, where they’ll be more than safe in this town—I could leave my purse out here and someone will probably slip a ten dollar bill in it while I’m gone—I open the door to the café and relish the blast of air conditioning that hits me.
Wilder is nowhere in sight.
Walking back toward the employee only areas, a delicious aroma hits me.
Son of a biscuit that smells good.
My stomach rumbles so loud in response, I’m surprised the walls don’t shake.
Ugh, now I’m pissed and starving.
Wilder pokes his head out of the entrance to my kitchen.
MY KITCHEN.
“Can I help you?” he asks, black apron tied around his waist, a tool in his hand that I don’t even know the name of. I know it belongs on the line, I remember it arriving in one of the boxes of equipment Samuel helped me order. But why is it in this guy’s hand?
Can he help me?
Who the hell does this guy think he is? Did he raid my kitchen for food and start cooking, uninvited?
“Don’t mind me,” I say, shooting him an acidic smile, slits for eyes. “Just borrowing the restroom and grabbing some water.”
He eyes me up and down, pausing in the doorway for a beat too long, studying me.
“Yeah, okay.” Like it’s his fucking call and not mine.
If I hadn’t already committed to the role of the gardener, I’d be slicing him up and serving him on one of the new platters we just got in.
But this will be so much sweeter when I see the look of realization on his face.
The immense plate of crow he’s going to have to serve himself. So I bide my time.
Hitting the restroom first, I take the time to wash my arms thoroughly, then run some paper towels under cool water and wipe down all the skin I can reach, trying to peel off the layers of sweat, dirt, and dust that have accrued with my morning of physical labor.
Beneath it all, my skin is still flushed pink. Splotchy, in a way that won’t calm down even with the cool towels pressed to my face, I can still feel the blood surging beneath the skin. This is what happens when I get seriously worked up, and damn this man for getting under my skin so quickly.
My temper was already flared after the run in with Karen, but he took it to another level.
It’s the way he was so dismissive, the way he irked me with no effort on his part but then didn’t respond when I jabbed him back.
It feels like shadowboxing. There’s no satisfaction when you aren’t landing any punches. You want to feel it land, hear the crunch on impact, the way my insults normally do.
But if he wants to play? I’ll fucking play.
When I’m finally done refreshing myself (to the best of my current abilities) in the bathroom, I head to the kitchen and get myself a cup of water, trying to ignore the mouthwatering, savory scents that are proving to be a bit more demanding than I’d prefer they were.
It’s making it harder to keep up the front of disinterest I’m so determined to maintain.
Wilder ignores me as I help myself to the water, and if he finds it strange that I know where to get a cup, ice, and drinking water, he doesn’t comment. Maybe he thinks as the gardener I’ve done this before.
My curiosity, my animosity, finally gets the better of me. “What are you doing?” My tone is caustic, but maybe he’s impervious to burns as a chef.
“Job interview,” he says, not bothering to look away from the stove, where three pans are going, gas range lit beneath them. A sizzling sound comes from at least one of them, and my nose is working overtime trying to work out the combination of flavors filling the air.
“I don’t see anyone else here,” I point out the obvious.
“It’s a working interview. A stage,” he replies, tossing one pan, and then the next.
He’s already got a plate laid out on the line, directly behind the gas stove and cooktop.
Irritatingly, I watch, mesmerized as he works. There’s a flow to what he’s doing, a rhythm that I don’t understand, but it’s clear he does. It’s like a language that I don’t speak, but traveling to a land where it’s the native tongue, I can’t help but listen in and try to follow along.
When my dad ran the diner, I don’t think he used anything more than the deep fryer and the flattop. But Wilder has a symphony going between these pans that I can’t look away from.
My only saving grace is that he never once looks back. I keep swirling my cup, the ice clinking softly in it, hoping he thinks I’m just drinking water for ten minutes straight, a human camel over here.
“You sound like you’re thirsty back there,” he calls out, turning just enough to get the words over his shoulder, still not giving me his face. There’s a lilt in his words I don’t know what to do with. It’s teasing, and it pisses me off all at once.
“Hard work does that to a girl,” I reply, making a face at his back.
“Being on your knees isn’t easy work,” he tosses out.
“You on your knees a lot?” I bite back.
“For the right girl,” he says easily, and I can hear the smile in his voice. “Some of my favorite work is done when I’m kneeling. Or she is.” The way his voice lifts at the end, it’s clear he’s smirking.
Again, my jibe doesn’t land. The harder I try, the more it riles me up when I don’t get the reaction I’m going for here.
I want him pissed. I want him gone, out of my kitchen and out of our town that doesn’t need another asshole.
Ideally with his tail between his legs, realizing he’s been talking smack this whole time to what would’ve been his future boss.
Instead, everything I say rolls off his back and he keeps finding ways to spin my words around on me.
For the first time since I’ve been back here, Wilder finally turns around, pan in hand.
He slides the meat out with ease, plating it with precision, which also pisses me off.
A big oaf like that, shaking a pan, shouldn’t it be landing with a splash, juices spraying the stainless steel surfaces, making a mess and ruining the presentation of it all?
Come on, universe. We’re looking for more reasons to hate this guy. Work with me here.
His eyes flick up briefly, enough to take in the fact that I’m standing there, watching, and his mouth twitches.
“Still thirsty, huh?”
The smug implication in his words makes me want to throw my water at him. Calling me horny. The man doesn’t even know me.
“No, actually. Dry as a cactus now.”
“You know cactus are wet on the inside, right?” One of his dark brows raises, the one with the scar in it. “Prickly exterior, moist inside?” His tone is downright filthy. I’m gonna need two showers when I get home. “And they are always thirsty. Takes a lot to fill up a—”
“Good God, are you a cactus expert? What does it take to get you to shut up?”
His response is already on the tip of his tongue. “I can think of a number of ways you could get me to shut up.”
Is he always so brazen with women he’s just met?
I narrow my eyes at him, not humoring him with a response.
The heat from the range must be hitting me all the way back here, because my face feels even hotter now, sweat starting to bead along my hairline once again. Lifting my ponytail, I place the cool cup against my neck and shiver at the change in temperature, but it helps.
I avoid his eyes as he turns around again, a different pan in his large grip.
His hands actually dwarf the colossal industrial-sized pans. They’re big enough to do some damage.
It’s more than his tattooed skin that screams danger, everything about him is a warning.
The honey badger in me doesn’t care. She wants to get close enough to strike, take him down with teeth, claws, and her weapon of choice, a savage tongue.
But when I feel his gaze land on my body, register the way the chill breaks out across my flesh at the feel of the icy condensation against my warm skin, that’s not the only reason I want to get close. I put the cup down, flustered.
His eyes are heavy on my curves beneath the denim, and clearly I’m having heat stroke, because I swear I can almost feel his rough hands grip me as his black irises rake down my thick form, like these overalls and ten feet of space aren’t between us.
It’s making me feel things I don’t think anyone in this town ever has. Tugging, teasing, stoking at my insides in a way that makes me feel faint.
The walls start to blur, then everything goes black, and the floor welcomes my face.