Chapter 7 #2
I pick another favorite of mine and read it aloud, while her brows furrow lower than I thought biology allowed them to go.
“Don’t ask stupid questions. You know the answer.
While we’re making decisions, the sauces should go on in the back.
No bottles on the table. Keeping ketchup on the table is gonna get nasty so fast. Those bottles are gonna look like your uncle’s ass plugs in a month. ”
Lexi’s face pulls at the visual, and she steps back.
One side of my mouth hitches up in a smile. “That one’s from Wanda.”
“WANDA!” she bellows, to no response from the dining room downstairs where the servers are doing side work. “You’re the one that’s supposed to clean the ketchup bottles!” She huffs out a sigh and crosses her arms.
“Come on, Boss.” I smirk at her. “Would it really be so bad to elevate the menu a little bit? It’s all the same items you wanted, just…better.”
She drops down heavily in the captain’s chair in front of the desk.
I know an opening when I sense one.
Swiveling the screen to face her, I swap windows to the menu I designed.
“Instead of a chicken sandwich with American cheese and wilted lettuce—”
Her eyes turn to slits. “My menu didn’t say wilted lettuce, asshole.”
“Firstly, I love when you flirt with me on the job.”
The vein in her neck throbs when I grin at her, and I imagine her pussy doing the same. My mouth waters.
“Secondly, the lettuce was going to wilt with the setup you have in the back,” I point out, one eyebrow raised.
“If I hadn’t changed up the line, moved the bins around the station, that lettuce would’ve had permanent whiskey dick.
It was right next to the tomatoes and less than a foot from the blacktop. A greens graveyard.”
Her breaths look like they’re taking effort. In, then out.
I keep going, hoping today’s the day we progress to anything other than a scowl from her. “Heights Bites is where lettuce went to die. God’s waiting room for plants. The Florida of kitchens.”
She scrunches her nose, shaking her head. “Oh, you are such a drama king. It was right where Samuel would finish the burgers, so he could plate it up right there and save time.”
That’s not something you can shortcut.
My brows cinch, concern knocking the humor right out of the voice in my head. Is this her first time in a kitchen? Is she in over her head?
My dad always said I was too soft for the family business, but this girl is pulling on my heartstrings more than most. So fiercely defensive, protecting herself from criticism, when she doesn’t seem to realize the dozen different pitfalls that were waiting all throughout the restaurant just last week.
Limp lettuce was far from the worst of it.
“Are you done avoiding me now?” I ask her.
She huffs, turning her head and not answering me.
“Because we should do a walkthrough together.” I tap the clipboard next to me. “A lot of stuff we need to go over before the final inspection.”
“Do we have to?”
“Yes. But whether or not there’s a happy ending is up to you.” Might’ve been too soon to push it with her, but I guess my streak that’s addicted to danger was feeling ignored.
She drops her head back, like only a scream to the universe can help her now, but she doesn’t let one out.
“Kidding.”
“Not funny,” she grits out.
I change the subject, cutting her some slack.
“When is the inspection?” I ask her. “I haven’t been able to reach the inspector over the phone. They keep transferring me, but it rings and rings and the guy never picks up.”
“It’s not scheduled yet,” she says, crossing her foot over her other knee and starting to jiggle her leg.
I lurch forward. “It’s what? Lexi, we’re a week from opening. What are you waiting for?”
“My chef to get abducted by aliens.”
“I’m all about a little probing—” I start.
“Of course you are,” she says, rolling her eyes.
“—but we can’t open without that certificate. You should’ve booked that two months ago.”
“Relax.” She waves a hand at me and pulls out her phone. With one hand she types out a message, while the other reaches for a Diet Coke on the corner of the desk.
I stand from the chair behind the computer and pace, hands behind my head, elbows out. In my life I’ve never had an inspection get scheduled in under six weeks.
And out here, I don’t even have the connections to get us some sort of forgery.
I’d hate to have to use that network at all, but what other option do we have?
If we don’t have a certificate, we can’t serve food.
I assumed she already had the inspection scheduled, or I’d have knocked down this door she was hiding behind all last week.
Her rasp interrupts my plan to try to find a black market network in the middle of the Smokies.
“He’ll be here tomorrow at two.” Lexi says, then pops her gum loudly.
I turn, jaw dropped. “Che cazzo, Lexi. Just like that?”
Her chin dips once. “He was just waiting on my text.”
Well, fuck me.
“Then first thing tomorrow morning,” I tell her. “You and me. Kitchen. We need to be ready.”
That fire flickers to life in her eyes again, determination burning there. “This place will be flawless in time.”
The way she says it, it’s a promise.
Maybe she’s trying to prove something to her boss, maybe just to herself. One thing is for damn sure, she’s passionate about this new job of hers.
Whatever her reason, I don’t want to see her fail.
Right here and now, I make the call. Heights Bites is going to make it.
I’m going to make sure of it.
I was already fired up to bring this place to life with a reimagined menu, whipping the back of house team into shape to be service-ready in a matter of weeks, and making sure Wilder Amante’s next stepping stone to Salt + Spice lives up to the standard I’m setting for myself.
But it’s more than that for her. I’m starting to see this place means something to her too. It’s not just a chip on her shoulder where I’m concerned, she cares about Heights Bites.
That stubborn side of her that’s determined to succeed here, I don’t want to see that light get crushed from her by the shitty side of this industry.
The things she doesn’t know she doesn’t know, I’ll be with her, making sure it all goes right and she doesn’t step into a bear trap along the way.
“We’ll do it together,” I tell her.
Like she can sense a shift in the air, like she’s got a sixth sense—the way I can tell when a steak is cooked to temp without having to touch it—she bites and it feels like the first step toward an alliance.
“Is your menu really that much better?”
My hands start telling the story as I go. “Well, take the burger. My meat is a chuck mix that I blend myself.”
“Sounds expensive.”
I smirk at how quick she is to shoot it down. Means I’m still under her skin. “I’ve sourced it out and we can do it at about the same price if we go with a farmer Charlie knows instead of through a distributor, but it’ll be so much more flavorful. The moistness is unparalleled.”
She scrunches her nose again, taking another sip of her Diet Coke. “Ew. If you’re going to keep talking to me, you can’t use words like ‘moist’.”
That gets a grin from me, and I let my eyes wander her thick frame for just a second, long enough for her to turn pink, before I keep going.
“We’ll use an earthier cheese with some punch, my first choice would be Gruyère, for that salt and fat.
Top that with my fan favorite love sauce, made fresh with homegrown herbs, for some brightness and heat.
Some sturdy greens for texture and balance.
Fresh cut spuds on the side. You can’t tell me that won’t be heaven in your mouth. ”
I take it as a good sign that she homes in on only one thing to argue with me about.
The memories it dredges up, however, are less than pleasant.
“Where are we even going to get ‘home-grown herbs’ from? You sound like a pot dealer. If you try to pitch me on a grow light for the stockroom, I’m walking out of here. ”
If it were any other joke, I’d be celebrating the progress. Her kidding around with me? Huge.
Instead, I flash her a grimace that I try to pass off as my normal smile. Like nothing in her words crystallized my blood, reminding me of the Wilder Amante I was before prison changed me.
I have to work to let the post-incarceration Wilder take the helm, the one who finds humor in everything and doesn’t get knocked off his feet, and answer her question. “Tarragon, thyme, basil, just a few plants. It’ll make all the difference.”
My eyes dart around the room, but no hidden greenhouse appears.
“This place got a roof? That’s what I did in New York.”
If Lexi notices anything odd in my behavior, she doesn’t show it.
“So what? We’re not even farm to table? We would be roof to table? Sounds real sophisticated. Got that sex appeal you were going for.”
The scowl on her face is sexier than it would be on someone else, and my blood pulses a little faster. Back to trying to knock my ideas down a peg, as usual. The game I’m used to between us. A genuine smile curls my lips at the back and forth that never stops with her.
A new voice chirps up, followed by the sound of footsteps up the stairs. “Uh oh,” sing songs the melodic voice. “Did I walk in on something a little sister should never have to see? Whose sex appeal?”
Lexi scoffs, immediately scooting back further away from me, even though an entire desk separates us, and she shoots a middle finger at the door for good measure as her sister’s form appears in it.
Filling the silence, I speak up. “I’m just trying to close my manager on letting me grow some herbs for the restaurant.”
Rory’s face lights up. “Ohmigosh yes, Alexis! Your garden would be perfect for this!”
An evil smile overtakes my face. “A garden? That would be perfect. So much better than a roof.”
Lexi scowls at me, pink lips puckering in a way that’s entirely too tempting. Good thing this desk is covering my lower half.