Chapter 10
TEN
LEXI
By the time doors are ready to close on our first day, no part of me isn’t hurting.
My feet feel like an elephant borrowed them for the day.
My back could use a two-hour bath followed by an all-night massage.
My hands…well they were burning a lot worse a few hours ago, but they still sting a touch. Subconsciously, my fingers run over the back of one hand, where I still feel the lotion that took away so much of the pain.
But my head? The only time it’s hurt all day is when I came face-to-face with my head chef and all I could feel was his hand down my pants last week.
The speed he can move on from mind-bending foreplay and act like everything is normal leaves me dizzy.
And that man is still on my shit list.
It doesn’t matter that today was a raging success by all metrics and then some, probably thanks to him.
Nobody, and I mean nobody, in the Heights can hold a grudge like Alexis Weiss.
Shit, I still hold half a grudge against my own sister for what she did, and look at all she’s done for me and how far we’ve come these past three years.
So when Wilder made himself my public enemy number one within seconds of meeting him (and wanting to jump his bones, the voice in my head reminds me unhelpfully), he declared war.
Two weeks of working in my kitchen and one good day of being open doesn’t change that. I just might need a little help remembering that fact, since I seem to think with what’s between my thighs instead of my ears when I’m alone with him.
I’m going to blame temporary insanity, the fact I haven’t been laid in three years, hormones, or even early onset menopause—does dementia run in the family?—for my weakness in giving in to him.
Twice.
Walking out to my car that first night with the uncomfortable mess between my thighs and my jeans practically squeaking on the way out was humiliating.
I can only thank whoever is looking out for me above that I didn’t run into the town’s most notorious gossips—Ernie, Old Mrs. Dixon, or honestly any of the other residents—on the way.
If it was my mom looking out for me, I’d like to think there was some sort of censor, and she didn’t actually see how low her firstborn has fallen.
The sharp pinch in my chest at the thought of her—not any duller, even after two and a half years of being without her—flares at the image of her face if she knew about my walk of shame.
She’d laugh, a chuckle that’s not quite under her breath, shake her head, and tell me what a mess I was, but that a good dicking might sort me out.
I would tell her that’s disgusting, and to never say the word dick around me again.
If Rory were there, she would’ve dogpiled on, pausing in making fun of my moment of weakness to tag team with me and tell our mom how nasty it is to think of her using any form of the word penis.
Mom’s brown eyes would sparkle, because that’s what they did before the cancer set in so far it sapped all the her from her body.
If Mom is looking out for me from up above, she must’ve been napping a few nights ago when I gave into Wilder again.
There are a thousand factors I could blame. Stress, nerves—hell, I think I could blame hormones a second time. There are so many of those fuckers, surely more than one or two combinations of them could’ve led me astray here.
But no matter how many times I’ve beat myself up for what happened between us, it hasn’t changed the fact that it happened.
Even worse, it hasn’t changed the fact that I feel unbalanced rather than satisfied afterward.
It’s twice now he’s brought me the best orgasms in recent memory, and it’s twice now I’ve walked away from that man, leaving him hard as the stainless steel counters in the back of the kitchen.
His low gravel still resonates in my ears all these days later.
You’re not getting my cock until you beg for it.
I feel the zing of his words through the rest of me too.
Yeah, sure, maybe when I reached for his cock it was out of an age-old habit of repaying the favor with my hookup of the evening. Tit for tat and all that.
But there was no tat.
Just tit.
And I have been oddly off-kilter since.
Being this out of whack over the person I can’t stand is making me crazier than usual, but not a chance in hell I am going to beg him for the chance to get him off, so I’m just going to have to live with this new state of equilibrium.
To add insult to injury, the soft opening today (friends and family only, so basically the entire town) was an absolute smashing success.
Not a single fire, not in the front of house or back of house.
Nothing I can get rid of him over, or even complain about.
With so many staff here today, we may have bumped into one another a few times (Tracy still forgets to say corner every time she’s rounding a corner), even the pessimist in Weston’s girl Amelia couldn’t say today has been anything other than killer.
As the manager, I’ll need to help out in the restaurant however it’s needed. If we’re packed, I’ll wait tables. If we’re backed up, I’ll run food out to waiting customers, which is apparently called expediting. Stupid fucking word for it, but whatever.
But usually, I’ll get to do what I did for most of today and both welcome guests and check them out in between my list of tasks Rory likes to call managerial duties.
It’s as I’m wrapping up the last of those duties for today’s shift when I make my way to the front of the restaurant.
Gracie, Ronnie, Rory, and Wyatt are at a four-top by the front windows, the last ones here, lingering over dessert.
“Twice in one day!” I say to my sister.
Our first customer of the day, and now our last. She winks at me, smiling.
“Compliments to the chef!” my best friend’s husband calls out, rubbing a hand on his stomach in the most cliché stock photo you’ve ever seen.
Married couple at a diner, enjoying their meal.
Good thing his best friend balances his cheese factor out.
“Yeah, Lex. Didn’t find a single hair in my food.” Wyatt’s scruff twitches, which means he’s probably trying to be funny.
“Oh, stop it,” Rory whispers to him, then turns back to me.
I can’t help but notice her cream silk blouse doesn’t have even a drop of salad dressing on it. If I hadn’t seen Mom bring her home from the hospital, I’d wonder if we were really related.
“You killed today, Alexis. My salad at lunch was phenomenal, and I don’t even mean by local standards.”
Her smirk makes my eye twitch.
“It was fresh, filling, and nothing short of delicious. My crepe for dinner might have been even better.”
Rory’s eyes twinkle at me, the same shade as mine. And our mother’s.
Pride sinks in through my nervous system, replacing the uncertainty that’s lived there for weeks, and I smile back at her.
My little sister keeps going. “Have you seen the Heights’ Facebook group? It’s all anyone is talking about. ‘The food is amazing,’ ‘the servers were fantastic,’ and there is so much buzz about this chef from New York.” One eyebrow slinks up her slim face, waiting for a response.
I flump down in the booth next to her, and Wyatt grumbles as he’s tossed in the air just a bit at the motion.
They scoot down as best they can to fit me in, but I don’t care.
My dogs are barking; I’ll take any relief at this point.
Even a quarter of my ass on this seat next to my sister, across from my best friend.
“Yes,” Gracie giggles. “He’s been quite the topic of discussion.”
I think I can hear Wyatt’s scowl intensifying down the table, and it can only be a sign of how exhausted I am after the day that I don’t take this chance to poke the bear and aggravate him, and therefore my sister.
“As long as the food was good,” I find myself saying.
It’s become my mantra lately, all the times that I need something to hold onto that doesn’t feel like I’m losing this battle with Wilder. If the food is good, that’s what matters most, I tell myself.
He might drive me crazy, but if guests are happy, I will live with it for these few months. Samuel and Charlie can study his recipes and learn what he’s doing, and we’ll be just fine without him come fall.
“The food was the best the Heights has ever had,” Rory says, a self-satisfied smirk on her face. “Way better than what used to be here.” She manages to disparage our father without even saying his name, which should be impressive, but words are her weapon and this is nothing new.
I twitch uncomfortably in place at the booth, and only partially because two-thirds of my body is sliding off of the seat.
“I liked the diner,” I bring myself to say.
“Yeah,” Gracie jumps in to back me up, hand outstretched toward me on the tabletop. “It was dependable, and I have so many childhood memories here.”
“If you didn’t mind a little crunch in your mashed potatoes, or some extra texture in your meat,” Ronnie says, snickering.
“Hey!” I shout, ready to defend.
“That’s not half as bad as the prick who ran it.” Rory couldn’t sound more scathing if someone was trying to sell her a fake Chanel bag as a real one.
My blood boils, raging through my system, lighting me up to fight back, to speak up, to not cower down on the subject for once. But before all that hot-headedness makes its way down to my mouth, she dismisses the subject entirely.
“But we’re not here to talk about bad times. We’re here to celebrate you, Alexis. Congratulations! I can’t say it’s all downhill from here, but you are off to a really great start.”
Rory leans in to wrap an arm around me, and I let my head fall on my little sister’s shoulder.
Because it has been hard. I don’t know what I’m doing or how I got into this mess. But she’s helped me get to this point, and I am thankful for that.
That bitch of a voice in my head can’t help but wonder, Would she still be congratulating me if she knew I was in touch with Dad?
That he’s partnered in this with me?
She wouldn’t be. I don’t need her fancy fucking degree to know that much.
“Hey, Boss! Can we borrow you?” Wilder’s voice booms through the emptied out dining room, and it’s my cue to stand.