Chapter 33
“What?” Raya yelled when I walked in the front doors of the restaurant. I hadn’t told her I was coming. I wanted it to be a surprise. “Whaaattt?!”
Several customers looked her way, and she lowered her voice. “What are you doing here?” She was running to greet me.
Her arms wrapped around my stomach, and her cheek went to my chest. “I missed you so, so, so much. Tell me you’re back.”
“Just for the weekend,” I said, hugging her.
Presley was working tonight, and from across the room I saw her mouth, “Thank god.” There were a few other servers as well since it was a Friday night. I only didn’t recognize one of them.
Raya groaned. “Just the weekend?”
“I thought you said it wasn’t that bad without me.”
“But everything is better with you.”
Warmth spread through my chest at her words. I’d missed her too, and hearing I was missed and my absence made a difference was nice.
She straightened up and her eyes immediately went to Elijah.
He was by my side but taking in the restaurant.
I looked around too. Having been away for a while made me see it more objectively now.
The wall that housed the windows was red brick, and the other walls we’d painted a clean ivory.
Those walls were where the generic art was hung—large pictures of food displayed in a fancy way.
The bar was the coolest thing in the room.
A beautiful stained wood with a copper bar top.
We’d commissioned it and thought it would carry the room.
It was the most interesting thing in the room, but it didn’t carry it.
“Cool bar,” Elijah said now, obviously studying it at the same time I was.
“Who is that?” Raya mouthed to me.
“Raya, this is Elijah,” I said. “Elijah, Raya.”
“Oh!” he said, thrusting out his hand. “Hi. So nice to meet you. I’ve heard so much about you.”
So much was a bit of an exaggeration, but he was nothing if not polite.
“Um … who are you?” she asked, obviously confused.
“I’m…” He must’ve been as lost about our status as I was.
“He’s a friend,” I said, since he obviously didn’t want to put a label on us.
“That she kisses,” he added.
I laughed.
“Oh, really?” Raya said.
“Let’s move this reunion to the back,” I said, realizing how unprofessional we were being with tables of customers so close.
“You guys haven’t talked much in the last several weeks, have you?” Elijah asked as we walked toward the back of the restaurant.
“Only every single morning,” Raya said.
I cringed. This wasn’t going well. Should I have mentioned Elijah to Raya? We’d just barely started kissing … like two weeks ago.
“You talk to her every morning and she’s never mentioned me?” he asked, more surprised than hurt, it seemed.
“What you need to learn about Sutton, if you haven’t already, is that she’s very much a down-to-business type of woman.”
“I do know that about her,” he said.
“Hello,” I said. “I’m right here.” They had both started talking about me in the third person, so I felt like the reminder was necessary.
“And she’s pretty private,” Raya said, like I hadn’t spoken.
“This is the back hallway,” I said, trying to change the subject.
“Oh, you need to meet Lucas,” Raya said to me. “Our new server.” Then to Elijah she said, “Sutton hired two new servers from three hundred miles away.”
“You hired them,” I said.
“Sure I did.” She winked. “Oh, and thanks for taking care of the potato issue. And the inventory we did the other day helped a lot.”
“Good,” I said, pushing through the swinging doors into the kitchen.
Chef was standing over some steaming pans at the stove, and he looked up as we entered. A smile broke out on his face. “Sutton? You’re back?”
“Just for the weekend.”
He moved the chicken he was searing onto a paddle and slid it into the brick oven.
“And this pretty boy right here,” Raya said, nodding with her head, “is Elijah.”
“Hello,” Chef said. “Welcome.”
“I used to call him Pretty Boy,” I said. “Well, Villain Pretty Boy.”
“Villain Pretty Boy?” Elijah asked.
“You have a devilish look about you,” I said.
He chuckled.
Raya nodded. “I can see it.”
“There’s a botched order on the warming counter if anyone wants it,” Chef said.
“Botched how?” I asked.
“Overcooked … according to the customer.”
“Annoying,” I said, but collected the plate—a filet. I added some mashed potatoes and seared veggies and passed it off to Elijah.
“This looks amazing,” he said, and I directed him out of the kitchen and to the bar out front where he could eat. “Take care of this man,” I said to our bartender, Angel.
She smiled at me. “Welcome back, boss.”
“Only visiting.”
I started to walk away, and Elijah grabbed me by the hand and pulled me against his side.
“Have I been put in a time-out?” he asked in a low voice that made my insides flip.
Angel raised her eyebrows at me. People at the restaurant weren’t used to seeing me with anyone.
Nate came by occasionally, but we kept it professional.
“No,” I said. “You haven’t. I thought you might be hungry.” I reached over the bar and retrieved a set of utensils wrapped in a cloth napkin. “Come to the back when you’re done.”
“I like seeing you in all your boss glory,” he said, again in a low, quiet voice. With those words, he released his hold on my waist and I rejoined Raya in the back just as a younger guy came to collect a plate from the kitchen.
“Lucas,” Raya said, “this is Sutton. You talked to her on the phone.”
“Hi,” he said. “Thanks for hiring me. I really like it.”
“Good to hear.”
He picked up his orders, balancing them expertly on his arms, and was gone again.
Raya smiled. “It really is good to see you.” She studied my face for a moment. “You look…”
“Tired?” I filled in for her.
“No, I was going to say happy. Light.”
“Do I?”
“Do we have that very pretty man eating food out there to thank for this? Or have you made peace with your mom?”
I gave a fake laugh. “Yeah, me and my mom are magically besties now.”
“Oh, I need your signature on a couple things in the office.”
I nodded and we made our way through the hallway stacked with miscellaneous boxes to the office at the back. It had a single window to the outside, but other than that it was small and depressing, and I forgot how much time I used to spend in here going over numbers and rearranging schedules.
The desk was stacked with papers, and there was another stack on top of the file cabinet.
I didn’t want to think about how much work was waiting for me when I came back.
I hoped none of it was urgent. No, it wasn’t.
The urgent stuff Raya had dealt with, I was sure.
It was probably spam mail from suppliers and vendors.
Raya retrieved a clipboard that held a few pages. “This is our contract with Mac. It’s time to re-sign. Did you want to look over the terms again?”
“It’s been a year,” I said quietly.
“Happy year to us.”
“I’m sorry I wasn’t here to make a big deal about it with you.” I hadn’t even thought about it. But the year mark was last week. April 21.
“It’s okay,” she said. “But let’s throw a party when you get back. Have Chef make some fancy appetizers, charge by the head, it will be fun.”
“That does sound fun,” I said, reading through the points on the contract. They seemed the same as last year.
She narrowed her eyes at me. “Are you mocking me?”
“What? No! Did it sound like I was?”
“That just normally wouldn’t be your thing.”
“Well, it’s my thing now.”
“I think I love Elijah.”
I rolled my eyes but then smiled. “He’s actually so great and fun and funny, and I really like him.” I signed on the line at the end, next to her signature.
“I’m happy for you.”
“But…” I said, trying not to get ahead of myself. “He doesn’t live here, so this is just…” I waved my hand toward the door, indicating where he sat beyond it.
“Sutton is letting herself have a fling?” Raya practically screamed.
“Shhhh!” I hissed. “No … I mean, yes? I don’t know what it is.”
She laughed. “You don’t need to. It’s good for you not to constantly have everything about your life planned.”
“I guess,” I said, putting the clipboard on the desk.
She took me by the shoulders and shook me back and forth. “It’s a good thing.”
I laughed. “Okay, okay. It is.”
“Is his body as nice as his face?” she asked.
“Raya!”
“What? I’m gay, I can ask questions like that. It’s for scientific purposes only. So … is it?”
“Yes, it is. But we haven’t…”
“You haven’t what? You haven’t slept with him yet?” Her eyes went wide with her second question.
“No, it’s been complicated. I’ve been with my mom and sleeping in a twin bed.”
“Okay, that makes sense. No wonder you brought him this weekend.”
I gasped. “It had nothing to do with that.”
“Sure it didn’t.”
“Oh my god, pull yourself together,” I said.
“I’m not the one having a fling.”
“You said it was good for me!”
She laughed as she left the office. “So good.”