Chapter 29
Chapter Twenty-Nine
J ared came back to the cooktop as I was still trying to collect myself. He stirred his mixture like the whole dance around the kitchen had never happened. I pushed back against all of the self-doubt that threatened to drown me and went back to my creme anglaise.
“If you aren’t careful, you are going to burn that like the caramel yesterday,” he said without even glancing in my direction.
“I am careful,” I said with a short, clipped tone.
“You don’t have a great track record,” he said. He still wasn’t looking at me, but I heard the smirk in his voice. What a pompous jerk.
“I may not be some big-name hot shot, but I have been cooking as long as you have!” I turned my attention on him because I had been wanting to say this for a while. Every so often, his arrogance from the fame and fortune snuck into his words, and I w as tired of the bullshit. “Don't think that I can’t hold my own here? You are not better than me!”
He was looking at me now, and a smile broke across his lips before he started laughing.
“What the hell is so funny?” I asked. He pointed to the stove. “Goddamn it!” I lifted the now burning creme anglaise off the burner and carried it to sink. “That was your fault. Just like the first time. Who does that? Who distracts someone like that?”
“I don’t get distracted, so I wouldn’t know what it’s like,” he said.
I glared at him, frustrated that I had to start all over but absolutely furious with myself that I had sort of, kind of, just proved him right. I didn’t know how long I could work with him. It made me feel like an inept idiot. I was about to open my mouth to lay into him about his arrogance, his nonchalance, and most importantly, about what he had said about me yesterday when a buzz in my pocket pulled my attention.
When I checked, it was from Joel.
Joel: How’s it going?
My cheeks flushed unexpectedly. I was prone to uncontrolled blushing, but this was getting to be too much. I read the text again. It was simple and straight forward, but I didn’t know if he was asking about me personally or the bakery or Jared. What was wrong with me that I was so inept at reading subtext.
Jenna: Meh
Joel: That’s good? What are you up to?
I almost laughed out loud before I stifled it. Maybe I wasn’t the only one terrible at understanding texts. Who thought meh was good?
Jenna: Just cooking. With your brother.
Joel: Yikes. I don’t envy you. I’m planning on stopping by in a bit to cook you that foie gras that I promised. Try not to kill each other before I get there.
Jenna: I will do my best, but I make no promises.
Joel: I guess I can help hide the body if it comes to that.
I laughed again. Was I flirting? With Joel? Why? Maybe it was because he was being nice to me. That would be a pretty lame reason.
“What is making you grin like that?” Jared asked, sidling up next to me at the sink. I pressed my phone to my chest, so he couldn’t see.
“Nothing,” I said, my face blushing.
“Come on. What is it?” he asked.
And in that moment, I didn’t know why I was keeping it a secret .
“If you must know, I am texting with your brother,” I said, with a smug grin to match his own.
His face fell, filling with a dark expression that took me by surprise. “Why?”
“I don’t know. He was just asking me how I’m doing. He is very polite, unlike you,” I said, not sure why I added that last part.
Jared’s mouth formed a thin line and the muscles in his jaw tensed. “How was dinner?”
“It was really nice,” I said. I guess I enjoyed watching the veins in his neck and forehead pop just a little.
“Of course it was. Listen, Jenna. Don’t. Just stay away from him. I know he comes off as nice, but he isn’t.”
I snorted a laugh. “I’m sure he says the same about you. At least he isn’t using me. He seems to respect my position as your consultant.”
“Now you two are on the same side?” He looked genuinely hurt.
“This is a competition, Jared. Or did you forget?”
“I guess I was under the impression that this was a friendly competition,” he said before turning and heading for the walk-in, leaving me with my mouth hanging open.
“Shit,” I whispered. Why the hell did I feel guilty? I shouldn’t feel guilty for talking to his brother or trying to win the competition. I wasn’t doing anything wrong. He was overreacting. At least that’s what I was telling myself. And you know what? I planned to tell him that too.
I stormed across the kitchen after him. Pulling open the walk-in fridge and stepping into the dim light. The space was cold and mostly em pty aside from some milk, cream, and fruit. The door shut behind me, the single, naked bulb casting deep shadows in the small space.
“What?” he asked.
I had never heard him so angry except when he was talking to his brother. Maybe he just really hated his brother. Now that we were facing each other, only a few steps away in the small confines of the walk-in, I could feel the full weight of his anger. But I was angry too.
“Of course this isn’t a friendly competition. This may be some rebellious way for you to get back at your dad for running your life, so you can cosplay at being something other than a rich and famous and wildly successful cook, but this isn’t make-believe for me. This is my life. This is everything. If this endeavor doesn’t work out for you, you get to go back to your glamorous life, no harm, no foul. If it doesn’t work for me, I am out of options. I am stuck as the Lobster girl forever.”
“That’s ridiculous. You don’t have to be anything you don’t want to be.”
“That is so easy for you to say,” I laughed. “You have money. You have endless possibilities.”
“You could have that too if you tried harder.”
“Holy shit. You really are an asshole. I thought that maybe you had just misspoke when you told Joel you were using me, but you really think that me not having my life together at twenty-four is because I’m not working hard enough?” I shouted only inches from his face. Tears burned in my eyes .
“That’s, no, that’s not what I meant. I just meant that…” he stammered.
“What did you mean, Jared?”
“I meant that you can be anything you want. Even if it doesn’t happen right now,” he said. Jared shook his head in frustration. “God, it’s not coming out right. I thought this whole thing, the bakery and competition, it could help you.”
“Help me? What the fuck are you talking about? You haven’t tried to help me once. In fact, the only person who seems to give two shits about me is your brother.”
“Goddamn it! Stay away from Joel!” he shouted, wrapping his hands around my shoulders and squeezing.
I froze, my heart thundering against my ribs a mix of anger, heartache, and something. The heat from his strong grip poured over my skin and raced through my body, temporarily muddling my thoughts. “You aren’t allowed be mad at me for talking to your brother,” I said.
He sighed and released my shoulder, taking a step back although the walk-in didn’t allow for much distance. Goosebumps prickled along my skin in part from the growing cold of the refrigerator we stood in and partly from the absence of his hands. A brief image of his hands moving over my skin flashed through my mind before I shook it away.
“Why do you care that I am mad?” he asked. Good point.
“I am just trying to win this competition. And your brother is nice to me.”
“Sounds like you are still trying to convince me,” he said, eyebrows lifted, sexy wrists folded over meaty biceps, his face still holding complex emotions that I couldn’t parse out .
I opened my mouth to respond but didn’t have anything coherent to say. Instead, I let the incoherent ramble fall from my mind. “Why are you like this? You belittle me every chance you get around my cooking. Then you tell me not to talk to your brother as if I betrayed you or something, and now you are trying to convince me that I don’t even have a right to call you out on it! It’s bullshit!”
“I'm not telling you not to call me out. I’m telling you that you don’t owe me or anyone else an explanation. You need to keep seeing my brother? Go for it! But don’t say I didn’t warn you. He is a creep. He takes what he wants and doesn’t care who he steps on to get there. If he is asking you on a date, it is because he wants something. What does he want, Jenna?”
I stepped back like he had hit me, my back hit the walk-in door, swallowing past the pain as tears burned my eyes. “So you think that's the only way that someone would want me? To get something? Poor pathetic Jenna. Who could possibly want me? I am just the loser who never left Cape Shore, who has worked at a shitty tourist trap restaurant, who can’t ever get her shit together to make her dreams come true.” Now the tears were impossible to hold back. I turned toward the door so he couldn’t see my tears.
“That’s not what I meant,” he said.
“Sounds to me like you never say what you mean,” I said. I shook my head without turning around as I pushed on the handle to open the walk-in and leave. Only the door didn’t budge.