Chapter 24
TWENTY-FOUR
Sadie
I set my overnight bag on the floor in my kitchen since there wasn’t enough room for it on the counter and began to fill a cooler with things from my fridge—an olive tapenade, hummus, some diced-up vegetables, a plum jam. While I continued to dig through the shelves, looking for good additions for the picnic I’d planned, I pulled out my phone from my back pocket, hit the button to call Bryn, and held it to my ear.
“Is it girls’ night?” she asked after the second ring. “Or is that tomorrow night? Or the night after? God, Sadie, I’m losing it, I swear. My brain is a pile of mush.”
I laughed. “It’s okay. I don’t know what day it is either.”
“I put on two different shoes this morning—that’s what I’m currently dealing with. And the best part is, one was a pointy toe and the other wasn’t—like, how did I not notice that?”
I looked down at my feet while I set a container of grapes in the cooler to make sure I at least had done that right. “Is it work? Is that where the brain mush is coming from? Or something else? And if it’s something else, I’m going to spank you for not talking to me about it.”
“Work.” She sighed. “And more work on top of that.”
“I get it,” I said gently. “Tomorrow night, which is girls’ night, I’m going to make sure you forget all about it. Oh, and by the way, next Saturday, don’t make any plans.”
“Why? What’s cooking on Saturday?”
“We’re going to Musik—the club that Lockhart and his family own.”
“Let me confirm that date. One sec.” I heard her typing in the background, as if she was looking up her schedule on her desktop at work. “Saturday is good, but if something comes up and say you need to move it to Friday, I can’t, just FYI. Thursday would be out too. I’ve got a two-nighter in Manhattan, but I’ll be back in time for Saturday night.”
“If you’re flying back that day, will you be too tired to go to Musik?”
“Too tired?” She snorted. “I’ll sleep when I’m dead—just like you.”
I groaned, “Amen.”
“What’s the deal with Musik? Are we going with your boy and his family or something? Please say yes because that means there’s a chance I’ll get to meet Beck, and I will literally drop dead if that happens.”
“If things with Lockhart keep going at this pace—and I hope they do—I’m sure you’re going to be meeting Beck very soon, I’d imagine, and I really don’t want you to die when it happens. I need my best friend.” I added a bottle of champagne into the cooler. “As for Saturday, you’re stuck with just me. Seen is doing a feature on the Westons three weeks in a row. Mini reviews on Charred and Musik, followed by a full write-up on Toro when it opens.”
She let out a long breath. “Oh boy. ”
“Yep.” I sighed. “I have to submit my review of Charred in a couple of days.”
“Are you going back, or are you just going to base your opinion off our dinner the other night?”
“Our dinner.” I paused midair, staring at the small bag of figs in my hand. “I don’t think the photos I took will give anything away. I assume lots of people get the tuna and the burrata as appetizers. It’s not like we got anything out of the ordinary.” I thought about my response and added, “Right?”
“Besides the scallops.”
I placed the figs on top of the blue cheese–stuffed olives. “I won’t show those.”
“Then you’re fine.” She cleared her throat. “What about your review? What are you going to say?”
“It’ll be glowing—I mean, we did have an excellent dinner.”
“We sure did. I loved it.”
I squatted to rearrange some of the things inside the cooler but ended up holding on to the sides of it instead. “Things feel so perfect. Yet, at the same time, like everything is on the verge of a nuclear disaster.”
“Babe”—her voice softened—“a few more weeks, and then this will all somehow, someway, be behind us. I say us because we’re in it together.”
“And I love you for that.”
As I repositioned some of the containers, I saw the shrimp spring rolls I had filmed earlier today that was scheduled to post on my social media next week. I took them out of the cooler and set them back in the fridge.
“But, yes, a few more weeks. After Toro’s opening, I’m telling him. I have to.” Satisfied with the assortment, I zipped up the cooler and glanced around my busy, film-ready kitchen. “And the thought of that should give me some relief.” I squeezed my eyes shut, remembering when I had started this career, which, back then, was nothing more than a hope. I’d filmed on a hot plate, dreaming of the days I’d have a setup like this. “But it doesn’t. Bryn, I’m terrified of coming clean.”
As the breeze hit my face, Lockhart’s hand was there, tucking the wild pieces of my hair behind my ear. But it was pointless. Unless I tied back my strands with the elastic that was on my wrist, the ocean air was going to keep them flying.
I didn’t mind.
That was why I’d brought him to Laguna Beach—for the wind, the waves, and the scenery we couldn’t get at his house or any of the restaurants I could have taken him to in town. And even though there were beaches closer to LA, there was something about this one that I felt was prettier than those.
I snuggled into his chest, the softness of his cotton button-down cozy against me as we sat beside each other, staring at the water, the bases of our champagne flutes buried in the sand. “When I was driving you to Laguna, I bet you thought I was taking you to Horned for dinner … didn’t you?”
He hadn’t asked any questions when I picked him up or during the drive here. He let tonight unfold just the way I’d wanted it to.
As I turned my body to look up at him, he was already gazing down at me, the greenness of his eyes more vibrant in this light.
“I couldn’t imagine why else we were coming this way. The beach was a surprise and a hell of a good one.”
“I wouldn’t bring you to Horned unless you asked me to. It wouldn’t feel right.”
I looked forward again, and he set his lips on top of my head .
“I’m not going to lie—I fucking hated how much you loved that restaurant.”
“I even rubbed it in about the butter cake—ugh, I’m so sorry.”
“Not your fault. You didn’t know. And even if you did, you’re allowed to love other restaurants.” He picked up a strawberry from the container beside me. “That one just happens to be a sore spot in my family.”
I assumed that when he had read Dear Foodie’s review of Horned, that had really stung. And now that I was learning a lot more about Walker, I bet he’d lost his shit over it.
So, he hadn’t just heard it from me.
Lockhart had heard it from both versions of me.
Oh God, it was going to be impossibly hard to tell him who I was.
“You should know that your opinion reinforced my decision to buy that restaurant,” he continued.
“Is that happening?” I stopped before I said another word.
A girlfriend would ask him that question , I told myself. But my brain was having a hard time differentiating what Dear Foodie wanted to know about LA’s food scene and what Sadie would inquire as a caring partner.
God, this was getting more complicated by the second.
“We’ll be submitting the offer in a couple of days,” he replied. “The paperwork is still with our attorney.”
“Do you think it’ll end up being yours?”
He chuckled. “When I want something—when my family wants something, we get it. Not just because we have the money to buy it, but because we know how to work things in our favor.” He tilted my face up to look at him. “I think you’ve experienced some of that … when it came to you and how badly I wanted you.”
I smiled. “You certainly know how to work it.” I winked .
He kissed me.
And as my hair flew around both of our faces, he deepened that kiss.
“You’re lucky we’re in public right now and we’re sharing the beach with others.” He kept his mouth close, letting me feel the words against my lips as he murmured them.
“I do have a back seat, you know.”
He laughed. “Don’t entice me.” He lifted my hand and held my fingers near his face, my skin getting small, brief hints of his scruff. “Tell me something—are you free next Saturday?”
Next Saturday, next Saturday.
Why did that date sound familiar?
And then it clicked.
“I have plans with Bryn. Why?” I popped a grape into my mouth.
“One of my friends, Brady, is coming in for the weekend. We’re all going to Beck’s game and then heading out from there. I want you to come.”
“Shit, I wish I could. That does sound like fun.”
“Bring Bryn. We have plenty of room in the suite.”
I knew Bryn would want me to accept Lockhart’s offer, but that was the only night I could go to Musik before the article was due. The problem with going to the game was that Bryn and I would get roped into going out with them after—besides, I’d want to go out with them—and I couldn’t let that happen when I had work responsibilities.
Even though this was such a tempting offer, this was one of those situations where I had to choose work over pleasure, and I hated to do it, but it was necessary.
“I would love that so much, and so would Bryn, but it’s a work thing”—I didn’t know why I’d said that and instantly wished I hadn’t—“and I can’t get out of it.”
“Working on a Saturday night?” He kissed across the back of my hand, his lips as soft as the pressure he used. “I guess social media never shuts off.”
“Unfortunately, it doesn’t.”
The guilt. It wasn’t just nipping away at me. It was gnawing.
“Is it normal for you to work on a Saturday?”
I guzzled half the champagne and set the plastic flute back in the sand. “Not usually.” I held my breath while I said, “Why do you ask?”
“I have some places I want to travel to, and I want to take you with me. I’m trying to determine how flexible your schedule is to see if I can drag you away for a week.”
A week of travel.
With Lockhart.
This man couldn’t possibly get any dreamier.
“I would just need to know ahead of time so I can plan my work accordingly. But it’s most definitely possible.”
“What if I wanted us to travel, say, once a month? Would that be an option?”
I turned toward him. “Once a month?”
He lifted a blue cheese–stuffed olive out of the container and placed it between my lips. “I would like that, yes.”
As I chewed, I forced myself to look away, slanting my face toward the ocean. “I work for myself for the most part—I don’t know if I told you that—so I create my own schedule. I do, however, have a lot of obligations that require me to be online at least a few times a day, so as long as I could plan ahead and take an hour or so to get caught up every morning”—I nodded—“I could make it happen.”
His arm stretched across my chest, his hand resting on my lower stomach. “We have a full-time social media guru on our staff. She comes into the office a few times a month for marketing meetings and works from home for the rest of the time, traveling to our different locations, collaborating with our global staff to get content for our corporate pages. It’s a world I understand, but one I’m not a part of. Shit, I haven’t even posted on Instagram in years.”
“What do you use your personal account for?”
“Mostly to keep a close eye on the food scene in LA and other major metro markets. And to check out Dear Foodie’s daily content. I don’t know of a food influencer who’s bigger than her.” Still holding my hand, he turned it, positioning my thumb on top. “It’s funny, she had a Band-Aid in the same spot as you in one of her recent videos.” He kissed where I’d burned my skin, the Band-Aid now gone and no longer needed, as the mark was about half healed.
But as his lips landed on me over and over again, my stomach dropped onto the sand, rolled down to the shoreline, and washed away with the waves. While his mouth worked its way to my wrist, I made sure he couldn’t see any part of my face, hiding the panic that covered every inch of it.
“You need to be careful in the kitchen, Sadie. That’s probably going to leave a scar.”