Chapter 3 Ryan
“What did you say?” asks Noah Prescott, the restaurateur on the other end of my phone who’s trying to get me to sell my soul for the next three years. “I can’t hear you over all that noise. Where are you?”
“Hold on. Going outside.” It’s amazing and frightening how fast an accent rushes back to a person when they go home.
I push my way through the crowded sports bar to the front door, disliking how people keep bumping into me, sloshing their drinks onto my shoes. It’s around 1:30 A.M., and we are at our fourth (and last) bar of the night. The air smells like sweat, tequila, and regret. And let’s just say that everyone in our party is less than sober, but none less sober than June Broaden.
To be honest, I had come into town with the full intention of making a fresh start with her. I planned to bury that hatchet and put the water under the bridge. We haven’t spoken since high school, which I thought would have been plenty of time to let our old animosity fade.
I was wrong.
When June’s green eyes locked on me, I saw her hatred burn brighter. Nothing has faded. It’s somehow intensified. And just like that, I was eighteen again, faced with the woman who makes my skin crawl—but mostly from how much I want her. Her cheeks were flushed, eyes narrowed, and I could see she had no intention of burying the hatchet. Nope, she threw down the gauntlet. This old flame between us is still kindling, and I want to kiss her now more than ever.
After our high school commencement ceremony, I almost did. I came within an inch of June’s perfect lips before reality crashed over me. I couldn’t kiss her on graduation day—not after all our years of dueling. Not when I knew I would pack up later that night and catch a red-eye flight to France, beginning my stint at Le Cordon Bleu. It would have been a cruel form of torture finally tasting June’s lips and having to leave them behind for good.
It was better to leave things as they were and part as enemies rather than lovers.
What sucks about all this is that, even after all these years, my situation hasn’t really changed that much. June still hates me, and I’m still only in town temporarily. After this wedding, I’ll head back to Chicago and either sign a contract to be the executive chef in the new gourmet restaurant Noah is opening, or I’ll go bury myself in the other ritzy kitchen I’ve already been working in for the past four years.
“Can you hear me now?” I ask Noah, feeling a little too much like the guy from those cellphone commercials.
“Yeah, that’s better. Where are you?”
“At a friend’s bachelor party in Charleston.”
“Ah, that explains why I was hearing so many female voices in the background.”
I shove my hand in my pocket to keep it warm. Wintertime in Charleston is nothing compared to winters in Chicago, but it’s still chilly enough right now to make me want to hike my shoulders up to my ears to hide my neck from the cold.
“Nah, it’s not like that. It’s a joint bachelor and bachelorette bar crawl with his fiancée and her bridesmaids.”
Noah makes a sound of disgust. “That sucks. She’s already taking the poor guy’s freedom away; did she have to take his bachelor party too?”
Yeah, I don’t like Noah either.
“Were you calling for something specific, Noah?” I don’t even bat an eye at the fact that he’s calling at this time of night, because I’ve heard that Noah works hard all day and night. He doesn’t need sleep and seems to think the rest of us don’t either. Which, in his defense, is mostly true. The restaurant industry is cutthroat. Gotta stay ahead to stay alive.
“Oh, yeah. I was just wanting to let you know I’ve officially secured the investors for Bask, and they all agreed you are the chef they want running the kitchen. We’ll center the whole dining experience around you and your culinary style. So all that’s left is for you to sign those papers, and we can get the ball rolling with marketing.”
I pinch my eyes shut because (1) I’m exhausted from barhopping all night, pretending I’m the kind of guy who does this all the time, (2) I’m not sure I even want this job, and (3) through the window, I can see some guy in a salmon-colored shirt two sizes too big for him slide up on the barstool beside June and strike up a conversation. She’s been ignoring me all night, but she’s awfully attentive to Mr. Izod right now.
I turn my back to the window so I can focus. I know Noah is offering me the job of a lifetime (I know it because he’s reminded me of it at least fifty times since offering it to me) and that I’d be a fool to pass it up. He’s started three other restaurants in various parts of the country similar to the one he’s trying to get me to sign onto in Chicago. Those other three restaurants have all won Restaurant of the Year awards, and I’m sure this one will do the same. Noah has turned the restaurant business on its head by reinventing the way people view their eating experiences. Because that’s exactly what his restaurants are—an experience.
And apparently, my silence is tipping Noah off to my hesitation. “Ryan, don’t pass this up. Bask will launch your career into a whole other realm.”
“I thought that’s what the Michelin stars were supposed to do.”
He scoffs. “Those are only the tip of the iceberg.”
I hate when people say phrases like that. What does it even mean? If you want me to sign the next three years of my life away to work grueling hours in a high-stakes restaurant game, give me a PowerPoint presentation of the exact ways it will benefit me. Don’t hit me with frilly meaningless answers like “tip of the iceberg” because I’m not a freaking glaciologist. And yeah, I’m grumpy. It has nothing to do with me looking over my shoulder and seeing Izod Man touching June’s shoulder. Just a coincidence.
“I need a little more time to think about it,” I say to Noah.
He lets out a sigh, and I can picture him running his hand through his thinning hair. Because that’s what this business we are in does to a man who’s only in it for the love of money—takes your hair and leaves you with a unique eau de cologne called Le Douchebag Suprême. And although the life of a chef and a restaurateur are different, they have a few things in common: long days that often bleed into the next, high-stress work hours, and the constant need to please the unpleasable. It’s all worth it if you love what you do.
I’m just not sure that I do anymore . . .
“Fine. Tell you what, I’ll give you until the end of the week to decide. But I can’t keep the investors happy for long. I’ve heard them mention Martin’s name more than once. They’re planning to offer him the position if you pass it up.”
“End of the month,” I counter.
“What?”
“I want until the end of the month to decide.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me? We both know you’re going to take it, so what do you need to think about? Is it salary? Because we’re already offering you an obscene amount of money, but I can go back to the investors—”
“It’s not the money. I just need some time.” My voice sounds clipped and final. I’m annoyed that he’s trying to talk like we’re buddies and I’d confide in him. We’ve brushed elbows over dinner a few times with mutual acquaintances, but we’re not friends, and I’m not about to pretend we are. In fact, the only friend I have is in that bar right now doing flaming rum shots with his fiancée.
My eyes shift from Logan and Stacy over to the bar where June is sitting with another cocktail in her hand. She shouldn’t be drinking any more. The woman was already tipsy two bars ago. I wonder if it’s my presence that’s making her knock ’em back? Is it because I still get under her skin? That thought makes me smile.
Because she still gets under mine.
“Tell your investors they’ll have my answer by the end of the month. And don’t go behind my back and make a deal with Martin, because we both know he’s not as good as me and his name won’t carry the restaurant nearly as far as mine will.”
“Ryan—”
I hang up before he gets another word in. And yeah, it might seem like I’m a bit of a cocky jerk, but that’s because I am. It comes with the job description. You don’t climb as high in life as I have by kissing everyone’s feet. I’ve learned that if I want to be successful in my industry, I have to make people respect me.
Which is why I’m not sure that I want that job. I’m just the slightest bit tired of being an a-hole.
The door to the bar opens, and Logan sticks his head out. “Ryan! I didn’t bring your sorry butt all the way to Charleston just so you could talk on the phone all night. Get in here!” His words are all slurring together, and I know that tomorrow he’s going to be hating life.
I put my phone in my pocket and go back inside the bar. The minute I step foot inside, nearly every woman’s head turns to look at me. Well, all but one.
Logan hangs his arm over my shoulder, and his breath rams into me like a four-hundred-pound linebacker. “Fun party, right?! I’m having a killer time, bro.” Anytime Logan is drunk, he talks like an eighteen-year-old frat boy who sneaks watermelon wine coolers. He raises his glass into the air. “Best bachelor party ever!” he yells and then woooos at the top of his lungs right beside my ear. I’m deaf now.
He continues to hang on me as we make our way around the bar. “Where’s Stacy? I think we need to get you back on that leash of yours.”
“She went to the bathroom.” Logan then abruptly stops and catches my arm to get me to stop walking. His face is so serious now I’m worried he might be about to hurl all over me. “Ryan, bro”—he never calls me bro—“have I ever told you how much you mean to me?” Oh, good. We’ve entered the heartfelt portion of his drunkenness. I need to get him home before the next phase hits: Naked Logan.
“Yeah, yeah, we’re besties. Let’s go get you some water.”
He shakes his head. Clearly, he’s not said all that was in his heart. “I’m serious, man. If there’s ever anything I can do for you. Just name it. Seriously. Like, do you need my shirt? It’s yours!”
And yep, he’s unbuttoning it. I guess “Naked Logan” is already in motion.
“Stop taking off your shirt.” I grab him by the shoulder and start dragging him toward the table where a few of the other groomsmen are huddled and drunk-swiping through Tinder together. One guy is about to send a message to a woman that he will most definitely regret in the morning, so I snatch his phone and pocket it. He frowns and protests, saying something about me being a killjoy.
I spot Stacy’s bridesmaids across the room, all writing their numbers on the bar’s wall in Sharpie. This is not a “draw on the wall” sort of bar, and I’m pretty sure they are seconds away from being kicked out.
But I knew this would happen. That’s why I cut myself off after one drink. Someone needs to be the voice of reason in the group. That, and because I haven’t partied since I was in my early twenties. Life hasn’t exactly given me any downtime to go out late with friends. I’m not even sure I know how to let loose anymore.
“Sit,” I say, depositing Logan in a chair. He looks up at me, and now he’s a pouty toddler who’s just had his lollipop ripped from his hand. “I’ll go find Stacy and then call you two a ride.” A few of the guys at the table boo me. “Looks like I’m calling everyone rides.”
In the next moment, the music cuts off, and I hear someone blowing into a microphone. I turn around and spot June up on the karaoke stage, mic clutched between both her hands, smiling like her mouth is numb from dental surgery and she’s halfway under the effects of anesthesia. She still looks every bit as cute as she did at the beginning of the night, though. If not a little more, because now she’s taken off her high heels and loosened up. She looks more like the girl I secretly crushed on in high school, and it’s making my stomach twist.
“Helllloooo, ladies and gentlemen! Who wants to have fun tonight?!” she yells into the microphone. My ears bleed when a sharp whine tears through the speakers. Everyone else in this bar is so far gone, though, that they don’t notice. They hoot and catcall like Lady Gaga herself has just stepped onto the stage.
“Good!” June rips the mic from the stand and paces. She actually looks pretty natural up there. “ ’Cause we’re gonna party ALL NIGHT!”
No, we’re not. The bar closes in thirty minutes.
“But first”—her eyes cut right to me for the first time since the beginning of the night when I removed the toilet paper from her shoe—“I want to introduce you all to my friend, Ryan Henderson! Come on up here, Chefy!”
I should have known she had something planned. What does she think will happen? I’ll go up there and she will stick the mic in my hand and trick me into singing and embarrassing myself in front of everyone? Apparently, she doesn’t realize that she’s about four more drinks in than me.
I smile and shake my head no at her, trying not to make a big scene.
June stumble-sways to the right before catching the mic stand to balance herself again. “Oh, come on, don’t be a party pooper, Mr. Darcy!” It makes me laugh that June still calls me Mr. Darcy. She’s been doing it ever since I tried to keep my best friend away from her best friend in junior high, aka “pulling a Darcy” from Pride and Prejudice.
The bar erupts with drunken encouragement. A beautiful redhead in a skintight dress sidles up next to me and wraps her arm around mine. “I’ll go up there with you if you’re shy.” Yeah, no.
I extract my arm and look back up to meet June’s seething expression. Seething that I’m not budging or because of the pretty redhead?
“Sorry. Not gonna happen,” I call out, trying to settle the crowd.
“Go on, Ryan! Sing with June,” Stacy yells after returning from the bathroom and planting herself on Logan’s lap.
But June doesn’t want to sing with me. This is all a part of the war she started back up tonight. She’s looking for a way to humiliate me. To knock me down a few notches. And even though I came here intending to bury our old feud, seeing her again makes me want to play along. I loved dueling with June back in the day. It felt like flirting back then, and it feels like it now. So, I’ll join her battle, but I won’t play by her rules.
Game on, June Bug.
I lock eyes with June and take off my jacket with a smirk. Her smile falters as I walk toward the stage, because she can’t believe how easily she has won this round.
The back of my neck heats from the bright lights as I approach the stage, and she takes a step back. I don’t bother with the stairs and, instead, take one big step up—directly in front of June. She looks like a trapped animal now with big alert eyes. I walk closer and take her by surprise when I wrap my jacket around her shoulders. She was anticipating danger and got warmth instead.
“What are you doing?” she asks, looking down dramatically to the jacket. Her mind is moving too slow to figure out what’s happening.
“It’s cold outside, and I don’t want you to freeze when we leave.” I put my arm around her, escorting her from the stage so she doesn’t face-plant. The second we are off the stairs, she rips away from me and stumbles backward.
“Everyone wants a performance, and if you’re too good to sing at karaoke night, then I’ll do it!” It’s adorable how powerful she thinks she looks right now. I could pick her up off the ground by my index finger and thumb and place her in my pocket.
“You can perform next time. Right now, it’s time to get you home safely.”
“Ugh! I need to karaoke!” is what I think she was trying to say. But really, it came out like “Hiineedtofereokie!”
“Can you remember your address?” I say, guiding her toward the table where Stacy and Logan are watching with drunken-confused expressions. They’re trying to figure out what new game this is too.
I toss Alex’s phone back on the table in front of him and retrieve June’s heels. Stacy beams up at us as we walk past her. “BYE, JUNIE! I love you SO much.”
No one will remember this night tomorrow.
June sways heavily, so I tighten my grip around her shoulders. She’s seconds away from passing out on the ground, and I care about her too much to let her catch Ebola from this nasty floor. Also, Izod Man has been eyeing her all night. I don’t trust him one bit not to follow her out of here. This bar crawl is officially over, and I’m going to make sure June is safely placed in her home.
“LOVE YOU, RYAN!” Can you guess who yells that at me right before I leave the bar? Yeah, it’s Logan. Apparently, I’m not the only one who shouldn’t be drinking heavily in his thirties.
“Night, everyone. Logan, call an Uber for you and Stacy,” I say before I scoop June up in my arms and carry her out of the bar as she yells that I stink the whole way to the door.