Chapter 10
“Here I thought,” Gabe said when Ren climbed into the truck, carrying two coffees in his hands, “that you’d not only be late, but you’d be really late.”
“I don’t know why you thought that,” Ren grumbled, though he knew exactly why Gabriel thought he’d be late today. No doubt Gabe believed that with Ren alone at their loft, Seth would’ve stayed over.
“Maybe because you haven’t ever failed to close the deal before,” Gabe teased lightly, taking the coffee Ren offered.
“I closed it,” Ren said. “Just not . . . just not like normal.”
Next time we do that together.
“Oh? And how is the ‘new normal’?”
“Ugh,” Ren groaned, pulling on his apron. “Different. Less orgasms than I signed up for. But not . . . not bad. Not exactly.”
“Look at you, growing as a person,” Gabe said, smacking him on the shoulder. “Truly, I’m proud.”
“I hate you,” Ren grumbled.
“No, you don’t,” Gabe retorted cheerfully. “Not even a little bit.”
“I hate you even more when you’re right,” Ren pointed out.
“Exactly. Now, you wanna get started on meatball prep? Or you wanna finish the sauce?” Gabe gestured to where he was stirring the beginnings of their nonna’s famous red sauce.
“You’re already there,” Ren said, heading to the big coolers in the back, filling the enormous metal bowl in his hands with ingredients for their standard meatballs that they used in just about everything.
Ren unpackaged the meatball mix that one of the local butchers ground for them specifically, a combination of beef, pork, and veal.
Then, he grabbed a handful of leftover rolls from the day before that he’d specifically left out to get stale, and setting them in a smaller bowl, soaked them with milk.
He was elbow deep in mixing the now wet bread together with an entire crate of eggs when a knock sounded on the front of the truck, where the window was still shut.
“It’s early,” Gabe said, shaking his head, “who wants a sandwich this early? We’re not even open yet.”
“Then tell them to fuck off. Nicely, of course,” Ren said, mushing together the bread with the eggs.
Nonna had always taught him that cooking wasn’t a clean task, and at the very beginning, when he’d been young, doing this with his hands had always weirded him out.
But now he was used to it, even enjoyed doing it.
Everyone who ate here ate something he prepared with his own two hands. With so much processed, mechanized crap out there today, there was something very satisfying in doing things by hand.
Nonna would be proud that they’d resisted changing anything about her recipe.
“Fine,” Gabe grumbled, setting the wooden spoon on the edge of the pot, and instead of opening the window, went out the back door.
A moment later, he stuck his head back inside the truck.
“You’d better come out here,” Gabe said.
They were ominous words, but at least Gabe looked thoughtful instead of upset.
So at least, Ren thought, it wasn’t bad.
Not like when Ross’ ex-partner had vandalized the trucks at the lot, and then tried to burn it all down by blowing up Ash’s truck.
“Give me a sec,” Ren said, scraping the bread and egg mixture off his fingers. Once most of it was in the bowl, he headed to the sink, and took his time scrubbing it all off.
Drying his hands on his apron, he picked up his coffee and headed down the stairs, and around the front of the truck. Gabe was standing there with a tall, dark-haired guy in sunglasses and a pair of jeans and a black button-up that looked expensive, like they’d both been tailored to fit him.
He was a good-looking guy, but maybe a little too curated, a little too perfect.
Ren shoved one hand into his pocket and approached.
“There he is,” Gabe said, turning towards Ren. His voice had way too much forced cheerfulness in it. Were they getting sued? Was this a lawyer?
He kinda looked like a lawyer.
“You must be Lorenzo Moretti,” the guy said, extending a hand.
“Ren,” Ren said, shaking it.
“Jonas Anderson.”
From the over-styled hair to the unyielding handshake, there was no fucking way that this guy wasn’t a lawyer.
“Jonas here is opening another food truck lot,” Gabe said, tossing Ren a knowing look as they went to sit at the nearest picnic table. “He wants to offer for us to come over to the dark side.”
“Oh, it’s not very dark,” Jonas said with a laugh that sounded just a hair too practiced.
Ash had said this guy was a mirror image of Tony—all sheer hustle—and Ren could totally see it.
If the two of them ever met up, and that seemed to be inevitable, because of the way that Jonas kept going after all of Tony’s food trucks (and Tony’s friends), the universe might just implode.
“What is it, then?” Gabe asked, leaning forward, and looking more genuinely interested than Ren had imagined he would be.
After all, they’d known this was probably coming, but Ren had never guessed that either of them would even seriously consider Jonas’ offer.
He wanted to tell Gabe that he hadn’t needed to interrupt his meatball prep by bringing him out here, that he could’ve said no just as easily by himself, but maybe . . . no, there was no way that Gabe would ever voluntarily leave Tony. Or his boyfriend.
“It’s a fantastic opportunity to grow and change your business. For expansion.”
Jonas was clearly drinking his own Kool-Aid, because his expression was full of excitement. For himself, certainly. But also . . . well, it wasn’t only excitement for himself.
If he was a shade more altruistic, this would be exactly the pitch that Tony had given them, a year and a half ago.
“I don’t know if we’re in the market for that kind of expansion,” Ren inserted smoothly, trying to stay nice. Maybe they’d need a lawyer someday, because someone tried to sue them over an overcooked meatball or something.
Ren tried to make a habit of never pissing off anybody with money.
Luca, Gabriel’s brother, was the sole exception to this policy. Ren lived to make Luca’s life a living hell.
“I’m not sure what market we’re in,” Gabe announced.
Ren rolled his eyes. Tony was absolutely going to kill him, and Ren was thinking he wasn’t planning on stopping him.
“Well, let me tell you more,” Jonas said. He’d caught the whiff of interest in Gabe’s voice and his excitement had tripled in the last thirty seconds. “We’re going to have a very diverse lineup of trucks . . .”
“All poached from Food Truck Warriors, apparently,” Ren interrupted with a wry tone.
“Not all of the trucks I’ve approached are from this lot,” Jonas said reproachfully. “And that word . . . poached, it’s so ugly, isn’t it?”
“Or honest,” Ren grumbled under his breath.
“A very diverse lineup of trucks with the highest culinary pedigrees,” Jonas continued like he hadn’t just been interrupted.
“I’m also gathering together an exceptional marketing team, and putting a lot of money into both marketing and advertising.
Which . . . nobody is doing here, not at all.
” Jonas looked particularly smug at this revelation.
Ren could just imagine him facing off with Tony.
He hoped that when it happened, he didn’t miss it.
Someone enterprising could probably sell tickets to the inevitable confrontation.
“We do some events,” Ren pointed out, wondering how the hell he’d come around to defending Tony, “and of course, everyone here has a strong social media following.”
“Of course you do, but you’re busy,” Jonas said, fanaticism glowing in his blue eyes. “If you’re paying rent to park at a lot, they should be doing more work for you.”
Ren rolled his eyes. Didn’t even try to hide it.
“You talk to Tony Blake about any of this?” he asked.
“We haven’t spoken, but we don’t need to,” Jonas said with certainty. “His lot doesn’t have anything to do with mine.”
“Somehow I doubt that,” Ren muttered.
“Tell me more about what kind of events you’ll be hosting,” Gabe said.
“We get a nice big crowd on nights with music. The trick to a really successful truck is to not just get the lunch crowd but the dinner and the late-night crowd. I can’t tell you how many meatball sandwiches we sell to drunk twenty-four-year-olds. ”
Ren stood by his earlier statement: he absolutely hated Gabe even more when he was right.
“Of course, of course, well, right now we’re still in the planning stages, but we’ll have a full lineup on the weekends. And the marketing team has been tossing around some brunch ideas.”
“Brunch?” Gabe perked up. He loved brunch. It was like Jonas here was speaking his magical language.
“We don’t serve brunch,” Ren reminded his cousin.
“But you could,” Jonas said. “Think of the diversification!”
“You ever work in a restaurant or a food truck? A Dairy Queen? A Subway, even?” Ren asked Jonas.
“No, no, I’m a corporate lawyer by trade . . .”
Ren burst out laughing, and Gabe glared at him.
“Lawyers do need to eat,” Gabe said.
“Yes, we do, which is why I’m wanting to do something like this. I’m looking to be . . . less of a lawyer, and more of a business owner. I really admire this place, but I think it could be even better. Better run. Better organized. Better advertised.”
Oh geez.
Fuck someone else selling tickets.
Ren was going to do it himself.
“An ambitious man,” Gabe said, nodding with approval.
“Is there anything else?” Ren complained. “I have prep to do.”
“Let me give you my card,” Jonas said, flashing his Rolex, tucked just under the cuff of his custom-tailored shirt as he pulled out one of his embossed cards. “Let me know if you’d like to sit down and discuss more specifics.”
“Sure, will do,” Gabe said, and went through the whole charade of shaking Jonas’ hand again, while Ren had already stood up and was walking back to the truck.
Ren barely waited until the back door was shut before he said, as pleasantly as he could, “What the fuck was that about?”
“What do you mean?” Gabe said, staring at the card in his hands like it held the solution for world peace.