Chapter 24
TWENTY-FOUR
Alivia
“FUUUCK!”
Walker’s voice came shouting through the closed door of his office, where I stood on the other side. Even though my hand was raised in front of it, inches from knocking, I immediately froze.
“SHIT!”
That same hand, the one that was getting ready to pound, left the door and went over my ear, wishing I could do that with my other fingers, but I was holding something.
“MOTHERFUCKER!”
Please stop.
Please, Walker. I can’t take it.
I turned around, my back to the door, trying to breathe past the anxiety that was plowing through my body, but I couldn’t. No air was moving through me at all.
My feet felt weak.
My ears were ringing.
Everything was shaking.
“FUCK THIS—”
“Walker!”
A few seconds passed before I heard, “Alivia?”
“Stop screaming. Please. I can’t … handle … it.”
“Oh, fuck me, I’m so sorry.” The door suddenly opened, and his arms hugged me from behind. My back flattened against his chest, the heat from his body blanketing me. “Are you okay?”
“I … don’t know.”
“Alivia, I didn’t know you were here. I didn’t know anyone was here.
” His lips were on the top of my head, his grip strengthening, not weakening.
“I fucked up, Alivia. I told you I’d stop, and I haven’t.
” He was rocking me, or maybe I was moving, but there was swaying.
“Forgive me. Please.” His cheek pressed against mine, the scratching of his beard a welcome feeling—anything to take my mind off what was happening in me. “Stop shaking, baby.”
I took several deep breaths, trying to focus on the feel of him, on the power in his arms, on their protectiveness.
“I’ll get better,” he said softly. “I will.”
I slowly turned in his arms and wrapped around his middle. What stared back were the most haunted eyes. A face full of anguish.
He knew what he had done, and he was hurting.
I whispered, “I believe you.”
“I’m going to keep fucking up. But I’ll eventually get it. I promise I will.” His hands went to my face, his lips to my forehead, and he kept them there, breathing into me. “What are you still doing here?”
“I stayed late.” My eyes were closed, and I kept them that way.
“I wanted to get some practice in. I knew you were still here. Had I left, I would have stopped in to say goodbye—you know that. My plan was to come to your office after I finished.” My lungs were still tight when I tried to fill them. “This is the after.”
I tilted my head back. His expression still hadn’t changed.
“What were you freaking out about?”
He leaned a little to the side, showing me his office, his tall frame completely blocking it before. The floor was littered with balled-up paper.
“What’s all that?”
His tongue tapped the center of his upper lip. “My fucking mess.”
“Obviously, but what’s with all the paper? Were you writing a novel? And how did you manage to not make one single shot in the trash can?”
His exhale was gritty. “Even the sight of the trash can makes me fucking angry.”
“Ah, we’re in one of those moods. All right. Tell me, what’s written on those papers?”
“I either need to come up with a menu for James’s charity event or I need to cancel. And I need to decide immediately because, so help me God, if Eden asks me one more time whether I’m doing it or not, I’m going to lose it.”
“Walker, I think you’ve already lost it.” I gave him my most sympathetic grin, holding it since the statement I was about to make was bold. “Can I help?”
“Help with what?”
“There are at least thirty balls on the floor, which I’m guessing means thirty—if not more—unsuccessful attempts at making a menu. And I’m also guessing that means you’re feeling extremely uninspired.” I ran my free hand over his chest. “Let me inspire you.”
“How?” He released me to pound against the spot above his heart. “There’s nothing in here. Only emptiness. I can’t fucking do it, Alivia. I have to tell Eden to cancel.”
“How about we try together?” When he didn’t respond, I gave him a tiny nudge. “Just trust me, okay?” When he still said nothing and didn’t even move, I added, “Go sit.”
His brows went so high; I felt like he was about to scold me. “You’re telling me to go sit in my office?”
“Yes.” I banged my body into his. “Go.”
He huffed.
“Do you have any idea how good it feels to say that to you?” I teased. “I can’t even count how many times you’ve said go to me.”
He chuckled and turned around.
While he sat behind his desk, I emptied my hand on the seat beside me and said, “Give me the details so I know what we’re working with.”
“I like how this is a we thing.”
“You don’t want my help?”
I watched him take a breath, tapping the back of his head on his high-back chair. “It’s not that I don’t want your help. It’s that I have a hard time asking for help. And I don’t like the idea that my problem has now become yours.”
“One”—I held up my hand to count on my fingers—“you didn’t ask for help.
I offered. Two, it’s not my problem. What it is, is an honor.
An honor that I even get to discuss this with you.
I would literally die to have James Ryne-Young ask me to cook for her.
Since that’s never going to happen, I’m living vicariously through you. ”
He placed his arms on his desk, leaning into them, his eyes narrowing. “Why do you think that’s never going to happen?”
“Because there’s no way I could ever make a name for myself in this industry. Could I get a job as a chef somewhere? Sure. Could I have the kind of name that James would hear of? Definitely not.”
“I disagree.”
I smiled. “You’re allowed to. But we’re not talking about me. We’re talking about you. Tell me the details of the event so I can get a visual.” I danced a little. “I need to set the scene in my brain.”
He handed me a folder, and I opened it, taking my time to read through everything that had been printed on the sheet.
“This is going to be easy.” I waved the air.
“And why would you say that?”
“Because you serve seven or eight times this amount of people every night you’re here. A hundred people?” I shook my head, emphasizing my point. “That’s nothing for you.”
His teeth moved into an underbite, and I knew the wrath was on its way. “I want to make something extremely clear. If anyone else were in that chair and they were speaking to me so nonchalantly, like you are, acting like this is nothing—when it’s been fucking eating at me—I’d rip their face off.”
I winked. “I know.” I got up, grabbing what I’d placed on the chair, holding it behind my back while I walked around his desk.
There was paper everywhere, nothing looked organized, and I sat on top of it all, swinging my legs so they extended beside his chair.
“Hear me out, okay?” I waited for a tiny bit of recognition before I said, “I want you to think of the painting. The one you made me visualize when I cooked for you. The one with a cabin in the center of the canvas.”
“I’m so far from a fucking painting right now.” He ran his hands over his face, like he was scrubbing it.
“I can fix that.” I pulled my hand out from behind my back and showed him what I was holding.
The canvas was small, about the size of my spread-out hand.
The artwork on it was so realistic that I could even feel the cool mountain air and smell the pine trees.
There was a cabin in the middle, a lake behind it, the sun lifting from the edge of the water.
The colors were moody, the cabin modern, the scenery positively perfect.
“I was going to wrap it. Or at least put it in a bag with some tissue paper.” I laughed.
“But I honestly thought you wouldn’t care and would probably prefer it this way. ”
He surrounded the square canvas with his hands. “You painted this?”
“God, no. One of the residents at the assisted living facility is an artist. She’s amazing—as a person and as a painter, as you can see. I asked her if she would make it for me, so I could gift it to you.”
He slowly gazed up at me.
“Sometimes, you need a visual to remind you of how incredible you are.” I put both hands on his forearms. “I can’t give you awards.
I can’t give you watches or cars or all the other wild things I saw at your house.
But I can give you something that symbolizes your art and the colors you’re capable of painting on it. ”
“I fucking love this.” He let out a burst of air and leaned back in his chair, holding the painting in front of him. “A sunrise …”
“As much as I love sunsets, I’m bringing you into the light, Walker.”
He held my gaze for what felt like minutes. “No one has ever given me anything. Especially not something as meaningful as this.”
I grinned. “You’re welcome.”
“Come here.”
I held up a finger. “No way, mister. This is as close as I’m getting to you, and this is probably too close.” I put my sneaker on the arm of his chair to make sure he didn’t try to roll toward me. “I want you to do something for me. I want you to close your eyes.”
He grimaced. “Why?”
“Just close them. You are the absolute worst at taking orders.” I sighed.
“You’re just learning this about me?”
“Close them, Walker.”
He rested the painting on his chest, like it was a pillow, and did as I’d instructed.
“I want you to mentally put us in that cabin. I want you to picture us on the couch, snuggled under a blanket, with a roaring fire in front of us. It’s late.
Really late. And outside, we hear the sound of nature and birds and the rustling of leaves on the trees.
The outdoors is just starting to wake up, the sun stirring beneath the horizon.
” I smiled as the calmness began to spread through his expression.
“We’re so tired, but we don’t want to go to sleep.
We want to watch the sky fill with color.
I do anyway. You, on the other hand, want to talk about food.
You relentlessly want to feed me. Breakfast, lunch, dinner.
But dinner is my favorite, and you know that.
Because every evening, we sit on the back porch with plates in our laps and iced tea that I brewed earlier.
We talk. We watch the clouds move across the water until it gets dark.
” I took a deep breath, wishing I could bring Walker to that cabin, hoping I could make that happen one day.
“My stomach is full. So full, like the night we were in San Diego, and I can’t imagine eating another bite.
The dinner you made completely blew me away.
I can’t stop thinking about it. When I tell you that, you agree that it came out better than you’d intended.
You don’t even want to eat dessert because you don’t want to change the flavor in your mouth. ”
I massaged the back of his palm. “Open your eyes, Walker.” When my vision was filled with his beautiful green stare, I added, “What do you taste?”
He pulled his bottom lip into his mouth. “You’re good.”
“Stop. What do you taste?”
With his lip still inward, he ran his tongue over it, his chair bouncing, and he pulled the painting off his chest to look at it. “A pan-seared halibut with a lemon dill and butter sauce, topped with capers and small vine tomatoes.”
“Now meat. Go.”
He gave me a look that told me I was skating on ice that was very thin. “A filet with blue cheese butter, covered in shiitake mushrooms with a wine-spiked drizzle.”
I was smiling so hard that it hurt. “And for our friends who don’t eat animals—what do you have for them?”
“A vegan ramen with an exotic mushroom broth, topped with crispy tofu and charred corn and a chili oil drizzle.”
“Mmm, yesss.” I clapped. “That is one sexy menu, and I want all of it.” I held out my hand and nodded toward his door. “Let’s go make it.”
“Now?” He looked startled.
“Yes. Right now.”
He sat up straight. “Do you have any idea what time it is?”
“My boss gave me a watch that happens to give me that info.”
He chuckled. “Don’t you have to work in the morning?”
“I do.”
“You’re not going to get any sleep, Alivia.”
“I don’t care.”
As I was about to wiggle off the desk, his hand went to my knee, stopping me.
“I need to ask you something.” His thumb stroked across the bone—a spot I’d cut shaving more times than I could count.
“If we make this menu tonight and I feel good about it, will you come to the event with me?” He went silent, and I wasn’t sure what he meant until he added, “And be my sous chef?”
“What?”
“Is that a no?”
“A no?” I laughed. “That’s a hell yes!”
I threw my arms around him and buried my face in his neck.
He’d been in the kitchen all evening, and I could smell Charred on him, but the scent that was also there was one I loved so much.
One I got a whiff of every time I was close to him.
One that was a combination of ginger, grapefruit, and sage, and it made me close my eyes and kiss him.
“I can’t do it without you, Alivia,” he said when I separated us. “I need your help. I know that.”
“I’ll be there.” I held him even tighter. “And I won’t leave your side.”