34. Chloe
thirty-four
“In two hours?” It’s morning, and he wants to go to a lake already? I wasn’t at the restaurant yesterday because of the fair. I need to show my face today, or my staff is going to—
“I’ll bring you back by three. You’ll be there before the action starts. Plenty of time to do your office work and do admin work and help your staff.” He grins and slaps me playfully on the butt. “Now go get ready and pack a bathing suit.”
He arrives at the cottage an hour and a half later, and the Chevy does not disappoint. For a moment, I’m blinded, my eyes dancing between Justin in a tight tee and shorts, aviator sunglasses pushed over his head, and the car fit for a movie star, stretching forever, blue and off-white with some fantastic stripes and shining chrome. Moose is on the back seat, the car’s leather duly protected from the dog’s paws by several layers of moving blankets tucked neatly so as not to move.
“I did run this by Colton, by the way. He said it was okay to bring Moose in the car.” Justin takes my straw tote bag and holds the door open for me.
“He must really like you,” I say.
“I think he likes Moose better.” He shuts the car door softly after I’m in, leans in and kisses me. “And he thinks my truck isn’t good enough for you.” He rubs our noses together and dashes to his side, then roars the car to life.
“That’s because he doesn’t know how creative we can get in your truck.” I lean into him to drop a kiss on his jaw, then stay snuggled against him. “Though there’s something to be said about that bench seat. Definitely holds more makeout power than the truck.”
A big grin on his face, he sets his hand on my bare thigh and leaves it there, moving it only to change gears, as we cruise away from the cottage, through Emerald Creek, and toward the lake.
“Canoe or paddleboard?” Justin asks. We’re at ‘The Beach,’ an area tucked way up north on Emerald lake, where the shallow waters are what gave the lake its name and there’s actual sand.
Tucked at the edge of the woods that border this corner of paradise is a shack that rents paddleboards, canoes, and kayaks. A hut on the side serves ice cream and sodas. A couple of picnic tables complete the picture.
Everything else is pristine nature.
“Paddleboard, so we can keep an eye on Moose,” I say. “I don’t think I can go too far on a paddleboard.”
“Ever been on one of those?” Justin says, fists on his hips.
“Never.”
“Me neither.” He grins. “Hey, Mindy! How’s it going?” he asks the teenager coming out of the shack.
“Hey, Tinman! You guys doing SUP today?” she asks, referring to Stand Up Paddle. ”Fuuuun!” she adds in an upbeat tone as she hands us each a life jacket. “All about balance.” She grabs a board under each arm and dashes to the water. “Grab the paddles!” she says over her shoulder.
“The energy of that kid! She makes me feel old,” I chuckle.
“Tell me about it.”
We follow her to knee-deep water. “Start by kneeling on the board. Place your knees on the deck, shoulder-distance apart, near the center of the board.” My first try, I slip back into the water. Second, I make it. Justin is already crouching on his board, trying to stand up.
Splash!
“You wanna paddle on your knees first,” Mindy says while Justin shakes the water off his body and hoists himself back up, water sloshing upward, his muscles now glistening in the sun.
My knees soften. He’s too distracting.
I manage to turn the board so I can’t see him anymore. I have no interest in getting wetter than I need to, and I don’t mean the sexy kind.
Should have thought about that before choosing SUP.
What can I say? Seeing Justin just makes me lose my focus.
Ten minutes later, Mindy’s laughing so hard it’s embarrassing. For both of us. We can’t stand on the freaking things. We just keep falling off. Moose barks. “Knees wider!” she repeats for the umpteenth time. “Hip distance apart. Closer to the center. There! Now. Lift yourself...” I do as she says—I think. But then I take a look at Justin, who’s in the same crouchy position as me, and I laugh again.
And fall off again.
“Come on, you guys, you’re paying by the hour!” Mindy says, laughing.
Shit. She’s right. I need to get my head straight.
“Are we done yet?” Justin’s almost upright. “This was supposed to be fun.”
“That’s it, Chloe! Now, hold the paddle with both hands, shoulder-width apart. Now insert the blade into the water near the board’s nose and pull toward the tail.”
Splash!That was Justin.
Bark!And that was Moose.
“Now alternate sides, Chloe. Justin, you might wanna look at your girlfriend. She’s got it.”
“She’s on her knees.”
“Yeah, that’s how you start!”
“But it’s called Stand Up Paddle,” Justin replies. The surging water cascade sounds again, then “Fuck!”
Splash.
“Now, Chloe, place your paddle horizontally across the board in front of you. Bring the right foot where your knee was. There you go. Now the left. Now slowly stand up, keeping a slight bend in your knees, and look straight ahead.”
That’s the trick. “I got it! I got it! I got it!” The board feels steady under my feet, and I’m upright.
“How’d you do it?” Justin shouts.
His voice makes me weak in the knees. “I stopped looking at you!”
He laughs heartily, and I need to crouch again to keep my balance. Trying to ignore his sexy laugh rippling on the water, I straighten myself and paddle away.
“Moose!” Mindy and Justin both call out. “Moose! Come here!”
Suddenly my board rocks for no apparent reason.
“Moose! No!”
And then I’m under water.
“Well that was fun.” We’re lying on our backs on oversized beach towels, drying off. Justin pulled out a picnic basket, and he’s hand-feeding me cherry tomatoes. Moose is twenty feet from us, in the shade of the trees, looking at us in case we should decide to do something dangerous again—like stand on a flat piece of wood and drift away—and his immediate intervention is again required. You never know what crazy stuff your humans are going to come up with, and you have to be there to save them. Being a dog is exhausting. Not one moment of peace and quiet.
“You hungry for more?”
I squint at Justin, his head like a golden halo against the blinding sun. “Like what?” My center heats up, and my thighs automatically rub against each other.
He leans in and whispers, “Like real food, you dirty girl. This is a public beach.”
“Oh.” I pretend to pout. “Sure, what you got?”
He unwraps ciabatta bread sandwiches with mozzarella, tomatoes, basil, and bacon. We share an egg salad, taking alternate bites from the same fork.
“My god, Justin, best meal in a long time. I can’t believe you made all this in the time it took me to take a shower this morning.”
“What can I say? You inspire me.” He drops one of his feather kisses on my forehead, then puts the food wrappers away. “Full disclosure, the sandwiches were made by Chris. Special order. He hand delivered them.”
“Isn’t the bakery closed on Mondays?” I ask as he settles on his side, facing me.
He squints. “Not for you it’s not. Chris owes me big time for closing down when Alex left, and he knows it. Put all of us here in a bind. Now it’s payback time.” His laughing eyes drill into mine. “Don’t worry, he’s fine.”
“I barely know him, but Alex is great. She moved up from New York, right?”
“Yeah… You want a cremee?” he adds suddenly.
“A what?”
“A cremee.” He jumps to his feet. “Course you do. Be right back.” He jogs to the shack, Moose right after him. I lay on my back, watching the small cotton-like clouds slowly drift against the azure sky, Justin’s voice drifting to me in waves.
He settles back next to me, handing me an ice cream.
“Oh! What flavor is that? And thank you.”
“Babe. We’re in Vermont. There’s no question what the flavor of a cremee should be.”
Ohmygod.This is heaven. So soft and, well, creamy, and sweetened with pure maple syrup.
“Can’t believe you have never had one of these.”
“Me neither,” I say, licking the ice cream melting down the cone.
Justin’s gaze heats as it narrows on my tongue. He takes a deep breath and shifts on his towel. “How are things at the restaurant?”
Brought back to reality, I take a deep breath.
“I mean in general, Clover. This is not a loaded question. I’m not asking about the rent or anything. I don’t have an ulterior motive. This is me wanting to know everything about you. How your days are going. What you worry about. What keeps you up at night. Now that we’re… together, I want to be there for you. For everything.”
Warmth spreads through me. ‘Now that we’re together.’
I blink a few times at him. I need to pinch myself. So this is what’s it like to have a significant other? Someone who cares about what you do when you’re not with them.
“Well, let’s see. The restaurant needs a re-brand. A clear position in the market. A new menu. A redesigned visual identity, starting with décor. It also needs a new chef.” I take a big bite out of my ice cream, which is in danger of melting onto my thighs.
Justin takes clean, wide, effective licks. He’s almost half done with his ice cream—cremee. “Samuel being a dick?”
“Nope, no. Not in the way you may think.” I tell him about my issues getting a menu costing that holds water. Samuel’s refusal to discuss changes to the menu. And his refusal to put the recipes in writing. “I think he’s being dishonest about the quantities that actually go on the plates, versus what he claims we’re serving. But I can’t pinpoint why he would do that and how that affects our bottom line. Because at the end of the day, if we charge the same price but put less product on the plate, we should be making more money, right?”
“Do you guys do any catering?” Justin asks.
Where is he going with that? “No…?”
He clenches his jaw, like that makes him angry.
“Should we offer catering?” I don’t even know how we would manage that.
“You have a lot of waste?”
“What’s a lot? Plates usually come back fairly empty.” Unless the salmon is overdone, but that’s another story.
“Do you see your kitchen staff throwing away food gone bad from the fridges.”
“I haven’t noticed. We’re bleeding money, and I can’t put my finger on it. We spend more than we sell. Yet it seems we’re always out of some items. We can’t sell some dishes because there’s always something missing. Like, one week we can’t sell the tajine because we’re out of the lamb, and then the following week we can’t sell it because we’re out of cumin or saffron or more likely, both.”
“Why do they run out of stuff? Did you ask?”
“Did you see who I’m dealing with? I just need to do inventory myself, and I’ll take note of expiration dates.” Maybe that’s the issue. “We just need to run specials when the stuff gets close to expiring,” I mumble, “although that’s not—”
Justin cups my jaw. “I know you’re not going to believe me, because of how I fucking hate Samuel, but… he’s stealing from you. I’m convinced of it, and you need to believe me, so we can catch him.”
What?!“How do you know?”
“There’s some weird shit going on at night.”
”Ohmygod, you’re right. The first day I got here, I drove on The Green, and I saw him smoking a cigarette outside. It was a Sunday! We’re closed on Sundays! And when I went there the next day, the place was disgusting. D’you think he uses the kitchen for himself—like to run a catering side gig?”
“It’s possible. But there’s worse. There’s always noise after hours coming from the restaurant, and I didn’t used to pay attention to it. But the other night, after I pulled you out of the walk in? I couldn’t sleep, and I heard noise again, and this time I checked it out. Samuel and David were loading heavy stuff in the trunk of a car. D’you have another explanation?”
My blood runs cold. They’re stealing? And in those quantities? It’s hard to believe, even with the way Samuel’s been acting. Although…
“I thought they might be doing a catering gig, and frankly, I didn’t think you’d believe me if I told you my suspicions at the time.” Suddenly his expression turns angry, and he punches the sand. “Fuck! I knew it. I should have done something that night.”
I’m sitting upright now, legs crossed. “You had no way to know.”
“I bet you if you ask him next time, he’ll tell you the lamb went bad and he had to throw it. Those spices go in another dish?”
“They don’t. That’s why it doesn’t make sense.” That and the fact that he insists on featuring dishes from another continent when we should be all about local, but whatever.
“It does. I bet Murphy never checked inventory.”
“My aunt said Uncle Kevin relied entirely on Samuel. I’ll do inventory myself, early tomorrow morning. I’ll take note of expiry dates. This way I’ll know if he’s lying next time he says we’re out of fresh meats or produce. Do you think they run a side gig? Catering?” That would explain why Samuel doesn’t want to work extra days.
“I don’t know. Margins are slim in catering, and he’s kinda lazy for that. Who do you use for your provisions, meats and produce?”
What difference does it make? “Some large national company.” I tell him the name. “He doesn’t want to go local. Says it’s too much hassle, too many providers.”
Justin’s jaw is tight. “He’s buddies with his rep. I bet you he sells the stuff back for cash to his rep, the rep sells it cash at a discount to another place with low standards.”
I can’t believe this.
Actually, I can.
“I’ll get on it tomorrow morning.” I’ll have to go in super early to make sure I have enough time. I’ll take pictures of expiration dates to confront him when the time comes.
“Maybe you don’t need to.”
What does he mean? “Of course I do! I need to figure this out!”
He takes my hand in his. “I’m installing cameras on the parking lot.”
He what?
“I ran it by Declan,” he continues. “Says it’s cool. I just needed to confirm a couple of things with you first. And you just did. Once I’m done all we’ll need is to sit back and wait for them to do their next run.”
I’m speechless. In a good way. My lady parts do a little happy dance.
“Babe.” He strokes the inside of my wrist. “I wasn’t going to sit there and do nothing.”
My center clenches. Sure, there’s his fingers stroking my soft skin, and his bare abs showing above his swimsuit, and his boyish grin just for me, and his sparkling eyes caressing me somewhere deep.
But there’s more.
He’s looking out for me.
I get on my knees and kiss him softly. “Thank you.”
He picks me up and sets me on his lap, and we look at the lake in silence for a moment. “How do your parents feel about what you’re doing here?”
I shrug. “Does it matter?”
He strokes my arm. “I guess not.” Then, after a beat, “Ready to go?”
I shake my head and laugh. “No!” But still stand up, stretch, and shake the sand off my towel.
Justin whistles softly for Moose. “Did they come and visit you here yet?”
“Who? My parents? Mom came the day of the fair, with my aunt and Brendan—my cousin.”
“Not your dad?”
“He’s too busy for that kind of stuff. Plus, he didn’t like Uncle Kevin, and I think he’s sort of pissed that I’m working at the restaurant.”
Justin stops what he’s doing. “He didn’t like Murphy?”
“Called him a loser all the time.”
He seems genuinely puzzled. “Wasn’t he your mom’s brother?”
I plop my sunglasses on and grab my sandals in one hand, my tote bag in the other. “Yup. Welcome to the family!”
“I—I don’t understand,” he mumbles.
“Trust me, don’t try.”