Chapter 12
Chapter Twelve
‘H e’s making you dinner? What the hell is going on over there, Iris?’
‘Bex, calm down.’ Iris was driving to her ten o’clock aerobics class while Olive was at school. They’d actually made it on time today and she was feeling pretty good about that until her cousin called to rain on her parade. Maybe she shouldn’t have mentioned the late-night chat and pancake testing as well as the subsequent dinner invite, but it wasn’t like it was a date or something.
‘He’s making dinner for Olive and himself and just offered for me to join them. It makes sense. We live in the same house, I can’t just not be home whenever he is.’
Her cousin’s long-suffering sigh came clearly through the speaker. ‘You need to keep the line between you very clear, Iris. He’s your boss .’
‘I am aware of that, thank you. And nothing even happened!’ Besides some light ogling while he cooked, she was only human. And it was impossible to avoid noticing how sexy her new boss was. But despite what Bex thought, she could practice restraint. Just because she found a man sexy did not mean she had to immediately jump his bones. She understood the boundaries here, but she wasn’t about to turn down a delicious (and free) meal.
‘Anyway, are you coming to class today?’
‘No, can’t today. I picked up a few more lessons.’
‘Okay, I’ll text you later.’
‘Just be careful, Iris. If things go sideways with this guy, you’re out of a job and a place to live. Unless you want to reconsider my offer…’
‘I love you, Bex! Gotta go!’ Iris hung up before she could get lectured anymore. Growing up, the girls had seen plenty of men come and go in their mothers’ lives and it had left Bex wary of all men. Iris on the other hand, may have been more like her mother than she cared to admit. Much like her employment record, Iris’s relationship record didn’t exactly reflect longevity. She liked relationships like she liked her chicken wings, hot and fast.
If she’d learned one thing from her mother, it was that romantic love was fleeting but sex was fun while it lasted. And while her mother never seemed overly distraught when things ended, it was young Iris who was left missing the latest casualty of her mother’s wandering attention. Eventually, she learned to stop hoping that her mother’s latest boyfriend would maybe one day become her new stepdad, but clearly some damage had been done because grown-up Iris didn’t bother getting too close to any man.
Things just seemed safer that way.
And besides, she wasn’t reckless enough to sleep with her boss.
She pulled into the parking lot of the Y, grabbed her gym bag and headed in. The ladies were already congregating around the pool by the time she got in. The room was hot and humid and chlorine-scented. It felt like home.
Teaching her seniors exercise classes had been the one job that had stuck with Iris over the years. She would never abandon her students.
‘Good morning, girls!’ she said, getting everyone’s attention.
‘Good morning, Iris!’ the ladies trilled. Iris smiled. These were her people. Fully formed people who could tell her exactly what they wanted and needed. She didn’t have to guess what they were thinking or worry that they were starving to death. All the ladies looked fully fed and happy this morning.
‘How’s the new job?’ Carol, one of her most loyal students asked as Iris checked them off one by one on her clipboard.
‘It’s going well.’
‘Oh? How’s Olive doing?’
Iris nearly laughed. As if these women didn’t know how Olive was doing. As if they weren’t on a constant rotation of ‘just stopping by’ or ‘we were in the neighborhood’. Archer’s freezer was overflowing with ‘how’s Olive’ casseroles.
‘As well as can be expected, I guess.’
‘Of course, the poor dear.’
The women were dying to ask more, Iris could feel it. They were vibrating with curiosity. But she wasn’t about to air Archer’s life out for the whole town to examine.
‘And the living situation…’ Janet ventured… ‘Is that going well, too?’
Estelle scoffed. ‘You all just want to know what it’s like living with that handsome chef.’
Janet turned scarlet, nearly matching the giant tropical flowers on her bathing suit. ‘I did not say that.’
‘But you meant it.’
‘Ladies, we should really start class,’ Iris said, trying to steer the women back to business. Maybe knowing exactly what they wanted wasn’t always a blessing. These women wanted the details.
‘Now you’re going to hold out on us, Iris? You told us all about that fella you met at that music festival last summer.’
‘And the one from the yoga retreat.’
‘And the guy you met in the produce department at the grocery store.’
‘Yes, well,’ Iris cut in quickly before Marissa could elaborate on Iris’s sweaty weekend fling with Pablo. She really did need to learn to keep her mouth shut. ‘That was different. This is just a job, and Archer is my boss, and so far things are going well.’
Disappointment filtered through the group.
‘Now, let’s get in the pool and get started,’ Iris said brightly, leading the way to the water.
‘He is very attractive,’ she heard Carol whisper to Janet.
‘He sure is, but have you been to the diner lately? He’s turning the place upside down.’
‘With that body, he can cook me whatever he likes.’ The women burst into giggles and Iris jumped in the pool, wishing she could stay underwater long enough to miss out on her class of seventy- and eighty-year-olds waxing poetic about Archer’s muscular arms and broad chest. But unfortunately, her lung capacity just wasn’t that good. Instead, she cranked her workout playlist and started shouting commands.
Eventually, everyone fell into line. Everyone except Iris’s brain, which was happily playing, on a loop, its own playlist of the way Archer’s arms looked when he cooked.
Not helpful, brain. Not helpful at all.
* * *
Olive had come home grumpy from kindergarten, so they were watching baking shows when Archer arrived back later that evening. Iris had been skeptical of the appeal of this one, but she was now fully invested in whether that designer purse was actually made out of cake.
‘Hey, welcome home,’ she said when Archer entered, but neither she nor Olive took their eyes from the screen.
‘Hey,’ Archer said, shedding his chef’s coat and tossing it on the chair.
‘It is cake! I can’t believe that.’ Iris slapped a hand on her knee. She would have sworn that cake purse was the real deal.
‘I told you so,’ Olive mumbled, though her victory still wasn’t doing much for her mood.
‘What is she eating?’ Archer asked, his eyes on Olive.
‘A Pop-Tart,’ Iris said, facing his intense disappointment. God, and this guy wondered why his kid was silent around him. With that face how could she not be? He looked chiseled from a very disappointed stone.
‘Do you know how processed those things are?’
‘I know that they taste good, and that they are one of the two things I’ve gotten her to eat.’
He frowned. ‘What’s the other?’
Ah ha! Mr. High and Mighty Food Snob didn’t know what Olive liked to eat either.
‘Strawberries.’
‘Hmm.’ He stalked off to the kitchen.
‘Just eat your Pop-Tart,’ she whispered to Olive. ‘I’ll handle your grumpy dad.’
Olive took another defiant bite.
‘Good girl.’ Iris patted her head. She still had the braided pigtails Iris had put in this morning, although they’d gotten a little fuzzy throughout the day. She looked rumpled and sleepy and Iris had to admit, the little creature was growing on her.
She followed Archer into the kitchen. ‘Bad day?’
He scowled, pouring himself a drink. ‘It was fine.’
‘You never specified what you wanted me to feed her. If there’s an approved menu, I’m gonna need it.’
He sighed, his shoulders sagging. ‘No, sorry. I just…’
‘You just want her to eat and she’s eating. You can teach her to like all your fancy French food later, okay? One step at a time.’
His stare was unreadable until he gave a short nod. ‘You’re right. As long as she’s eating something.’
‘Exactly. I on the other hand am totally on board to eat something other than Pop-Tarts.’ She noticed the bags Archer had set out on the counter and she started to unpack them. ‘What are you making?’ She didn’t really know if it was appropriate for her to be chatting in the kitchen with him, but Olive didn’t exactly need supervision in her TV watching. Especially since Archer put child locks on the doors so she couldn’t sneak out of the house anymore.
‘Steak frites,’ he said, pulling potatoes out of one of the bags as well as a bottle of wine. ‘Glass of wine?’
Drinking with the boss? The lines were getting blurrier. But what was she supposed to do? Hide in her room until dinner was ready? She’d spent her first few evenings here going out for dinner just to avoid this situation but that was untenable. She lived here. Surely, she could have a glass of wine with dinner.
‘Sure, thanks.’
‘Red, okay? This one pairs really nicely with the steak.’
‘Sounds good.’ She watched him pour the wine and pull the rest of the ingredients from the bag and she could imagine what he must have been like before coming here. Competent, talented. A man who was confident in his abilities. And he’d given it all up.
He was peeling potatoes faster than she’d ever seen anyone peel before when she blurted out, ‘It’s really amazing that you gave this up.’
His hands stopped. A slight frown crossed his face, making her regret her words.
‘I mean, not that you gave it up forever, but it’s amazing that you left your old life to come here, to Dream Harbor and the diner and all … it must be … different.’
He made that amused huffing sound she supposed passed for a laugh and went back to the potatoes, chopping them into precise slices. Like a machine. She’d been right about those hands. Capable of all sorts of tricks.
‘Different is an understatement.’ His attention shifted to where Olive sat on the couch, and he somehow didn’t chop his own fingers off. ‘But it’s not like I could just leave her.’
‘Plenty of people do.’
He paused his chopping, his intense gaze landing on her again and suddenly it was too warm in the kitchen.
She cleared her throat. ‘My dad didn’t have too much trouble taking off and he knew about me. So…’ She shrugged. ‘It’s kind of a big deal that you came back for her.’ Iris refused to identify as someone with daddy issues, she absolutely did not let the man who knocked up her mother have that type of control over her life, but it was a big deal that Archer had come back. He could have looked the other way and continued on with a life he’d already established. But he didn’t. He was here. And he was trying.
He was still looking at her, but less like he was disappointed and more like he maybe didn’t regret hiring her.
‘Hey, Olive,’ Iris called into the living room, needing to break the tension. ‘You should come in here. Your dad is like a real-life cooking show.’ She watched Archer as she said it and she relished the smile that lit up his face for one brief moment before he bit it back and continued chopping.
Olive appeared by her side before she could try and coax another smile from him. Later. She would try again later because now that she’d seen one she wanted more.
‘What’s he making?’ Olive asked, climbing up onto the stool next to her.
‘French fries.’
‘I like French fries.’
Archer was still concentrating on the meal, but his lips twitched up.
‘Me too,’ Iris said. ‘I hope he doesn’t mess them up,’ she whispered loudly, and Olive giggled.
‘I can make steak frites in my sleep. I won’t mess them up,’ Archer said, with that confident smirk he’d given her the night before when he was cooking pancakes. And she knew she was seeing the real Archer.
‘Sleep cooking! Wow, that would put an interesting spin on cooking shows, huh, Olive!’
The little girl’s forehead crinkled. ‘Sounds dangerous.’
Archer chuckled. ‘I promise to stay awake.’ He dumped the cut potatoes into a bowl of cold water and then started unwrapping the steak from its brown paper package.
‘I don’t want that,’ Olive said, immediately recoiling in horror at the slab of raw beef.
‘Have you tried it before?’ Archer asked, his voice gentle and calm, like he was trying not to scare her, like he had listened to Iris. ‘You might like it if you try it.’
She shook her head.
‘Okay,’ he shrugged. ‘More for me and Iris, then.’
‘Iris is eating it?’ Olive asked, looking up at her.
‘Damn right I am. I’d be happy to eat your piece.’
Olive frowned.
‘I’m going to cook it first,’ Archer told her. ‘With butter and rosemary.’
‘What’s rosemary?’
‘It’s an herb. Here, smell.’ He held out a sprig to Olive and she took it between her tiny fingers. She brought it to her nose and took a tentative sniff. Archer’s lips had curved into a small smile again and Iris didn’t know who was cuter: Olive with the rosemary under her little nose, or Archer watching her.
‘Smells good,’ she said.
‘So, there you go. Maybe you’ll try a tiny bite.’
‘A teeny tiny bite,’ she countered.
Archer grinned. ‘The teeny-tiniest bite. A little mouse bite.’
Oh, she liked that. Her face lit up. ‘A little cutie, little mouse bite,’ she sang.
‘Hey, wait a minute! Does this mean I don’t get your piece anymore?’ Iris said in mock outrage and Olive giggled.
‘You get your own piece,’ Olive said, leaning her elbows on the counter. ‘What are you doing now?’ she asked Archer, ignoring Iris’s huff of outrage over her decreased portion.
‘I’m going to season the steak. Do you want to help?’
Olive’s eyes widened. ‘Yeah!’
Archer looked like he might float away from shock and happiness, but he held it together and slid the salt dish across to Olive. ‘We need a big pinch of salt. Can you do a big pinch?’
Olive made a little pinching motion with her fingers. ‘Like this?’
‘Bigger.’ Archer took a liberal pinch of salt and sprinkled it over the steak. ‘Like that. Now you.’
‘Like this?’
‘That’s perfect! Very good.’
Olive beamed at her father and their matching dimples nearly killed Iris. She took another sip of wine and watched the twosome make dinner together, with Archer explaining everything along the way and Olive soaking in the attention. By the time they ate, Iris was amazed the food could fit past the lump of emotion in her throat.
She was glad she’d trusted her gut. These two needed her and they needed each other, and she was helping bring them together. And just like Mary Poppins, once they didn’t need her anymore, she would just put up her umbrella and float right on out of here.
But after tonight’s cooking demonstration, she wasn’t so sure it would be as easy as she’d originally thought.