7. Chapter Seven
Chapter 7
Risto
L eslie ordering that salad was a gut punch. Stubborn as ever, she refused to give me the satisfaction of having her eat my cooking. Time and again, she preferred cold, tasteless food to the dishes people waited weeks to try and drove hours to reach. But apparently that meant nothing. I kept flunking a test I wasn’t allowed to take.
I smashed through the swinging door to the kitchen, turning the heads of my staff hard at work feeding the lunch rush.
“You okay?” Jose asked, but I waved him off and stormed to my office. Best for everyone if I was alone right now.
The leather squeaked as I dropped into my desk chair, my elbows slack on the armrests in defeat.
Leslie eating lettuce and lemon stung like she squirted the citrus in my eyes. It was an insult to who I was and all I’d overcome to achieve my dream. The few times I smuggled bites of food past her lips, she loved it. Dot always took a to-go box for her to enjoy at home. So why didn’t Leslie sit and eat like everyone else? Was rejecting my cooking some twisted form of revenge?
You’re the one who broke up with her.
Yeah, but she rejected me first. Leslie’s nonexistent support for my culinary career spoke volumes. As if she thought me becoming a chef was an embarrassment. She manufactured excuses to discourage me from opening a restaurant. It was too expensive. Too competitive. I didn’t have enough experience. All that made it too risky. I laughed at the “risk” line, given her brazen investigative methods.
Me starting Boricua was the first of many “restaurant” disagreements. After I bought the place, she moped around the dining room or got lost in her phone until I stole it away and gave her work to keep her busy. After a while, she got better at helping me prep ingredients or set tables. But once guests arrived, she left. I longed for her to see the place in action, but she insisted she’d be in the way. She only returned later after the kitchen was cleaned up.
The one time Leslie stayed, I caught her playing hostess. She tended to diners, refilling water glasses and shuttling drink orders to the bar. Her bright eyes, wide smile, and lean but curvy hips sold more booze that evening than I could remember.
I swiped my face with my hands.
Shit.
Dot knew we needed help, but having Leslie near was already tying me up in knots.
From the looks of it, Dot hadn’t shared her “filling in at Boricua” bombshell. I bet Leslie wouldn’t like it any better than I did, but we’d have to make the best of it. I had a busy restaurant to run and patrons lined up at the door.
I sat forward in my chair to head back to the kitchen when an idea hit me. Jose, my chef de cuisine, ran the operations so well, he barely needed my supervision these days. Realistically, I could manage a second location. It’d give Jose space to grow and allow me to launch another restaurant.
It could work.
But there I was, getting ahead of myself. I hadn’t even contacted the potential investors Silas emailed over, and I’d already begun a staffing plan. My heart swelled at the idea, just as it had with Leslie. Building an imaginary future only I wanted.
Jose appeared at the office door. “Can I have a word?”
“Yeah, of course.”
Jose closed the door behind him. “You’re a wreck, mijo. What’s going on?” He sat on my desk, facing me with crossed arms.
“That obvious?” I said, but Jose settled in for a wait. He expected an explanation. The man had been with me long enough to know every intimate detail of my business and life. He wanted some tea.
I sighed in defeat. “Leslie is staying with Dot while she recovers from the surgery. I only found out this morning. Now she’s sitting in my dining room, eating lettuce, and making me wish I was anywhere but here.” I pointed at my office wall, knowing the bar—and Leslie—sat on the other side. This was fucking torture, and it’d only been a few hours.
“First, maybe she doesn’t like your food,” Jose said. “There are worse things in the world, like murder and that asshole who scratched your car last week after he showed up with no reservation and had to wait. Second, make up with the woman and be happy. Or get your head out of your ass and find someone else. You choose, but you’re useless to me right now.”
Jose had a point. And I was in no mind space to have this conversation. I’d yet to speak to Leslie. Until I did, my head would likely remain up my ass. I had to drop all visions of us getting back together. While I’m sure Jose would love to get me out of his hair, it was too early for me to mention the idea of a second location. First, I had to find investors and make a deal stick. While I told him everything, I skipped mentioning my contact with Silas about the investor interest. No sense raising his hope about becoming executive chef here before it was real.
“It gets worse. Dot wants her to fill in while she’s laid up after surgery,” I said.
Jose whistled, long and low. “Sucks to be you.”
“Tell me about it.”
“Hey, it might not be so bad. Leslie’s a looker. It’ll be good for business.” Jose laughed, playfully slapped my shoulder, and rose to leave. “Plus, you never know…”
Jose rounded out of sight, but that last barb spoke volumes. Jose, like Dot, presumed I’d end up back with Leslie. But neither grasped how little the woman sitting out there eating lettuce wanted any kind of future with me. I did the right thing breaking up with her.
I swiveled to the desk and pulled up the contacts Silas sent me via email.
At least there was one future I had the power to control.