Chapter 15 Rush Order
Rush Order
Poppy
I’m nearly finished with the second bag of onions when I hear voices coming from the dining room.
I pause, knife hovering above the latest onion. I’ve gone slower this time, focusing on making my movements as precise as
possible. It’s not perfect, but it’s better. Hopefully it’s good enough to avoid the humiliation of the garbage can a second
time in a row.
“—figured we’d drift into each other’s lives again,” someone is saying. “Although to be fair, it was shitty as hell, what
you did, and I’d like to be in touch more than once a decade moving forward.”
“Fair enough,” Jack responds. To my surprise, he laughs deeply. Genuinely. He pushes open the door to the kitchen, another
man in tow.
The stranger is around Jack’s age, dressed in fishing boots, worn jeans, and a T-shirt that might, at one time, have been
an appropriate tribute to the Dolphins football team. His curly hair is cropped close to his head, and a mustache frames his
face. At the sight of me, he stops short, taking off his backward baseball cap and pressing it to his chest.
“Dude, why do you have a crying woman back here?”
Jack rolls his eyes. “She’s not crying.”
“Her eyes are all red.”
“It’s just the onions.” I set down the knife, holding my hand out. I’ve started to ignore the tears streaking down my face. “I’m Jack’s . . . I’m Poppy Winfield.”
“My business partner,” Jack supplies.
I beam. “His business partner.”
The man shakes my hand with his scarred, deep brown one. I must have a quizzical look on my face because he says, “Just fishing
scars. Those hooks are sharp. I’m Chester.”
His grin is infectious. Well, not to Jack, apparently—he’s scowling—but definitely to me. I smile as I peel away my bandanna,
shaking out my braids. “You’re a fisherman?”
“I mostly tend bar, but I help with the family business, too. Harrison’s Seafood. Best on the Treasure Coast.” He turns to
Jack. “You didn’t mention you had a business partner with you when you texted.”
“I’m full of surprises,” he says dryly.
Chester shakes his head. “Forgive me for not expecting a literal angel to be—”
“Come on, man, she just went through a breakup.”
“It wasn’t a very long relationship,” I add cheerfully. Ryan hasn’t crossed my mind once since I got to Florida, now that
I think about it. “I mean, I thought he was going to propose, but that was only because I found a Tiffany’s box in his sock
drawer, you know?”
“What was in it?” Chester asks with interest.
“Break-up jewelry. Can you believe that?”
“Oh, so you’re saying women don’t like that? Shit. No wonder I never stay in touch with my exes.”
“He was still a jackass, and it still hurt you,” Jack interjects, his teeth practically gritted. “Anyway, I was just showing
Chester the progress. He has an in with some purveyors.”
“The food suppliers?”
“Yep,” Chester says. “My dad knows everyone in the South Florida seafood scene.” He turns to Jack. “Wait, is that why you
invited me over? Here I was thinking you wanted to catch up, finally.” He slides that grin back to me and adds, “Easy to see
why he took his sweet time texting me.”
I shake my head, smiling. “Sounds like you guys have known each other for a while.”
“We went to high school together. Before, you know, he ran away to that fancy culinary school.”
I’m loving Chester more by the second. “Kiara mentioned the same thing.”
“You’ve met Ki?” His face lights up. “She’s great. The best.”
I’m not sure, but I think I hear a note of longing in his voice.
“Speaking of Kiara, I still can’t believe you adopted a feral alleyway cat,” Jack grumbles.
“Feral?” I protest. “He’s just a baby. A ball of mush. You should’ve seen him when I left this morning.”
“You named him Gator.”
I gesture around, not to the kitchen, but to the general humidity and tropical foliage and truly astonishing number of lizards
just outside. “What else was I supposed to do? It’s Florida.”
“Did you go to school at UF?” Chester asks. “Because if you want tickets to the first home game—”
“She’s not from around here,” Jack interrupts impatiently. “Be careful around that cat. He nearly took a chunk out of me the
first time I saw him.”
“So weird. He loves me and Kiara.” I bite back a grin at the black-as-night scowl on his face. “I can’t believe you didn’t
save him!”
He crosses his arms, inked forearms flexing. “What, are you best friends with Ki now?”
I shrug. “Is that a problem?” At his continued glowering, I add, “It’s nice that your friends still care about you after all
this time, you know.”
“Yeah, man,” Chester says. “Can’t we be happy to see you?”
“This is also the sort of stuff that people find interesting,” I inform Jack. “Returning to your hometown, reconnecting with
your roots . . .”
“I don’t have roots.”
I shoot a confused look at Chester. He scratches his head uncomfortably.
“Don’t,” Jack says.
“She doesn’t know?”
“What don’t I know?”
Jack’s phone starts ringing, interrupting the suddenly tense silence. I startle, knocking the remaining onion onto the floor. Chester leans down to rescue it. Jack’s eyes sear into mine, a tangled forest of vine.
“Finish that,” he says as he pushes open the back door. “Then clean up your workstation.”
I gulp. “Heard.”
Chester rolls the onion over to me. He glances at the door Jack just went through, brows knit together. “Why are you chopping
all these onions, anyway?”
“He’s teaching me how to cook.” I refasten the bandanna, braids looped underneath. “He wants me to learn about back of house
stuff so I can promote the restaurant better.”
“What are you making, French onion soup?”
“I wish. This is just for practice.” I wipe the knife clean and start in on the onion. “Or torture. He can’t stand me.”
Chester’s gaze is still lingering on the door. “Right,” he says slowly.
“I’m here to help him reopen this place, but he keeps expecting me to quit and run home, even though branding and promoting
a restaurant is literally the coolest opportunity I can think of.” I blow away a strand of hair that managed to escape the
braids. “I’m not going anywhere. I adopted a Florida cat. I’m in it, now.”
“Know when he wants to reopen?”
“Early November.”
Chester whistles. “The start of Season, smart. If you need a bartender, I’d be happy to help. I design cocktails for the place
I’m at, down in Delray.”
“The last time I brought someone onboard without asking first, Jack nearly bit my head off.” I roll my eyes at the memory.
Herman, meanwhile, has been incredibly helpful, even bringing around some of the old crew to fix up the outside of the building.
It’s starting to look presentable again. “But that sounds great to me. Maybe when we get further down the line, we can think
up some drink specials.”
“Sounds good.” He smiles at me, his posture easy and self-assured, and puts his ball cap back on. “And hey, if you want a
guide to what Diamond Bay has to offer, you know who to call.”
I flush lightly. “Maybe.”
“I’ll be around.” He knocks his knuckles against the edge of a sink. His gaze lingers, but not in a bad way. “Nice to meet
you, Poppy. Tell Jack to text me later, okay? Gotta run to help my dad with a few things.”
It takes Jack a surprisingly long time to reappear after Chester leaves. I’ve cleaned up the onion mess and have been braving
Instagram for research purposes when he finally comes back in, that customary scowl on his face. His hair looks even messier
than before, as if he couldn’t help tugging on it.
“More permit trouble?” I ask as I add another restaurant to my growing list of comps for us to check out. I need to start
assembling a mood board for the restaurant interior. Another thing to add to the to-do list. I open my notes app and jot it
down, although not before being waylaid by several notifications. “By the way, Chester says he can bartend for us. He wants
you to text him, so maybe you can—”
“These look better.” At Jack’s voice, I jerk my head up. He’s inspecting my new onion pile, nodding slightly. “Much more uniform.
Good job.”
It’s ridiculous, what that bit of praise does to me. I squirm, fighting the urge to do something really weird, like hug him.
After days of nothing except a “Thank you” as I left in the evening, this is practically a declaration of love. It’s too much.
I might melt into the floor.
“Poppy.”
“Thank you, Chef.”
He nods at my phone. “What were you doing?”
“Researching comp restaurants. Oh, and look at this.” I pull up the Instagram account I made for Fable, @fablerestaurantfl,
followed by one @itspoppywinfield, and hold out my phone. “I did TikTok and Facebook, too. And I’ll start working on the website
tonight. Let me know if you have any thoughts on the branding. I still think pink should be one of the accent colors, but
if you’re really against it, we can consider yellow.”
“Not pink.” He takes the phone from me. “Who is following the account?”
“Just me, so far. I haven’t posted anything yet. But once I mention it on my other profile, people will—hey, wait.”
Jack is scrolling through my account. I reach for my phone, ears burning, but he just turns his back to me, using his height
to hold the phone where I can’t reach. My heart crawls into my throat. The couture photoshoots. The pictures of me in bikinis
on tropical beaches. Sponsored posts for workout gear and supplements and so many other kinds of bullshit. It felt important
at the time, but under Jack’s scrutiny, it’s as flimsy as the onion skins littering the garbage. No wonder Julia hates it
so much.
“What the fuck.”
“Jack, please. It’s all silly, I know that, just—”
“Half of these comments are disgusting.” He whirls around. “This one—I’m not even going to read it aloud. Who thinks they
have the right to say this shit to a stranger?”
I bite my lip. “Are you just discovering what an internet troll is? It’s okay, everyone has to eventually.”
“This isn’t trolling. This is abuse.” He sets down my phone, his lips pressed into a hard line. “Why put up with that?”
“It’s part of being visible online.” I shift my weight from foot to foot. I know exactly the type of comment he’s talking
about. Social media, more often than not, makes any shreds of my self-worth go up in flames, but that’s the price it demands.
“Can we just get on with the next lesson? It’s not a big deal.”
“You can’t seriously think that. Does your family know? Your father?”
“It is what it is. And don’t bring my family into this.” I cross my arms. “Let me handle the promotional stuff. You don’t
need to be involved.”
His eyes simmer. “Only if you promise to tell me if anyone is harassing you.”
“Why do you even care?”
“Just tell me you will.”
“Fine.” I gesture around the kitchen. “Can we move on now? What was your call about, anyway?”
“Nothing.” He studies me for a moment more before unrolling his knife sheath again.
“Chester is nice. So is Kiara.” The words spill from my lips before I can stop them. “They obviously still care about you, even though it’s been a long time since you’ve been home.”
His expression flickers. He hesitates, tattooed fingers tracing over the handle of one of his knives. For a moment, it feels
like we’re on the edge of something. A cliff. A mountaintop. One of those places in the ocean where one moment you can touch
the bottom, and the next, you’re in a chasm. I look at the octopus tattoo curling around his neck and suppress a shiver.
His eyes are so green, they’re almost black.
“Let’s keep our secrets, Winfield. Heard?”
We stare at each other. Despite my best efforts, I break first.
“Heard.”