Chapter 39 Don’t Trifle with It
Don’t Trifle with It
Poppy
I underestimated Jack’s charms in his chef’s whites.
The night of the Pastiche disaster, they were wrinkled and stained from the crush of service. And for too long after, I tried
studiously to ignore them, as if by not acknowledging his looks, his magnetism didn’t matter. Now, though, bleach has made
the thick white fabric luxurious. His black hair curls slightly over the starched collar. As he buttons it to his throat,
he looks every bit ready to do battle. Even the nonslip clogs on his feet are sexy, a realization that has me gasping for
air through a barrage of giggles.
He scowls at me. “What?”
“Nothing.” I wave my hand helplessly, looking at my own clogs. They’re hideous. I’ll change into heels before the actual event
later, but for now, I’m stuck with these, and the knowledge that he ordered them specifically in my size. I bite the inside
of my cheek. “You just look . . .”
He saunters in my direction, a dark, intent look on his face. “Go on.”
I retreat slowly. Unfortunately, there aren’t many places to run on a tiny houseboat. “We don’t have time for this.”
“I’ll make time.”
I squeak, scrambling for the stairs to the deck.
He grabs me around the waist as easily as he would a rag doll, crushing me against his hard chest. He batters me with kisses, growling when I squeal.
Pressed tightly against him, I feel his racing heart.
It makes me smile. Most likely it’s pounding because of arousal, but maybe a touch of nerves, too.
The pop-up has to go well. Without it, opening night won’t be half of what it needs to be. And if my father isn’t impressed,
our efforts will have been for nothing.
I ease away from him, flipping my braid over my shoulder. “Chase me to the restaurant?”
He’s all too willing to take me up on the offer—although he doesn’t give me much of a head start.
Later, inside the gleaming, newly decorated interior of Fable, the air feels tense with possibility. I fuss with the dining
room, going over each place setting yet again. Behind the bar, Chester wipes down glasses, and in the back, I hear the clamor
of Jack, Hazel, and Owen setting up the workstations. Kiara should be along soon; she’s leaving the clinic in the hands of
her assistants for the day. Herman will arrive closer to service, along with the servers we hired to help me manage the front
of house during the event.
That’s what we settled on, in the end: I’m front of house manager, Jack is back of house manager, and we’re going to try our
hardest to work together and not kill each other.
“You look like you’re going to puke,” Chester remarks casually.
I nudge a knife into place. “I’m cool as a cucumber.”
“What are you making for dessert again?”
“Cake.” I move on to another table, rearranging the flowers in the centerpiece. “Tropical flavors. Lots of mango, passionfruit,
lime . . .”
“And is that finished and in the fridge or something?”
“No. I’m staying out of Jack’s way until he can communicate in actual words instead of grunted commands.” I pinch my brows
together. “Are you trying to psych me out?”
When we arrived, I offered to help Jack cut and portion the fish, but he practically shoved me into the dining room. It’s
just as well, because I can hear the bass of what, unfortunately, I now recognize instantly as Black Sabbath. Maybe he’s just
sore that he lost our race.
“I’m not.” Chester holds his hands up, rag slipping from his fingers. “It’s just . . . I want you to do well, Pop Rocks. I want this to be incredible for both of you.”
I smile. “Jack hates that, by the way.”
“Pop Rocks?”
“He thinks you should be forbidden from giving me a special nickname.”
“He’s just mad he didn’t think of it first. Plus,” Chester adds, grinning, “my heart belongs to a certain Latina with a rockin’—”
“A rockin’ what?” Kiara asks as she joins us in the dining room, a tray of coffees in hand.
“A rockin’ booty, of course.” He reels her in for a kiss. I hear him give her a smack and duck my head to hide my amusement.
They’re perfect together. “I know what my girl is about.”
Kiara splays her hand on his chest, humming. “Ugh,” she says, turning her head to the side. “You smell like fish.”
“Hauled in pounds of it with Jack earlier. Dad didn’t skimp on anything.”
“Well, you can give this to Chef.” She hands Chester a coffee. “And wash up again.”
Once he’s back in the Black Sabbath Kitchen of Doom, Kiara joins me at a two-top. She smiles at the art hanging above us.
An old sketch of Diamond Bay Sal found, apparently, at a yard sale. “How is it going?”
At that moment, there’s a crash in the kitchen, followed by a very loud, “Fuck!”
“Oh, great.” I take a sip of coffee. That was definitely Jack. If I had to compare him to a beverage, it would be coffee. Coffee laced with approximately three extra shots of espresso
and just enough sugar to take the edge off . . . if you know to ask for it.
“Are you excited?” she asks.
“Honestly, I’m positively nauseated.”
“You’re going to do great, Pops.” She lifts her gaze, taking in the bright, colorful dining room, mixed with what I hope is
just enough charm of the old Sailfish restaurant. We had a fun time hanging up art and finding places for cute knickknacks
like the carved fish by the hosting stand. “I can’t believe this is the same restaurant.”
“Thanks again for letting me comb through all the old décor.” I lower my voice, even though there’s no way we’ll be overheard.
“By the way, I was wondering . . . do you have any pictures of Jack and Sal together? Or even better, all three of you? I thought it could be nice to get one blown up and framed for the official launch. If tonight goes well, I mean.”
She puts her hand over mine, squeezing. “I’ll look. I’m sure there are a few we can pick from.”
“I want it to be a secret.”
“Definitely. He won’t admit it, but it’ll mean a lot.” She sips her coffee. “I wanted to mention something to you, too. Sal
left Jack a letter.”
“What?” My voice is way louder than I intend. We both look to the kitchen, but no one comes rushing out.
“Yeah. He doesn’t know anything about it.” She draws her brows together, frowning. “I keep meaning to find the right time
to give it to him, but it never seems like it, you know? I want him to read it, not throw it out.”
“Did you open it?”
She shakes her head. “I have no idea what’s inside. But I remember the night before Jack left . . .” She trails off, fiddling
with the gold necklace draped over her collarbone.
“What happened?”
“They argued. I didn’t hear all of it, they didn’t know I was there, but it didn’t sound good. I think my father called him—”
The kitchen door opens. “Poppy!” Jack barks from the doorway. “Where are you? We’re already fifteen minutes behind schedule.”
“You’re the one who kicked me out!” I yell back. I turn to Kiara and whisper, “Tell me the rest later.”
Any thoughts of whatever happened between Sal and Jack flee from my mind the moment I step into the kitchen.
It’s the epitome of organized chaos. Various dish components, carefully labeled, cover every surface.
Owen is prepping garnishes, his movements perfectly precise.
Hazel is weighing out cuts of beef for the coffee-rubbed filets.
Jack, meanwhile, is standing at one of the prep tables, gloves on, systematically gutting a huge red snapper.
He looks up as I enter, hair flopping over his forehead, and despite the scowl of concentration on his face, I want to kiss him.
He’s so handsome, so fucking competent, in charge of the situation with effortless grace.
He looks every bit the head chef.
“Let’s go,” he says. “Start your cake batter. The oven’s prepped.”
I hurry to wash my hands and don an apron—plus a hairnet, mostly so he’ll smile. I catch the faint edge of it as I skip to
his station and kiss his cheek.
I set up next to Jack, pulling out ingredients along with the instructions we wrote during the test-runs of the recipe. Coconut
cake, mango jam filling, passionfruit-lime ganache. Apparently, the mango jam is an old recipe of Sal’s; he always added a
pinch of chili powder to complement the sweetness of the mangos. If these little cakes are well-received tonight, Jack will
make it the centerpiece of the regular dessert menu.
It’s sad to think of it lasting only long enough to snag Jack a new job.
Maybe the next owner won’t even want to keep this place a restaurant.
I push that thought out of my mind and start to dice the mangos like he taught me.
An hour later, however, things are, in a word, fucked. I stare with panic at the sunken cakes I just took out of the oven,
wondering what the hell I did wrong. I weighed everything twice. I tasted the batter before it went into the pans. I set the
timer on the oven, my phone, and the little egg-shaped magnetic timer that lives on the lowboy door. I let the cakes do their thing instead of opening the
oven and checking on them a zillion times, which Jack explained is the exact wrong thing to do when baking. Despite all of
that, they collapsed.
I pull off my oven mitts slowly, chewing the inside of my cheek.
This is a disaster. Everything is mapped out to the second, and Jack needs this oven within the next five minutes. There’s
no time to try again, but I’m going to have to throw them out. We’ll be left with bowls of jam for dessert.
I press my wrist against my nose, stifling a sniffle.
I can’t cry in this kitchen. Not now. Not in front of Jack.
As if I summoned him with my mind, strong hands settle on my shoulders. Jack kisses the top of my head. “Hey, Princess.”
“They’re ruined.” I can’t look at him. I feel his gaze over my head, surveying the damage.
I expect some reaction, at least a bitten-off curse, but he just rubs my tense muscles. “So, we pivot.”
“There’s nothing to pivot to!”
He dips a spoon into the pot of jam bubbling on the stove, making a noise of approval as he tastes it. “That’s delicious.
The ganache looks right, too.”
“Without a cake, these are just components. Not a dessert.”
“We’ll make it into something else.” He steps around me, examining the cakes. They’re in springform pans, so the sides lift
away from the bottom of the tin. He pries one free. It collapses in on itself even farther. I clap my hands over my eyes,
peering out between my fingers.
“I don’t even know what I did.”
“Maybe too much leavening agent.” He breaks off a piece, tasting it. “Whatever happened doesn’t matter. The parts that did
bake properly are good. Take a deep breath, Poppy.”
“No,” I squeak, voice muffled.
“Pivoting in the kitchen is normal.” He pulls my hands away from my face. “Nothing ever goes off without a hitch.”
“But everything you do is perfect.”
“Hardly.”
“I had one job, and I just—”
“One job?” he interrupts. “You engineered this entire evening. You brought this restaurant back to life. It’s stunning out
there. Don’t downplay that.”
“It’s your menu.”
“Our menu.”
My lips twitch upward despite myself.
“This is just dessert,” he adds. “We can fix it. Think, clever girl. What should we do?”
I take that deep breath, finally. My mind runs through the possibilities. I didn’t realize that I absorbed quite so much knowledge over the course of my time here, but now it springs up, ready to be used.
“The coupe glasses,” I say slowly. The fancy ones I wanted to buy instead of the high-end steak knives, but managed to get
from the company in exchange for promotion on our platforms. Hopefully they won’t mind a curveball. “We have a ton of those.
Enough for each guest.”
“True. But we were going to put the signature cocktail in them.” I can tell by the glint in his eyes that he’s challenging
me. Not because he thinks I’m wrong—but because he wants me to be confident I’m right.
“We’ll find something else for that.” I bounce on my heels, unable to stay still. My mind is racing so fast, it practically
trips over itself. “We’ll use wineglasses, or whatever. It doesn’t matter. The new dessert will look great in those glasses,
and they’ll be easy to eat.”
“And what’s the new dessert, Chef?”
“A trifle. I can add in a soak for the useable pieces of cake. Lime, to bring in more acidity. It’ll be better than the original,
if I can just—” I abruptly stop as his question sinks in fully. “What did you just call me?”
He gives me a smile so warm with approval, I nearly melt through the floor. My heart expands in my chest, eclipsing my lungs.
There’s a real possibility that I might pass out.
“I’m going to pass out,” I inform him, which just makes him laugh and kiss me. The kiss—deep, claiming, dirty—doesn’t do much
for my chances at staying conscious. I don’t care. He tastes delicious.
Coconut and mango, in perfect harmony.
“You’ve got this,” he whispers against my lips, an arm tight around my waist. Just in case. It’s the last push I need. “Heard?”