Chapter 24
I want to hear Alex Perry’s life story from the moment you left LA until now,” I said, trying to wrestle with a long string of gooey cheese dangling from my soup spoon. “This is beyond delicious, by the way. I’m going to say yes to seconds.”
We were sitting across from each other at one of the dining room tables with a soft dim light illuminating the heaping bowls of soup and extra bread between us.
“It’s especially good thanks to your bread,” he said. “And after I tell you my life story, I need yours, too.”
“Okay,” I said. I would leave out details, but I’d give him the broad strokes.
“First,” Alex declared, lifting his pointer finger. “I need to make us Shirley Temples before we get into it.”
“How whimsical,” I said, and he stood up and went to the compact bar area, where I heard the rush of soda from the tap and then the plop of cherries into liquid. He handed me the pink concoction and it tasted like pretending to be a grown-up when you were a kid.
“I don’t drink, by the way,” he said. “It’s not a whole thing. I just drank too much to escape when I was younger and so now I don’t. I’m skipping ahead, but yeah. Cheers!” He lifted his pint glass toward mine and we clinked. “I don’t care if you drink, by the way. If you want some wine...”
“I’m good with this,” I said. “I’m not really drinking right now, either.
Impromptu. I think I need to have a clear head for a bit.
” I took another sip; it was a perfect blend of grenadine and something else.
Something not quite Sprite. “Ginger ale?” I asked, lips still wrapped around the straw.
He caught my mouth in his eyes and seemed to forget I’d asked him a question. “Alex? Ginger ale?”
He shook his head and cleared his throat. “Yes, sorry. It’s ginger ale and soda water. An upscale spin on the classic.”
“I love it,” I said, and he smiled like he was so pleased he could please me. “Now, tell me everything.” I cupped my face in my hands with my elbows resting on the table, waiting.
“Well,” he began. “As you know, my mom passed. It was devastating. That word hardly covers the scope of what it was. My dad was catatonic. My grandparents on his side demanded we move back to Michigan and into their house so they could help. Amber and I tried to fight it, but Dad was incapable of taking care of himself, let alone us. At the time, I was heartbroken, missing my mom and angry with my dad, but looking back, it’s like, wow, what a love, you know? To grieve someone that much is a gift.
“My grandmother was a phenomenal cook. Amber went through her rebellious phase, which was probably going to happen whether Mom died or not, but it was worse because of it. She’s good now, but it was tough for a while.
I went through my own turbulent phase, which explains the Shirley Temple.
I started cooking with my grandmother when I stopped drinking.
She taught me everything she knew. I had a knack for it.
She told me I had a good nose and palate. It gave me purpose.”
“Oh, Alex,” I said. I reached across the table and grabbed his hand, left it there, feeling the velvety warmth of his touch. “I’m so sorry. I never got to say that about your mom. But I’m so sorry.”
“Thank you,” he said. He squeezed my hand, and entwined our fingers, keeping me there.
“You don’t have to keep going if it’s too hard to talk about.”
“No, it’s okay. It was a long time ago.”
“Okay.”
“I floated around for a while,” he said.
“Dad checked out for five years or so and then, finally, checked back in but not all the way. Mom’s death changed him forever.
I don’t blame him. Amber, me, him, we were all drifting balloons without Mom.
She was our anchor. We had to completely figure out how to be a new kind of family without her.
When I finally got it together, I went to culinary school.
Amber became a doctor, of all things.” He chuckled.
“She’s living in Portland now. Dad started working as a contractor back in Michigan, and that’s what he’s still doing.
My grandfather even helps him, which is cool.
I talk to my grandmother almost every other day.
She’s my favorite person.” He stopped for a moment, and his eyes were glassy.
“I’m glad Dad has purpose now, because it all fell apart after Mom.
Not just because we lost her, but because their production company was running at a deficit.
I thought they were super successful, but everything was loaned out and stretched thin.
He had to declare bankruptcy. It was a mess for a long time. The messes just kept coming.”
“Damn,” I said. “That must have been so hard to deal with.”
“I know this sounds like a sob story,” he said. “But we’ve all turned out okay now.”
“It’s not a sob story,” I said, caressing my thumb across his hand. “It’s your past and I wanted to hear it.”
“I don’t usually talk about it. Definitely not on a first date.” He laughed a little uncomfortably. “But we already know each other. I feel like we can skip the small talk.”
“We can,” I told him.
He smiled and continued. “So then, after culinary school, I got recruited to work for a big chef in New York prepping fine dining dishes. I moved up quickly because I was older than most of the kids in culinary school and more focused. I knew what I wanted to do and I just put my head down until I landed somewhere solid. I learned a lot. The chef I worked for is now a judge on Food Network competitions. She was an amazing mentor. It took a few more years of working to finally get this executive chef position. I moved here from New York, but it was only for a year. The owner of Wavy wanted to revamp the menu and so I did that, implemented the recipes, and now have a job in Chicago at a new place opening up. It is what it is.”
“You don’t sound that excited about this new job?”
He gave me a defeated type of smile and then shrugged. “I’ve always wanted my own place, to do things my own way, cook my food the way I want to cook it.”
“Why can’t you?”
“Well, I was going to,” he said, fingers through his hair, head bowed. “It was ready. Investors were in. Every dollar I’d saved for years was put into it. My grandparents even took out a second mortgage to help me. Our opening date? April 6, 2020.”
“Oh, shit.”
“Yeah,” he said. “Timing wasn’t on my side that’s for damn sure.”
“It fell through?”
“More like, it went up in flames,” he said, laughing.
“If I don’t laugh about it, I’ll cry. It was a spectacular comedy of errors.
All my investors pulled out and I had to pay the lease until they finally let me out of it in April 2021.
My savings were wiped out and I lost the money my grandparents loaned me.
I am paying them back, but it has been a very slow repayment.
And I couldn’t get a new job, because no restaurants were hiring. It was... bleak.”
“I’m genuinely very sorry to hear that,” I said.
My heart felt like it was being squeezed in my chest. Now that I looked more closely and had more context, he seemed like he needed a win, badly.
I moved my chair so I was sitting right next to him and I laced my fingers through the waves of his dark hair.
He closed his eyes and leaned into it, gave me a sound of pleasure that prompted me to continue.
Our faces were close now. When he opened his eyes, I could see the watery emotion swimming in them.
“Has life been kinder to you since our almost-kiss?” he asked, voice low, tender. I could smell the grenadine on his breath and wondered if he’d taste like cherries.
“Afraid not,” I told him. “I’m in LA because I lost my job, my boyfriend broke up with me, and I’ll spare you the gory details, but I had my head stuck in a toilet on my thirtieth birthday, and not for a fun reason.”
Alex’s eyebrows pinched together. “I am deeply sorry about two out of three of those things.” He grinned. “Is it bad to say I’m happy to hear you’re single?”
That made me smile.
I shook my head. “Not to me.”
The look he gave me made me feel almost dizzy.
“Maybe we both need this whole say-yes-to-life thing,” he murmured.
“You’re welcome to join me.”
“Could I?”
He leaned in even closer, and his eyes dropped to my lips. I took in shallow breaths, anticipating all that was about to happen, and whether kissing Alex Perry could live up to the fantasies I’d harbored for so many years of teenage longing.
“With one rule,” I whispered.
“Rule?” he asked playfully.
“Alex, I can only get involved if this is over when you go to Chicago. I need to know when and how this ends. We both have lives to get to. Let’s not get swept away.”
“Why is that your rule?”
I couldn’t explain it to him. Not here. Not now. Not ever.
“It just is,” I told him.
“This is poetic. I’m usually the one not making any promises. I’m usually the one keeping it casual.”
“Why?” I asked.
“Can’t stand the idea of losing any more than I’ve already lost.”
His words hit me like a punch.
“Yeah,” I revealed. “I get that.”
“So, if I agree. Are you mine for the month?”
I closed my eyes, savoring his words, feeling like I was dropping off the edge of a cliff.
“Yes,” I told him, so low I could hardly hear myself say it.
“So, the rules are: this ends when I leave for Chicago, but until then...”
“Yes.”
“Yes, what?”
“To all of it.”
It was reckless of me, even with the rule in place, but how much damage could really happen if I knew exactly when this would be over? It was a fail-safe, the escape hatch I never had before.
“Have I mentioned I’m really glad I ran into you?” he said, smiling.
He stroked down the length of my nose with the tip of his finger, finding my lips, and brushing across them in featherlight touches with the pad of his finger.
“Not as glad as I am,” I said, when I could talk again.
“Debatable.”
“So, are you in?”
“Are you serious, Charlie?” he asked. “You know I’m in. If you actually think I can resist you, you haven’t been paying attention. If all I get is what’s left of this month, I’m taking it.”
I smiled and he poked his fingertip into the curve of my right dimple.
“You’re so beautiful,” he said.
“You are, too,” I replied and I cupped my palm across his cheek. He closed his eyes and slanted into it.
Suddenly, I was hit by a force of inspiration that I never would have listened to had I not been in this month-of-yes situation.
“I have a question,” I asked, breathy. His eyes were hooded. I knew he was thinking about kissing me, the same way I was thinking about kissing him. But I wanted to luxuriate in this time before—the delicious anticipation. I’d waited over a decade to kiss Alex Perry. No way was I going to rush it.
“Okay,” he said, waiting.
I gave him a grin. “Will you go to Disneyland with me this week?”
He let out a loud laugh that seemed to echo in the converted house.
“I haven’t been to Disneyland since I was a kid,” he said.
“Me, either,” I replied. “But I mean, doesn’t it sound delightful and silly and exactly the kind of thing you’d do during a month of yes?”
“It does,” he said. “I’m in.”
“Benny is not going to let me go without her.”
“Invite her,” he said. “Your mom, too. The more the merrier. We’ll ride Space Mountain until we puke up churros.”
I laughed.
“Let’s go get seconds in the kitchen,” he said. “And now I want to hear Charlie Quinn’s life story. You thought I’d forgotten. But I haven’t.”
“Alright,” I said. “But it’s not that interesting. I’ve been a boring workaholic for like the past seven years.”
“What have you been running from?” he teased, almost like the question was rhetorical.
I didn’t answer that, only stood up and began clearing the table. It was late. Much later than I ever stayed up. But I wasn’t tired.
No part of me wanted to leave or for this night to end.