5. McKenzie
FIVE
McKenzie
A week passed, bringing October with it. I threw myself into work, doing anything I could to avoid thinking about the fact that in five days, my mom would be leaving the country. And for the first time, I’d be alone on the anniversary of the worst day of my life.
Luckily, things at Katie’s Kitchen had been so busy I’d barely had time to breathe. Katie had been out of the restaurant almost entirely for the past seven days, popping in only a couple of times, which was unusual for her, and Dallas hadn’t been in at all. She hadn’t given any sort of explanation for either of their whereabouts. Not that she owed me one, but it was unlike her not to tell me what was going on. We were friends, but I was also her second-in-command.
So, when she strolled into the kitchen from the front of the store late Thursday morning, I pounced.
“Katie, what’s going on?” I asked, dropping my spatula onto the island that held the salted caramel layer cake I was working on.
“Nothing much,” she said, flipping through the overstuffed order notebook we kept by the phone in the back. “Have you seen the slip for the Altman wedding? I got an email that their guest count changed again .”
“It’s in there,” I said, leaning against the cabinet beside her. “Are you feeling okay? Is your MS flaring up again?”
“I’m feeling pretty good, actually. I have my days, but overall, it’s been a lot better,” she answered, continuing to leaf through the pages. “Where did that damn thing go?”
“You’d tell me, right?” I asked. “Because something seems…off.”
“Off?” she repeated, plucking a sheet from the binder. “There it is.”
I grabbed her by the arms and turned her to face me. “Is something up with you and Dallas? Because if he’s being an idiot again, I will hack off his man bun and glue it to his ass.”
She laughed and shook her head. “Dallas is great. Seriously. He’s fine. I’m fine. Everything’s—”
“Fine,” I finished for her. “Does this mean you’re taking time off for fun ?”
There was a flash of something in her eyes before she fixed her mouth into a smile.
“Is that so crazy?” she asked.
“It wouldn’t be if that was a thing you did without being sick, hurt, or otherwise coerced.”
She rolled her eyes and returned her attention to the notebook, making a notation on the Altman order form. “Actually, Dallas is out front right now grabbing a few things to take to Derek and Jo’s.”
As if on cue, Dallas poked his head in the door. “We’ve got the goods.” He nodded in my direction. “Hey, McKenzie.”
“Tommy Lee,” I said. “Referring to yourself as we now? Did your ego get too big for one person to handle?”
“No.” He came all the way into the kitchen, clutching a lilac pastry box, and the most beautiful man I’d ever seen followed behind him.
Luca. I’d met him briefly once before—at Cash and Ella’s wedding—right after Ella’s boob popped out of her dress like some sort of perverse Whac-A-Mole. He was a friend of Dallas and Katie, and he was on my shit list, regardless of how chiseled his jaw was or how blue his eyes were. His shaggy dark hair, alabaster skin, and all-black clothes made my inner emo-girl heart flutter. Nevertheless, he’d been an asshole to my friends—especially Katie. I’d seen how heartbroken she was at game night and even as far back as last spring when he was a no-show for the opening of the restaurant.
“Luca’s in town,” Dallas said, as though this jerk hadn’t been MIA for months. “We’re going to hang out with Jo and Derek and see little Addison.”
The perfect specimen of a man standing at his side nodded at me in acknowledgment, but I ignored him.
“Oh, nice,” I said, returning my attention to the cake I’d been working on. “So, I can expect neither of you will have your hearing when you return.”
“Addie’s got a set of pipes on her,” Katie explained to Luca, snapping the binder shut.
Jo and Derek popped in often when they weren’t out of town for work, and of course, they brought their daughter with them. She was cute and all, but I much preferred the silent version that came via the hundreds of photos Katie carried on her phone of her goddaughter making ninety-nine variations of the same exact face.
“She’ll be fronting a Midnight in Dallas revival band one day with lungs like that,” Dallas said, while Luca shifted uncomfortably, shoving his hands in his pockets.
“Can’t wait,” I said in a voice that let him know I most certainly could wait.
I got a kick out of teasing him because I didn’t know much about Midnight in Dallas before Katie. His celebrity status and the band as a whole didn’t mean much to me, but after getting to know Dallas, and after him pestering me to listen to his former band’s music, I decided to give them a try. I told Dallas it was cool knowing a guy in a boy band, which shut him up permanently. But truth be told, I liked what I heard.
The door opened, and Sydney, one of my coworkers, peeked her head in. “McKenzie, someone out front is interested in booking a catering gig. Can you come talk to them?”
“I can do it,” Katie offered. She knew the customer interactions were the part of this job I liked the least. I could fake it when I absolutely had to, but I was not what one would call a people person.
“Thanks, Katie,” I said as she exited through the door Sydney held open.
“And Dallas, would you mind changing the light bulb in the men’s room while you’re here?” Sydney asked, pressing her palms together in front of her chest. “It went out this morning, and I hate getting on that stepladder.”
The hair on the back of my neck stood up. If Sydney and Dallas left the room, I’d be here with Luca. Alone.
“You don’t have to do that,” I spoke up. “I can take care of it.”
“No need,” Dallas said, placing the pastry box on the counter. “You’re busy, and well, you’re also kinda short. I don’t even need the stepladder. The hardest part will be remembering where we put the light bulbs. I’ll be right back.”
He left the room with Sydney on his heels, and suddenly the room was painfully quiet.
I tried to focus on the sound of my playlist and the swirl of my spatula as I worked the buttercream over the cake. It took every ounce of restraint I possessed not to steal a glance at Luca.
“Did we meet before?” he asked, his voice piercing through the silence. “We did, right? At Ella and Cash’s wedding?”
I shrugged, not meeting his eyes. I can’t believe he remembers me.
“That cake, uh, looks good.”
“Yep.”
“Sorry,” he said, and I looked up in time to see him push his hand through his perfect mess of hair. “It’s probably distracting to have someone talk to you while you’re trying to work.”
I snorted, returning my focus to the cake. “It’s not. I could do this in my sleep.”
“Oh,” he said. “Right.”
A beat of silence passed between us, and I felt his eyes on me, burning into the side of my face like a hot poker.
“You trying to stare a hole through my head?” I asked.
“No…I, uh, sorry.”
“Just so we’re clear, I don’t like you very much,” I said, continuing to swirl the frosting onto the cake as though being caught in this man’s gaze wasn’t setting me on fire. “I think it’s shitty what you did to all your friends, but especially Katie. She’s so kind and caring, and you ghosting her like that really hurt her feelings.”
He didn’t say anything for a moment, and I wondered if he’d heard me at all.
“I don’t like me very much either,” he finally said. “And it was shitty.” His voice was so low I had to strain to hear him, even in such a small space.
I chanced a glance at him, and that’s when I noticed the deep purple circles that framed his eyes. His razor-sharp cheekbones looked more pronounced than they did the last time I saw him, and his lips were a little dry. Even still, he was insanely gorgeous, and that annoyed me even more.
He sniffled, and his nose twitched before he cleared his throat.
“Oh shit, dude. I’m sorry,” I said, dropping the spatula with a clatter. “You’re not gonna cry, are you?”
He shook his head, a faint smile gliding over his mouth. “Not right now.”
His face and choice of words landed heavy on my heart. “Are you…are you good?”
“Not even a little,” he answered. “But it’s not because of you.”
Fuck. I knew I could be a bitch sometimes, but this was a whole new level for me. The man looked like his damn dog died, and I chose that moment to tell him he was an asshole. I was the one being an asshole.
“I’m not so good either,” I admitted. Partly because it was true, and partly because I had a nagging feeling I needed to let him know he wasn’t alone. “And that’s also not because of you.”
His lips quirked.
“I’m sorry I was such a dick,” I said. “I’d say that’s out of character for me, but it’s not.”
He folded his arms over his chest. “Actually, your honesty is kind of refreshing. Everybody’s been walking on eggshells around me for the past few days. So, thank you for keeping me in check.”
“Glad I could be of service.” I gave him a mock salute. “If you ever find yourself in need of another verbal kick in the ass, I’m your girl.”
“You know, I might take you up on that sometime,” he said as Katie opened the door to the kitchen and leaned inside.
“Are you ready to go?” she asked Luca. “Dal is making a coffee and then we can head out.”
“Yeah, let’s do it,” he answered, picking up the box of pastries Dallas had left.
“I’ll be back tomorrow,” Katie said. “Call me if you need anything.”
“Call you?” I asked as though that was a foreign concept. “Why would I do that when I could let this place descend into madness?”
“Very funny,” she called over her shoulder as she disappeared.
Luca followed behind her, pausing with his back against the door.
“It was good seeing you again, McKenzie,” he said.
My stomach flipped, and I hoped my face wasn’t giving away how good it felt to hear him say my name.
“You too,” I said.
“And I’ll keep your offer in mind.”
I winced. “Sorry about that.”
“I’m not.”
His mouth curved into the first genuine smile I’d seen on him, and without another word, he was gone.