Chapter 5
Chapter Five
Laney wasn’t new to kitchens. They’d been her world since she was eighteen, and if there was one thing people in kitchens were going to do, it was hook up with each other. Which was why she thought the utter chagrin she felt when Chloe walked in was a little bit over the top.
But for some reason she felt like the words your dad put me through the mattress last night were written across her forehead, and she couldn’t shake the feeling.
But she did her best to keep her head down, and stay focused, because what she couldn’t do was allow any of this to affect her work.
The prototype gingerbread house was fantastic. And as they prepped for dinner, she couldn’t help but continue to marvel at it. The precision and expertise that Pike brought to the table was truly beyond anything she could have managed on her own.
“Is that what my dad is helping you with?” Chloe asked the question while they were busily prepping for the first round of dinner service. And Laney was certain that Chloe would have noticed it before, and so she was intrigued that she was only just now pointing it out.
“Yeah,” Laney said, trying to keep her tone casual. “It is. It turned out great, didn’t it?”
“Oh, yeah,” Chloe said. “Like I said. My dad is the best at that.”
She was suddenly so curious. About everything.
Pike had told her so much about his life, about the mistakes that he’d made, and yet also, he had told her very little.
He had spoken in broad sweeping terms about how he hadn’t been able to be there for Chloe, but she was curious when that had changed.
How many years had he been out of her life?
At what point had his marriage begun to dissolve, and he’d found himself alone?
Had Chloe forgiven him easily, or had it taken a long time?
None of that was anything she ought to ask Chloe, of course.
Chloe was her employee, and Pike was... well, they’d slept together.
A very pretty euphemism for what had occurred last night.
Whatever he wanted to share or didn’t want to share was entirely up to him, and she had no business being too curious about the deep inner workings of his life.
He had kind of started it, of course.
It was obvious he felt like he’d had to disclose his history of addiction, probably because it related to the extended bout of celibacy he’d had, and it was obvious that he’d felt required to disclose that as well.
She realized that she had been standing there staring straight ahead, not moving, not chopping anything, for far too long. “Well, he really is. He’s fantastically talented. It’s... amazing that he’s been here all these years and just working on the ranch.”
“My dad has taken his ego death pretty seriously,” Chloe said.
Then she winced. “Sorry. I shouldn’t say much of anything about that.
I know my dad spent the night with you,” she said, a strange expression on her face.
“And I’m glad, frankly, because he has been in this martyr space where it’s like he cuts himself off from everything that could possibly bring him joy.
So as much as I don’t want or need to delve into my dad’s...
sex life? Or my boss’s, sorry. I would rather know that he has someone that he’s connected with? I don’t know. I worry about him.”
Laney really wasn’t expecting that. She looked around the room furtively, hoping that nobody had overheard any of that. “Do you and your dad both feel compelled to speak the truth no matter what?”
“I wouldn’t have said that,” Chloe said. “But apparently. Actually, I think my dad and I pretty habitually just lay everything on the table.”
It seemed like there was more Chloe wanted to say, but she held it back, and Laney didn’t feel like it was right to push. Out of respect for Pike.
“Well, I wouldn’t say that we... I don’t know your dad that well,” Laney said.
“Right. Well enough,” she pointed out.
“Yeah, I guess. Well enough. I didn’t know about you,” she said. “Not until the day he came to talk to me about hiring you.”
Chloe winced. “And if he hadn’t intervened, would you have hired me?”
“Yes,” Laney said, without hesitation. “You’re extremely qualified, and you interviewed very well. I absolutely would have hired you. And, you can’t blame him for doing a little bit of mild meddling. I hear that parents are like that.”
“You hear?”
Laney shrugged. “I’m not one. And my own were... not all that supportive. I guess that’s not really fair. They just weren’t interested. They didn’t understand where my love of all things culinary came from. They certainly weren’t going to pay for me to go to culinary school.”
“I’m lucky. Obviously, Dad values this.”
“Yes. That I do know about him. And also that he’s your number one fan.”
“That’s nice,” Chloe said.
It was an easy, cordial conversation and Laney was left wanting to know more.
Thankfully, she was meeting Pike tonight to work on the underlying structure for the full-size gingerbread house.
She had all the supplies for it, and she had plans drafted.
But given how difficult she’d found making the scale model of the larger-size gingerbread house, she was certain that she would have needed a lot more help than she’d anticipated to get the larger one finished.
Dinner service was a total rush, and she ate standing over the sink, before apologizing and dashing out before everything was clean.
She was meeting Pike, and she told herself that it was excitement about the project that made her heart race in overdrive.
And not just that she thought he was hot, and was really hoping for a repeat performance of last night.
When she pulled up to the area she was using as a workshop, Pike’s truck was already there.
She took a deep breath, did her best to steady her racing heart, and shut the engine off.
It was crazy that she was being this obsessed.
She wasn’t inexperienced. Her parents had basically left her to her own devices at eighteen, and she’d been something like feral roaming around the Bay Area, getting thrown into the hyper emotional, passionate world of restaurants.
She wasn’t one to get overly sentimental or emotional about sex.
She had always been able to separate work from personal.
But this felt... it felt different, and it wasn’t only the confession he’d made to her that he hadn’t been with anybody in a decade. It wasn’t only the vulnerability that he’d shown in telling her about his addiction.
There was just something about Pike Malone, and she wasn’t sure if she liked it or if she wanted to run away from it. But currently, she was running toward it, so she supposed it didn’t really matter.
When she got out of her truck, he got out of his, and she wasn’t sure if she was allowed to go and touch him, kiss him.
She didn’t. She just walked past him, and into the shop.
“So, your daughter knows that you spent the night with me,” she said, because if he was going to say any old thing, and so was Chloe, then she was too.
“Yeah,” he said. “Sorry about that. I wasn’t very subtle with my long walk of supposed shame.”
“Well, she was very cool about it.”
“That’s... good. And also, not all that surprising. Chloe and I have a particular sort of relationship.”
“I gathered that. I also didn’t want to pepper her with questions, since I figured it’s not any of my business.”
He shrugged. “It can be your business if you want.” His eyes caught hers and held. “I mean, if you’re interested in taking on all that baggage.”
“First things first, we should probably get started on this project.”
“Probably. I don’t want to get in trouble with the mayor. Now that Addison has all that power, she could easily use it to destroy us.”
“Luckily, she probably won’t,” Laney said, laughing. “I don’t think Addison destroys anything. She just relentlessly builds everything up.”
“True that.”
“I do admire her passion,” Laney said. And that left her with some questions rolling around inside of her, questions that she decided not to ask while they instead turned the conversation over to making a plan for the best way to approach the build.
They would be able to get most of it done tonight, thanks to the detailed schematics that she already had, and the fact that she had already assembled all of the supplies.
“We can load it up in the truck afterward,” he said. “I can help you get it moved into the lobby, and then we’ll spend tomorrow working on the elements.”
“I think I can do the elements by myself,” she said. “I mean, now that I’ve had your expert intervention.”
“I’ll help,” he said.
And she didn’t argue with him because maybe he was doing it to help, maybe he was just trying to be closer to her, and maybe he really didn’t think she could do it, but she couldn’t be sure which thing it was, so she elected not to be argumentative.
And maybe she was being a little bit too prideful about her own abilities.
He was the expert. Far and away. It would be good to work beside him and learn something from him.
That comforted her a little bit. It gave a purpose to this... Connection. One that wasn’t her getting in too deep.
She’d done love once. She hadn’t liked the end result at all.
Hadn’t liked what it looked like when she sacrificed her freedom and linked her fate to someone else’s.
Pike did the necessary measuring and ran the large table saw, Laney worked on assembly. And finally, they had a large, beautiful structure that did resemble the Painted Ridge Resort.
It was even more amazing to see it on a grand scale like this.
“Amazing,” she said.
“I think so,” Pike said, arms crossed.
The hotel was all squares and rectangles, wood and river rock, large windows and hard angles. They’d captured a very basic plywood replica of it here, and now they just needed to bring it to life with their gingerbread plan.
“Does it put you in an awful position? Having your employee know who you’re sleeping with?” There they were, right back in the other conversation. She ground her teeth together. “No. Not... I mean... You know how it is. You correctly guessed last night that my ex was also a chef.”
“On your level?”
“Oh, no. He was not a head chef. But we met working in a restaurant, and you know, the hours are so long, you end up with people you work with more often than not. Even if it’s a bad idea.
And it is a really bad idea. So no, I’m kind of used to working around people who are enmeshed in my sex life.
But, I feel sorry for her, since it is her dad. ”
“When I said that we have a particular sort of relationship, what I meant was I had to earn my way back into her life.”
She had suspected that based on what Chloe had said earlier.
“I bet,” she said. “That must have been really difficult for both of you.”
“It was. It still is sometimes. I’m very aware of how much of her childhood I missed.
I was able to come back into her life when she was a pre-teen.
And I’m glad that I was there for the teen years.
But she was always worried that I was going to relapse.
She was always worried that she was going to lose me again, and that’s why I told her I would always be really honest with her.
So I always talk to her. About everything.
Because that’s how I’ve earned her trust back.
By being upfront. I was never going to lie to her about this.
Even if I would have preferred for her to just...
infer rather than to have to confirm it because she caught me sneaking back into my own house. ”
“Honestly, you guys must have a good relationship. I don’t have anything close to an honest relationship with my parents.”
“They probably also didn’t abandon you for five years of your childhood.”
“You didn’t abandon her, Pike, you were sick.”
He shook his head. “I get that. But I’m never going to absolve myself for that. So, don’t try to do it for me. I’m not allergic to feeling the consequences of that, I like it.”
“She did mention today that you don’t really like to let yourself do things that you like.”
“No,” he said. “I don’t like to let myself do things I like, because sometimes the things I like are a quick road to hell.”
“I’d like to think having sex with me isn’t that.”
“Yeah,” he said. “You’re different.”
His words made goosebumps break out on her arms. “I am?”
“Yeah. You are. I don’t know, I’d like... I’d like to let myself off parole. It’s been ten years. And I’ve been keeping myself in a kind of halfway house situation. Denying myself... A lot. But I’m so grateful for what I have.”
“A relationship with Chloe?”
“That. Also, my ex-wife not hating me.”
“Are you still in love with her?”
It wasn’t her business. She and Pike were having a physical affair, it didn’t mean she needed to dig that deep into his other relationships.
“No,” he said. “That... my addiction shattered everything so... So violently that it isn’t the kind of thing where you could go put the pieces back together.
By the time I came back to myself, her feelings were different, mine were different, Chloe was different.
I was really angry at Melinda for a long time.
She kept me from Chloe. And there were times when I thought that I was well enough that I should have been allowed to see her.
But now I can see her perspective. She was protecting our daughter, she needed to be absolutely certain that I was safe and stable for Chloe to be around.
I’ve gotten to a place where I’ll never hold that against Melinda.
And she has been able to forgive me for what I did, but that doesn’t mean that she likes me.
It doesn’t mean that what happened was okay.
It wasn’t. Nothing that happened was okay. ”
“But you still feel so badly about it that you felt like you had to tell me before you kissed me.”
“Yeah. I did. Because I thought you ought to know. I didn’t want you to go kissing somebody you thought was one thing, and then it turned out I was another.”
“You’re probably the most stable guy I’ve ever made out with.”
He barked a laugh.
“It’s true,” she said. “I speak about ruinous line cooks from experience, Pike. I wasn’t merely stereotyping.”
“Yeah. Well. I’m forty-five. I ought to be something like stable now.” He shook his head. “I ought to be.” He trailed off, his expression growing distant.
“And do you think maybe you should let yourself live in this decade and not the last one?”
“Touche,” he said. “I have to give you that one.”
“Well, let’s get this thing loaded up. And then you can come back to my room.”
“I’d be down with that,” he said.
“Good. Then let’s go.”