Chapter Eight Summer
Chapter Eight
Summer
“Do you have a minute?”
The glass I’m holding slips right from my fingers, and I barely catch it in time before it smacks against the counter.
Ezra stands in the hallway entrance. He’s wearing a crisp navy dress shirt that makes his green eyes pop even from here and gray slacks that really shouldn’t look so damn good but do.
With his sleeves rolled up and showing off his taut forearms, his watch is also on display.
I’ve never given much thought to a man wearing a timepiece before, but now I can’t seem to take my eyes off it.
After he walked away the other night—after he almost kissed me—I held on to it for I’m not even sure how long. I just turned it over and over in my hands, memorizing every inch of it before finally convincing myself to put it on his desk.
I still can’t believe that happened. I can’t believe Ezra almost kissed me, and I can’t believe I almost let him do it.
And I really can’t believe I still want him to.
“Uh, sure,” I manage to say, my throat now suddenly dry.
I set the glass I’m holding under the nearest cider tap, pour, then chug it back.
“What?” I ask when Ezra’s eyes sharpen. “We’re closed.”
“Where’s Warner?” he asks, walking into the taproom. His limp is noticeably more pronounced today. I force myself not to react, even though I want to ask him about it.
“I think he’s in the basement or cleaning the bathrooms.” I know he told me, but I can’t remember. I was just glad to get a break from his constant flirting. He’s nice and I’m sure it’s harmless, but I’m not interested in him.
I don’t say any of that to Ezra, though.
“So,” I say as he climbs onto a stool, and I lean against the counter in front of him, setting the glass that I now have to clean again to the side. “What’s up?”
His watch glints off the overhead lights as he folds his hands together in front of him. “I have a proposition for you.”
I lift my brows. “Excuse me?”
His lips turn up just the slightest. “Not a sexual one, though I find it interesting that’s where your mind went.”
I roll my eyes. “I wasn’t thinking pervy things, for your information.” I totally was. “I was just surprised you think we can mutually benefit one another.”
Now he’s the one who raises his brows, and my cheeks heat when I realize just how suggestive that sounded.
“I—I didn’t . . . I meant . . . I—” I huff. “Can you please throw me a lifeline?”
He chuckles lightly, then clears his throat, and something tells me that whatever he’s about to say, he’s serious about it. My heart rate picks up, my blood pounding in my ears. What is this? What’s about to happen? Is . . . is he about to fire me because of the almost kiss?
“We’re remodeling the kitchen.”
My senses go on high alert immediately.
“Good. It needs it,” I say. When I was in there the other night, I spent a good portion of the time mentally rearranging everything and planning how I would do it if it were my kitchen. I quickly squashed those thoughts, though, because it’s not my kitchen and never will be.
“It does. You made me realize that, actually. You also made me realize we’re wasting a ton of space by not using it to our fullest potential.”
“You are.” They could be doing so much more with it and their menu, like taking off all that frozen crap and replacing it with real food. Something like—no.
There I go again, acting like it’s mine.
“Right,” Ezra says, pulling my attention back to him. “So, we’re remodeling it. Before Noah’s wedding, actually.”
“That’s brave of you.”
He sighs. “I’m asking you to be our chef, Summer.”
I blink once. Then twice. Then a third time, because there is no way he said what I think he said.
“What?”
“Be our chef. I spoke with Noah about this earlier, and he’s on board as well. He—”
“No.”
He whips his head back like I’ve just struck him. “What?”
“No.”
His face hardens. “Why not?”
Because if I do, I’ll fall in love with running a kitchen, and I can’t risk losing it again.
“Because I don’t want to,” I say instead.
I grab the cup I used, then set it in the dirty dish bucket.
That’s a problem for tomorrow. I take another glass from the clean rack and begin polishing it, and it takes me right back to my first year in a real kitchen and just how much even doing mundane tasks like this made me fall in love with being in a restaurant.
“Bullshit.”
I drag myself out of the past and turn back to Ezra. “Pardon?”
“You heard me. You’re being bullshit right now.”
“I am not being bullshit. I don’t want to be in the kitchen. I—”
“Bullshit.”
“Stop saying bullshit!” I launch the towel at him before I can think twice about it, and I’m surprised when he catches it out of midair.
I don’t know why. The guy used to be a professional hockey player. I’m sure his hand-eye coordination skills are incredible.
He sets the towel down next to him, not once taking his eyes off me. “Then stop being bullshit.”
I huff. “You can’t be bullshit.”
“Can too, and that’s exactly what you are right now. You’re acting like being in the kitchen the other night wasn’t the happiest you’ve been since you started working here.”
“That’s not true.” It is true, though. It’s completely true, and I wasn’t expecting him to notice that.
What else does he notice?
He scoffs. “Keep telling yourself that, if that’s what you need to do, but I know what I saw.
I know what the look on your face said. You looked like I did when I was out on the ice.
It was your happy place. It was your escape.
It was your fucking refuge, and you’re casting it aside like it means nothing. ”
I want to argue with him more. All the words are sitting on the tip of my tongue, but they never tumble free. How could they when he’s right about everything? How can I stand here and pretend I don’t want to be back in a kitchen more than anything else in this world?
And how can I tell him that’s the exact reason I can’t say yes?
“Look,” he says, “we’re doing this. We’re buying new equipment and upgrading the appliances.
And we’re going to change the menu. We’re going to serve actual food.
Not just frozen shit we slap together now.
It’s all going to be new. We want you, Summer.
We want you to help us with this project.
We’re not asking you to stay in Port Harbor forever, but we want you for the interim.
We need someone who can get the place running like it needs to, and after that little show the other night—that fucking mac and cheese I’m still thinking about—I want that person to be you. ”
He’s still thinking of my food? God, I hate how that makes me vibrate from head to toe. I’ve been complimented on my plates before—by people with more refined palates too—but it still feels so damn good to hear, especially after taking this time away.
Do I . . . do I want to run a kitchen again? Can I? Should I? I failed so spectacularly last time. Fell right on my face when I was given such a grand opportunity. Am I ready to try again so soon?
I can’t deny that it hasn’t crossed my mind since being back here. The other night, when Ezra asked me why I wasn’t working at a restaurant in Port Harbor, I told him it was because there weren’t any good ones here. I stand by that. But that doesn’t mean there couldn’t be good ones here.
I could . . . I could make one. I could have my own place. I could make all my dreams come true. Be in charge of the menu and have a say over who gets hired and fired. Be close to home and to my father again. I could make it mine in a way Lore never was.
I could, but I won’t. I can’t gamble on myself like that, not when I know what the results will be.
And I can’t let Ezra do it either. If I were to do this again, I’d need to be damn sure I could, and right now . . . right now, I’m just not sure if that’s where I’m at.
“I appreciate the offer, but I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
Ezra sighs, shaking his head and closing his eyes momentarily, and I fucking hate it. I cannot stand how disappointed he seems right now.
When he looks at me again, I want to run and hide from what I see.
It’s not just disappointment. It’s pity.
I fucking hate pity.
“No,” he says, rising from the stool.
“No?”
“Yeah, no. You’re not the only one who gets to say that. Now it’s my turn, and I’m telling you no. I’m not taking that as your answer. I’ll ask you again later, then again and again until I wear you down.”
“I’m pretty sure that’s called coercion.”
“I prefer peer pressure.”
“Ezra . . .” I warn with gritted teeth, but he doesn’t seem to care.
He grabs the towel I threw at him earlier, then tosses it back my way. I catch it with much less finesse than he did.
Then he spins on his heel and heads back toward his office.
He’s gone for a moment, leaving me with all my whirling thoughts, then he reappears as if he didn’t just shock me to my core.
“I’ll ask again tomorrow, Sunny.”
“Ezra!” I call his name, but he doesn’t stop.
He just keeps walking, and while I know I could follow him, I don’t.
Some people’s childhood homes smell like fresh-baked cookies or flowers. Some smell like freshly washed laundry or a nice, plump roast simmering in the Crock-Pot all afternoon.
Even after all these years, mine still smells like my mother—like honeysuckle. It has everything to do with the bushes that surround the front door. The same ones my mother planted when she was pregnant with me and tended to until she couldn’t anymore.
The same ones my father has maintained all these years.
It’s the first thing that greets me when I wake up, and that’s solely because I keep my windows open nearly all year long when I’m in Washington. Even when it gets unbearably chilly out, I still can’t bring myself to close them. I like the smell of the Pacific Northwest too much.