Chapter Twenty Summer
Chapter Twenty
Summer
The new menu is officially set.
Ezra had said he trusted me to create something he knew the customers would love, so that’s what I did. I spent the last week perfecting it, and there’s not a single change I would make.
To say I’m excited to show him, Noah, and Odette the final menu is an understatement. I just have to get through today and tomorrow, and then I’ll have my opportunity.
It’s not a group date—not technically—but I’d be lying if I said it didn’t feel like it a little bit, especially after our time in the arcade the other night.
I’d never been with anyone like that before. I was always too scared. But with Ezra? It just made sense. He made sense, as scary as that is.
Terrifying or not, it was incredible. I’d never felt so close to someone before while being so exposed, and I’d do it all over again in a heartbeat.
“Who are we daydreaming about, and why is it our hot boss?”
Fuck.
I glance over at Warner. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
He laughs dryly, then hops up on the counter, even though said boss would rip him a new one if he saw it. “Come on. I have eyes, Summer. I know what being in love with someone looks like.”
Now it’s my turn to laugh. “I am not in love with Ezra.”
He holds his hands up. “Okay, maybe not in love with him, but you’re certainly in lust. You’ve been staring at him for the last ten minutes. And I don’t just mean like a faraway kind of stare either. You’re tracking him like he’s your lifeline.”
“I am not,” I say automatically, pushing off the counter. Needing something to do with my hands, I start rearranging a set of glasses.
But he’s right. I have been.
Ezra’s been chasing Tootsie around at least five of those minutes, and I really have been following his every move through the big glass windows that take up the back side of the cidery.
Not just because it’s comical to watch, but because I can’t help it.
I like looking at him. I like being around him. And I really, really like kissing him.
“It’s just funny watching him try to corral the chicken, that’s all.”
“While that is absolutely hilarious, that’s not why you’re staring at him. You like him,” he teases, stretching out the word like obnoxiously.
I cut him a glare. “Stop it.”
“Stop being so obvious. If anyone else were here, they’d also know something was going on with you two.”
I pause. “What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about you sneaking around. I’m talking about you sleeping with our smokin’-hot boss.”
“Shh!” I admonish, glancing around the cidery.
There are far too many people in here for him to be saying stuff like that.
Luckily for us, though, nobody is up at the bar.
Everyone is spread out among the tables, the outdoor seating, and the arcade.
And thank god for the music that’s pumping through the speakers, which hopefully masks this conversation.
“Sorry,” he says, leaning closer. “But I’m right, aren’t I? You two are together?”
I should probably deny it. Should tell Warner to fuck off and get out of my business. But I’ve been bursting to tell someone about this since it began.
“Yes,” I answer quietly. “We’re together. Well, kind of.”
“Kind of?” he asks, his eyes sparking with interest. “Do tell.”
“We’re not labeling it. We’re just . . .”
“Fucking?”
“Warner!” I hiss at him and tug him off the counter. I pull him away from the crowd as much as I can while still being behind the bar.
“Well, that is what you’re doing, isn’t it?”
I could dignify that question with a response, but I don’t have to. The answer is apparently written all over my face, based on the way Warner grins.
He holds his hand up for a high-five. “Good for you, Summer.”
I yank his hand down, glowering at him. “Okay, you’re done.”
He laughs. “Look, I’m just proud of you. Ezra’s been on everyone’s to-do list for years.”
“I thought everyone called him Grump Ass?”
“They do, but it doesn’t mean we’re not all aware of how good looking that man is. I mean, those dress shirts? Those slacks? I want to ask him to be my tutor, and I’m not even a student.”
I can’t help but smile because I’ve thought the same thing myself.
“See? You get what I’m saying. So,” he says, leaning into me, “not dating but still fooling around, huh?”
“Yeah, basically.”
“And that’s because he’s all anti-love and -relationships, right?”
“How do you know about that?”
“I’ve been around for a while. You learn shit. Plus, he gets all queasy looking whenever Noah and Odette get lovey-dovey in front of him. It’s not hard to figure out.”
That’s true. He does do that. Not as much as he used to, but it’s still clear he’s uncomfortable with all their PDA.
Me? Well, uncomfortable is the last thing I am. I’m actually kind of jealous. I wish I could touch Ezra freely like that, even if we aren’t labeling this thing we’re doing. But I have to respect his feelings on the situation, so I don’t push it.
Plus, there’s that pesky little fact that I’m still his employee too.
We might have made some really bad, really loose excuses when we first started this, but we can’t really use those now. I am his employee. Hell, I’m his head chef. What we’re doing is wrong. Completely unethical. There’s no way to spin it otherwise.
I trust Warner not to say anything, but if my other coworkers got wind of this, I don’t think they’d be as understanding, and they shouldn’t be.
I wouldn’t be if the roles were reversed.
I’d constantly wonder if favorites were played or if opportunities that weren’t earned were given simply because of the circumstances.
It’s just another reminder that I’m fucking this up all over again. I’m getting in the way of my own dreams again and again. I’m failing.
“Hey, whoa. Are you okay?”
“Huh?”
Warner points between my eyebrows. “You’re angry. What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” I say, the word harsher than intended. “Sorry. It’s just . . . Can we stop talking about this? I really don’t want anyone to overhear.”
“Sure, yeah. Of course. I just . . .” He leans down again. “For what it’s worth, I think it’s a good thing. Maybe against the rules, sure, but still a good thing. You’ve certainly made Ezra a more tolerable boss, so whatever this thing is, keep it up.”
He shoots me a wink and a thumbs-up, and I laugh just to get him to leave me alone.
But on the inside, I’m freaking out. Am I self-destructing because of what happened in Chicago?
No, no. I can’t be. That can’t be what this is. How could it be when it feels so right?
My eyes find Ezra again—who is still chasing the chicken around—and I’m making my way over to him before I even realize it.
“I’ll be back,” I call out to Warner.
He laughs, and I try not to let the sound bother me as I push open the doors to the back of Stick Taps, where the animals are housed.
Like he can sense me, Ezra pauses, then looks over his shoulder. Our eyes connect, and he grins. My stomach does a flip.
“Hey, Sunny.”
“Hey,” I say back. “You good out here?”
“I would be if someone would cooperate with me.” He glares at the chicken, who couldn’t care less.
“Want some help with her?”
Ezra was right—Tootsie is harmless. The chicken and I have become friendly since our first encounter, and I’ve spent more time than I’d like to admit chasing her back to her pen. We have a rapport of sorts by this point.
He huffs, putting his hand on his hip and squeezing it, almost like he’s trying to stave something off.
“Are you in pain?”
“What?” He shakes his head. “I’m fine.”
But I don’t think he is fine. Now that I’m standing so close, I can see the hidden discomfort in his green eyes. Can see how hard he’s clenching his jaw, his molars undoubtedly rubbing together.
“Help me get her back in her coop?”
He’s deflecting, but I let him have it.
I step around him, creeping my way toward the chicken. “Hey, Toots.” I keep my voice soft. “Let’s get you back in your coop, okay?”
Cluck.
“I know you don’t want to go, but you have to.”
Cluck.
“Stop being sassy, or you’re not getting any treats.”
Cluck cluck.
Ezra snickers. “I’m pretty sure she just told you to fuck off.”
“I think so too.”
I go to reach for her, but she’s too fast, moving out of the way before I even bend over fully. That’s how the next five minutes go—I chase her, she runs away. Ezra tries, too, and it’s the same result.
Eventually we get her in her coop, and she doesn’t like it one bit, clucking at us from the corner.
“She’s cussing like a sailor,” Ezra says with a grin that wobbles around the edges, his hand still on his right hip. “We really should fix this hole.”
“Is that how she keeps getting out?” I ask, looking up to where he’s staring so intently.
“Afraid so. This is more Noah’s department, but with the wedding just three weeks away, I don’t think it’s a high priority right now.”
“So let’s fix it, then.”
I don’t bother waiting for Ezra’s answer. I go to the storage shed and pull it open, figuring there has to be a ladder stashed in here somewhere.
I’m right. I reach for it, but Ezra’s there, elbowing me out of the way.
“Hey, stop. I got it. Let me—”
But the protest dies on my lips when I see the look in his eyes.
Back off, it says.
So I do.
It’s clear he’s determined to do this himself. Usually I trust him to know his limits, but I get the feeling he’s pushing himself too hard.
It’s confirmed as I trail behind him back to the coop, and his limp is far more pronounced than I’ve seen it in a while.
How long has he been hurting like this? How long has he been hiding the pain?
“So, how is this going to work exactly?” Ezra asks when we get back to the coop. He sets down the ladder and presses on his hip again. To anyone else, it might look like nothing, but I know him. I know his body. I know he’s uncomfortable.
“Um . . .” I say, pulling my gaze from where he’s gripping his hip to the spot where Tootsie keeps escaping from. “I don’t know exactly. Patch it?”
He waves toward the ladder that’s propped up against the coop. “Have at it then.”
I don’t know why, but his words make me angry. Usually I’d be all about a guy not trying to step in and take control because I’m a woman, but I know Ezra is saying it because he’s hurting. He just won’t admit it.
“I don’t do heights.” I have no problem with them, but he doesn’t know that. “After you.”
He works his jaw back and forth, and all it does is piss me off more.
“What’s wrong, Ezra? Are you scared of heights too?”
He gnashes his teeth together even more tightly, and I can’t help it—I keep pushing.
“Or is it that you’re hurting and you don’t want to admit it?”
“Yes!” he explodes. “Yes. My fucking hip is killing me. Is that what you want to hear?”
“Yes,” I say, crossing my arms over my chest. “Why can’t you just admit it?”
He laughs scathingly. “You can’t be serious.”
“Oh, I’m very serious. So you have hip pain? Who cares. It doesn’t define you.”
He scoffs as he begins to pace back and forth, his steps uneven the whole time. “It does, though, Sunny. It fucking defines me more than you know.”
“I know it makes things hard, but, Ezra, it’s okay that you can’t do everything you used to be able to do.”
“It’s not okay!” he yells, his eyes more like a forest green than their usual Granny Smith apple. “I’m fucking weak, Summer. Weak. Don’t you get that?”
In that moment I see it. Ezra isn’t mad that he’s in pain. He’s mad because he thinks that somehow his injury makes him less of a person. He’s mad because it’s entirely out of his control. Angry because he doesn’t feel whole.
“Ezra . . .” I grab him on yet another endless lap. He stills, and I have to physically turn him so he’s facing me.
When he is, I can’t believe I didn’t see it before. It’s all right there in his gaze, in his trembling bottom lip.
He believes he’s broken.
I slide my hand over his cheek, and he presses into the touch, exhaling heavily.
It kills me to see him like this, to think he’s not good enough because of an injury that he had no real involvement in.
I knew he blamed himself for what happened, but I didn’t realize his hate for himself was so deep.
“You are not your injury. You are not your sore hip. You are not your pain. You’re enough, Ezra. For me, you’re enough. Just the way you are. You don’t have to hide your hurt, especially not from me. I’m not going to judge you. I want to know you. All of you.”
There’s no way he doesn’t remember when he said those three words to me. It was just two nights ago when I let him fuck me bare.
He thanked me for giving all of myself to him, and now I want the same in return.
I want all of him, even his perceived flaws.
His shoulders sag, and I catch him as he falls forward, his face buried in my neck. I circle my arms around him, holding on to him.
I could love you.
The words slam into me, and their weight barrels right behind them. They’re so heavy that I stagger.
Ezra doesn’t do relationships. He doesn’t do love. He’s made that clear from the start, and I was fine with that. I was on board with just having fun and this being nothing serious.
But now . . . now, I think I could want both with him.
After a few moments Ezra pulls away, blinking quickly, but I see the moisture in his gaze anyway.
“Sorry,” he says. “I just . . .”
But he doesn’t finish his sentence, and he doesn’t need to. I understand it all the same.
“Don’t apologize. You’re not weak, you know.
In fact, that thought has never crossed my mind in the almost two months that I’ve known you.
The opposite, usually. Do you not know how many times you’ve carried me?
Or how many times you’ve tossed me around your bed like it was nothing?
And don’t even get me started on your stamina. ”
He grins wolfishly. “It is pretty impressive, huh?”
“Careful, Ezra. Cocky looks good on you.”
“You look good on me too.”
I laugh, but it’s cut off with his kiss. His lips move against mine in a slow, sweet dance. There’s nothing rushed about it. Nothing urgent. We’re just kissing because we can’t not kiss.
I’m acutely aware that we’re out in the open and anyone could see us, but I can’t find it in me to care.
I’m too swept up in the moment. Too swept up in him.
I fear it might always be that way.