Chapter 22
“Idon’t care what he says.” Juan’s face was stormy as he plated an order of onion rings. “Those fries were not overcooked when they left the kitchen. If he didn’t like them, he should order something that travels better.”
“Look, man,” Travis said, “I just told him I’d talk to you.”
“You’re a chef now too?”
Handing out paychecks was one thing, but the kitchen staff hated it when he came in and tried to tell them how to run things. Apparently, though, that was now a part of his job.
He gestured to a plate that was going out with the burger nearly falling apart.
“Scot put me on quality control, man. This stuff is getting sloppy.”
“It”s bar food. No one cares if it’s sloppy.“
“Scot cares. Our regulars care.“ He gestured for the server to wait, quickly scrubbed his hands, and then put the burger back together and stabbed it with a bamboo skewer to hold it steady. Then he used a clean rag to wipe up the a?oli that was smeared across the plate. Finally he handed it off to the server with a nod.
He turned back to Juan and said, “Look, I’m just trying to keep things from falling apart.”
“Then help out. We’re short-staffed. The night’s just getting started, and we’re already scrambling to keep up. The new guy flaked, and Manny’s wife went into labor.”
“Right.” Travis scanned the kitchen, watching everyone scramble to keep up with the orders that kept coming in. “Where do you need me?”
Juan gave him a quick, assessing look. “Can you flip burgers?”
“I can do that.”
“Right, you’re on burgers then.” He glanced at an order and handed it to him – two cheeseburgers, medium and rare, with sweet potato fries. “Make sure Robby keeps up on the fries; we want them fresh.”
“That we do, Chef,” Travis said. “I’m on it.”
Juan gave him a grudging nod of acknowledgement, but Travis thought that he saw a hint of a smile as they got down to work. Across the broad metal counter that ran through the middle of the kitchen, one of the line cooks gave him a grin.
He was clumsy at first, figuring out where things were and where he fit into the rhythm of it all, but before long, Travis became another mechanism in the well-oiled machine that was the Bottlenose kitchen. He flipped burgers, pieced together salads, and plated desserts.
It was almost soothing to be so focused on the task in front of him that he wasn’t worrying about bigger things. Bartending had become so second nature to him that it hardly required any attention at all anymore. It was a relief to throw himself into a new challenge, to focus on making good food and let the rest of the world fade away.
He could understand why Keely loved baking so much, especially the challenge of making new things.
As if summoned by thoughts of her, Keely came bursting through the kitchen door, all copper hair and burning eyes. For a brief moment, he wondered if he was hallucinating. It wasn’t at all like her to come bursting in like that.
The next moment, she was shouting at him.
“Suddenly you can’t be bothered to pick up your phone?”
He stared at her for a beat, then quickly turned back to the stove and rescued a burger patty before it burned. Juan gave him a look of commiseration and took the spatula from his hand.
He turned back to Keely, bewildered.
“I was working.”
“Since when do you work in the kitchen?” Her anger had faded to a simmer. She wasn’t yelling anymore, at least. But the look that she was leveling at him was downright dangerous.
“We’re short-staffed today.” He kept his voice deliberately calm, which only seemed to anger her more. Her eyes narrowed to slits. He walked around the long counter so that he could speak to her without raising his voice enough for the whole kitchen to hear. “Keely, what’s going on?”
“That’s what I want to know!” All of the line cooks turned to look at her when she raised her voice again, and for the first time, she seemed to fully realize what a scene she was causing. Her cheeks blazed red, and she stormed back out through the swinging doors.
Travis exchanged a brief, bewildered look with Juan.
“Well?” Juan pointed the spatula he held at the doors, which were still swinging wildly in her wake. “Are you going after her or what?”
Travis jogged through to the restaurant, where he saw Keely headed for the front doors. He ran to catch up with her and said, “I don’t know what’s happening right now.”
“Who was that girl?” she spat as she spun to face him. Her expression was fierce, but he could see pain and uncertainty beneath her anger. He felt a spasm of pain in his chest at the thought that he had hurt her, even (maybe especially) if he didn’t know how.
“What girl?” His first thought was that she or someone else had seen him talking to some woman at the bar. Women flirted with him all night long, especially the ones who were a few drinks in. It was a part of the job. Travis was always kind to them, even charming, but it was a habit – just a part of the job.
Was that what Keely was freaking out about? Had she dropped by the night before and seen him talking to a customer? He wracked his brain, trying to remember if anyone had gotten out of line the night before, but he couldn’t think of a single thing that would make her act this way.
“I think you know” was all she said.
He took a breath, keenly aware of the eyes on them. “Would you come back to the office with me? I don’t understand what’s going on, but I’m sure we can sort things out.” He put a hand under her elbow to guide her back toward Scot’s office.
She wrenched her arm out of his grip, but when he walked back through the restaurant and to the open door of the office, she followed. Once the door was closed behind them, he reached out to her, trying to calm her.
She slapped his hand away.
“Keely, I don’t understand what’s happening.”
“I thought you really liked me.” All at once, her anger seemed to drain away and leave behind something sadder.
“I do,” he assured her.
“But not enough to stop seeing other girls.” Her voice was quiet, and she wrapped her arms around her chest like she was hugging herself.
“I’m not seeing any other girls. If you mean the women who come to the bar, we chat, that’s just part of the job. But I never–”
“I’m not talking about work,” she interrupted him.
“Then what are you talking about?” he asked, frustrated.
“I’m talking about the girl you met up with in Half Moon Bay!”
He froze in shock. Whatever Keely saw on his face, she seemed to take it as an admission of guilt.
“I know we’ve only been on a couple of dates, Travis, but come on. We’ve known each other forever. I thought… I don’t know, I thought that this meant something to you. It did to me.”
“It did mean something to me,” he said quickly. “It does.”
“If that were true, you wouldn’t be sneaking around with other girls!”
“I’m not sneaking around with other girls!” he exclaimed. But inwardly he recoiled with guilt – because really, wasn’t that exactly what he had been doing? Not in the way that she thought, of course. But he was hiding a much darker secret.
She was right to be angry. More than she knew.
“Don’t lie to me, Travis. Ali saw you. She took a picture of you holding hands.”
“We weren’t holding hands,” he said, confused all over again.
“Oh my God, Travis! I saw you! I saw the picture!”
He tried to remember what had happened, what she thought that she saw, and pictured the brief moment that Rachel had reached out and touched his hands.
Beneath everything else, he felt a stab of betrayal. He had thought that Ali was his friend. She could have so easily walked up to their table and found out that it wasn’t a date or anything of the sort. At the very least, she could have spoken to him. But instead she had taken a picture and sent it to Keely. He felt deeply hurt by that, but he shoved Ali’s actions to the back of his mind.
“It wasn’t a date,” he said.
“Come on, Travis.” Her voice wavered between rage and grief. And somewhere under all of that, he heard a desire to believe him.
“It wasn’t. Rachel is a friend, that’s all.”
“Do you hold hands with all of your friends?” she asked, her tone scathing.
“We weren’t holding hands!” His voice rose slightly, and with effort he brought it back down to a reasonable volume and tone. “She reached out and touched my hands for, like, a second. It wasn’t anything romantic. It was just… like a big brother thing. Like you and Nick.”
“Like me and Nick,” she said flatly.
“She looks up to me, I think.”
“I can’t believe this.”
“I’m telling the truth.”
Keely put her hands over her face. He didn’t know if she was trying to calm herself down or if she was about to burst into tears.
“I’ve liked you for so long.” Her voice was so quiet now that he could hardly hear her.
“Same,” he said softly.
She dropped her hands and looked at him, her eyes wide and vulnerable. “So why were you meeting this Rachel person in Half Moon Bay?”
“She asked me to.”
“But why?” Keely demanded.
Travis took a breath and looked away. How could he possibly explain this without burdening her with the knowledge of what he had done? Short of that, how could he explain it without piling up a new mountain of lies that was sure to crush any hope of what they might be able to build together.
“The truth, Travis!” she demanded when he was slow to answer. “Not some story! The truth doesn’t require so much thinking about!”
“It’s not my truth to tell!” The words were out before he had thought them through. He took a breath and tried to build on them, walking a line between fact and fiction. He wanted to tell her the truth without revealing everything. “I helped her out of a bad situation, that’s all. She wanted to thank me and to tell me that she’s doing better.”
“What sort of bad situation?” Keely asked suspiciously.
He wanted to tell her. He wanted to say that Adam had taken advantage of Rachel in exactly the same way he had taken advantage of Keely, only this time he was prepared to wield that power to subject Rachel to a nightmare even worse than what Keely had endured.
But how could he?
He just spread his hands helplessly and repeated, “It’s not my story to tell.”
“Fine.” Her shoulders slumped in defeat, and she moved toward the door.
“Keely, wait.” He reached out without thinking and put a hand on her arm.
She turned toward him, just slightly, and for a second he thought that she would let him take her into his arms.
Then she shook off his hand.
“I’ll see you around, Travis.” Her voice was flat, devoid of emotion. Exhausted.
“When? Where?”
“I don’t know,” she said with a shrug. “It’s a small town.”
“Keely, don’t do this.”
She looked up at him with so much sorrow in her eyes that he took a step back. What was he doing? If she wanted to go, he should let her. He should set her free.
He should never have gotten involved with her in the first place. He had known better, but he had let his own desires override doing what was right.
Keely deserved better.
“Goodbye, Travis.”
She walked out the office door, shutting it behind her. Every cell in his body screamed at him to run after her, to catch her, to explain. Instead, he sank into Scot’s office chair and put his head in his hands.
How had he made such a mess of things?