Chapter 23
Chapter Twenty-Three
Nick
The last ticket was being served up, and still nothing from Avery. He didn’t take his phone out of his pocket again to look and make sure. Doing so to see an empty screen again would hurt.
Why wasn’t she reaching out to him?
Even if she wasn’t ready to as his employee, he was her boyfriend. He wanted to be there for her, and she wasn’t letting him. She’d run away, which didn’t say much about them as a couple.
Or maybe he was wrong. Maybe it said everything.
Maybe this was another situation where he wasn’t enough.
Not around enough, not attentive enough, not dominant enough—he didn’t know what box he’d checked off, but it seemed to be the story of his life with relationships.
He was more than enough in the kitchen. He knew what he was supposed to do and what was supposed to happen.
That was how he’d worked his way up to the position of executive chef.
When his phone finally rang, he pulled it out of his pocket, and when he saw Avery’s name, he almost shoved it back in. Let her wait and see how it felt.
Only that he truly hated hypocrisy kept him from doing so. He would show her what she should have done all the times he’d called her earlier this evening—he picked up the phone.
“Hello.” His voice came out as a short, sharp bark, and George glanced up at him, hazel eyes full of concern. One thing that had happened throughout the night was George had slowly gotten out of his funk as he’d watched Nick’s mood deteriorate.
“Um, hi.” Avery’s voice was soft, hesitant. Which, oddly, made it harder to hold on to his temper. Now he felt bad for how he’d answered the phone. He was still mad and thought he deserved to be mad, but hearing her hesitation made him feel like he’d kicked a puppy.
Argh.
Not trusting what might come out of his mouth, he pressed his lips shut, waiting for her to say something.
“So, um, I’m sure you’re wondering what happened…” Her voice trailed off, a bit of pleading imbued in her tone.
“The others told me what happened. I came in right after you left. Chad has been fired, by the way.”
There was a moment of silence, then she sighed, and the sound grated on his nerves.
“That’s… I mean… thank you. I hate you had to do that.”
“That was the consequence of his actions.” His voice was harsh.
He turned away from George’s worried expression to see Darnell and Alice were watching him.
Great. Nick was tempted to abandon his post and head to the office where he could talk privately, but that would be extremely unprofessional, and on a night like tonight, he needed to be a good role model.
Though talking on his phone with his girlfriend didn’t really go along with that, but since she was also his sous chef, he could pretend that was the main reason.
“I wish you had stayed around, so you could have been there for it.”
“I…”
Another long pause and he got the impression she was searching for the words to explain herself. Determined not to speak first, he clenched his jaw so tightly, it ached.
“I’m sorry. I don’t know why I ran. I really don’t. Then once I did, it was so hard to come back… and every minute I stayed away made it harder.”
“So, staying away completely and not coming into work at was the solution?” He couldn’t keep the sarcasm out of his voice. Dammit. “It’s Saturday night, Avery. We needed you.”
“I couldn’t face everyone… not after they knew.”
Fuck. This again. Nick pinched the bridge of his nose and walked toward the hallway, so everyone wouldn’t hear their conversation. They had cleanup covered, so they didn’t need him.
“They don’t care, Avery. You know how I know that? They told me. Gareth and Miles have known for weeks, and they didn’t care.”
Avery
“Gareth and Miles know, too? Miles isn’t even on tonight!
” Avery’s voice rose into a kind of shriek.
She could feel her friends all staring at her…
but she was freaking out. It was bad enough the kitchen staff knew, but she’d hoped the rest of the restaurant wouldn’t find out.
Vain hope, she knew, but at the very least, she hadn’t expected it to spread so fast.
“He knew a while ago, he told—”
“And you didn’t tell me?” The guilt that had been eating her alive diminished as anger took hold.
“What good would it have done? They wouldn’t tell anyone, and you were already freaked out about people knowing—”
“Yes, Nick, for exactly this reason! If I’d known someone had realized, I could have been better prepared. I might not have been blindsided tonight. We could have done something, so maybe Chad would have never even known! There’s a lot of good it could have done!”
“You’re saying if you’d known two managers, who wouldn’t tell anyone, knew you and I were dating, you wouldn’t have had to run away tonight?”
The way he said it made her feel as if he’d stabbed her in the heart. It was mocking, calling her out for the coward she was, but it hurt so much more than when she’d called herself the same thing.
“I’m saying I don’t know, but some kind of warning would have been nice!”
There was a long silence on the other end of the phone. Avery would have sworn she was cried out, but she still had tears left, which were filling her eyes. The ache in her chest intensified, and she rubbed at the spot as if she could somehow make it go away.
She knew he was disappointed and probably angry as well—and had every reason to be—but she also felt betrayed. They’d talked about how she hadn’t wanted anyone at the restaurant to know, and when Nick had found out someone knew, he kept it from her.
“I have to go. I have a shift I need to finish. We can talk about this later.” He didn’t even wait for her to say anything before he hung up.
Ouch. That spot on her chest felt as if it had been stabbed, as though fingers had wrapped around her heart, squeezing it painfully.
She wanted to say it had been below the belt but thought she deserved it.
She had run out on the shift and hadn’t gone back.
She’d left the restaurant short-staffed on the busiest night of the week.
The guilt would stay with her for a long time.
That wasn’t the employee she wanted to be, the person she wanted to be.
She regretted staying away tonight, but she’d needed the space. Time to breathe and regroup before facing everyone who knew things about her, she really wished they didn’t.
“Hey, you okay?” Rae asked sympathetically, coming back into the room, Iris and Domi trailing behind her. They’d stepped away to give her a minute alone.
Avery nodded, then shook her head, her jaw clenched because she wasn’t sure she could talk about it without crying, and she really, really didn’t want to cry again tonight. Rae seemed to pick up on that.
“Okay, well, let us know when you’re ready to talk about it. In the meantime, Iris and I can keep arguing about spooning.”
Curiosity uncracked Avery’s jaw.
“Spooning? Why spooning?”
“Rae doesn’t enjoy being spooned.” Iris shrugged. “I like it. I get snuggled, then if I feel like getting it on, I wiggle my butt until I get the result I want.”
Rae snorted. “Sure, if that’s the result you want.
If I’m getting into bed, it’s because I’m ready to go to bed.
My sleeping cap is on, I’m tired, and if I lie down, I’m falling asleep.
Then suddenly, boom, erection between my cheeks.
No, thank you, Sir. If you wanted a piece of that, you needed to speak up before I turned off the lights. ”
Even Avery joined in the laughter. Personally, she saw both sides.
Sometimes it was fun to have the little snuggle that turned into something, but other times…
yeah. She was exhausted and just wanted to sleep.
Not that she’d had that issue lately—Nick wasn’t into waiting until they got into bed before he put the moves on her.
She sniffled again, and her friends eyed her, trying to decide if she was ready but stayed silent while Rae and Iris continued debating the merits and pitfalls of spooning while Domi refereed.
Trying to pay attention, she giggled several times, but her mind kept moving to how Nick had sounded on the phone.
Mad—rightfully so.
Did she have the right to be mad? Maybe. Although she didn’t have as much to be angry about as he did.
Yes, he should have told her Miles and Gareth knew, but maybe it had been better he didn’t. Would it have really helped? Or would she have spent the past few weeks more and more anxious people would find out about them? She had a feeling it was the latter.
Instead, she’d had peace of mind while she and Nick grew closer.
Then blindsided by Chad.
Which would have happened anyway. There was no way she would have thought Chad would be the one to pick up on her and Nick’s relationship.
She knew Gareth and Miles would have never told him.
They spent some time with the back-of-house staff, but not much, and they weren’t friends with Chad.
She didn’t know how he’d found out, but it hadn’t been through them.
From the reactions of everyone else in the kitchen, they hadn’t known. She didn’t know what had tipped Chad off.
Even if Nick had told her about Miles and Gareth, she would have still been blindsided by Chad tonight.
“Earth to Avery, Earth to Avery… you’ve totally zoned out.” Iris jostled her with her elbow.
“Sorry.” Avery sighed. “I can’t stop thinking about what Nick said on the phone.” Explaining, she was amused by the difference in their reactions. Iris appeared incensed on her behalf, Rae looked more worried than anything else, and Domi’s expression was thoughtful.
“He should have told you.” Iris crossed her arms over her chest. “He has no right to be mad at you.”
“Well, that’s not true.” Rae shook her head. “He still has good reason, and you should definitely blame us for keeping you out of work.”
“I’m not going to do that.”
“But yes, he should have still told you. Trust me. Save your own butt. Put as much of the blame on us as you can.”
“I… Oh.” Avery’s eyes widened. She hadn’t thought about that aspect of the evening. “Oh.” She shook her head, misery welling. “I’m honestly not sure he’ll think of that.”
Which kinda sucked because a good, hard punishment would help relieve her of her guilt and would make her feel a lot better. It was what she would expect from her Dom, even if he wasn’t her boss. She wasn’t sure Nick was up to that or if he would consider it mixing business with pleasure.
“You’d better hope he doesn’t,” Rae muttered darkly. “Punishment spankings suck.”
“She’s not wrong. Makeup sex can be fun, though,” Domi pointed out. She tugged on one of her curls, pulling it straight and letting it spring back into place. “I think you and Nick are going to have to talk things out.”
Avery shuddered internally. Why did that sound so hard? BDSM was all about communication, but the very thought made her want to run. Like she had earlier tonight.
You’ve got issues, girl.