Chapter 3 Lionfish
Lionfish
Poppy
I turn to glare at Jack. Despite my heels giving me a few extra inches of height, he towers over me. His chef’s jacket hangs
open haphazardly, matching his mussed hair.
“Seriously?” I snap.
“Poppy.” His voice scrapes against my skin like sandpaper. “Nice to see that you’re still a threat to the general public.”
I swallow, hard, and take a few steps away. Closer to an overflowing garbage can, unfortunately. “How screwed are you if you
curse out a reviewer in the dining room?”
“Don’t know. I quit.” He rubs his beard. “How screwed are you if you have a meltdown in Daddy’s star restaurant?”
I straighten my spine, forcing myself to focus on anything but the tentacle tattoo peeking out from his jacket collar. That’s
new, same as the beard. I wonder how much it hurt to get it inked. I can’t imagine sitting still long enough for a little
baby tattoo, much less a full piece. “It was an accident. And you made it worse, charging into the dining room like a psychopath.”
“Sure, Princess.” He sounds way too amused for someone who just had a public meltdown of his own. Social media is probably
having a field day with the two of us already. “Nothing’s ever your fault.”
I’d rather walk home barefoot than tell Jack Hartman about my feelings, but my traitorous mouth doesn’t get the message in time. “I just got broken up with.”
Something in his expression flickers, softening those rainforest eyes—but then it’s gone, and I’m halfway convinced I imagined
it. I’m the last person he would ever have sympathy for. “Well, I just got fired.”
“I thought you said you quit.”
“It’s complicated.” His mouth twists into a smirk. “Guess we’re both having shit nights.”
“But . . . my dad loves you. He wouldn’t fire you.”
Truthfully, I can’t even imagine it. Hartman might be a dick, but he’s one of the best chefs in the Winfield Group of restaurants—and
New York City, period. Probably the country. Whatever happened to force Dad into that position, it must have been huge.
“Not everyone has the luxury of fucking up without consequences.”
The implication hangs in the air like the garbage smell layered over everything. I cross my arms, nails tapping on my forearm.
“But I do?”
He shrugs. Then he nods, as if deciding something. “Want to get a drink?”
“With you?”
“Jesus Christ,” he mutters.
“Sorry,” I say sweetly. “I’ve never been asked out next to a garbage can before.”
“I’m not asking you out,” he says, disgruntled. “I’m not doing anything even remotely close to asking you out.”
“Fine.” It’s fun to needle him. Way more fun than replaying what just happened until I cry. I should chuck my phone into the
sewer. “Only if it’s somewhere I won’t be recognized.”
For some reason, that makes him grin. “I know the perfect place.”
I’m so disarmed by that unexpected smile that I follow when he strides into the dark.
Jack Hartman glowers even more than I remember.
He hasn’t said a word to me since we arrived at the bar.
He clearly knows the bartender; the man set down two glasses and a half-full bottle of whisky before Jack said a word.
Raised an eyebrow at me, too, but something in Jack’s expression stopped him from asking questions. That was about ten minutes ago.
Ten minutes of torturous silence.
Ten minutes of resisting the urge to look at my phone.
Ten minutes of trying not to fidget too much on the bar stool, not that I’ve been at all successful. Silence makes me even
more antsy than usual.
Maybe he has no intention of talking at all. Maybe this is a delayed, sick punishment for messing with him at Julia’s wedding.
I sniff my drink, knee bouncing. Maybe—
“Worried I poisoned you?”
I jerk my head up. “No.” I take a sip and immediately start coughing. God, that burns. “I just—I usually order drinks that
are like, pink. Or blue. Or bubbly.”
Jack’s eyes are simmering, clearly amused by my discomfort. This bar is filthy—and weirdly sticky—and I’d bet that he chose
it just to see if I’d walk out on him. I sit up straight, crossing my legs at the ankle, and angle myself in his direction.
“You look like you want to kill something,” I say conversationally. “Or someone?”
He laughs.
“Why are you doing that laugh?”
“It’s just my laugh.”
“No. That’s the laugh of someone about to go on a killing spree.”
“Such a way with words, Princess.”
“Stop calling me that.”
“You told me I have dead fish eyes. I’d say I’m entitled to some retaliation.”
Of course he remembers that. “I stand by it.” I force myself to take another sip of the lighter fluid—I mean, whisky. “Is
this what you do when you’re not in the kitchen? Drink and brood in the filthiest bar in Manhattan?”
“There’s usually some fucking thrown in the mix, but yes.”
“Gross.” But I’m blushing. He can tell, I’m sure, because he grins as he plucks the drink out my hand. He downs it in one
swallow, his neck tattoo rippling in an oddly attractive motion.
My nose wrinkles. No way did I just think that.
“Hey,” I protest.
“Like you were going to finish it.”
“I totally was.”
“You’d be tapping out before it was half empty.”
I cross my arms. “What makes you so confident that you know me?”
“Don’t need to know you.” He pours a fresh drink. Slides it in my direction. His forearm flexes slightly, showing off a tattoo
of a panther with a knife in his mouth. His chef’s jacket is draped over the back of the barstool, leaving him in a white
T-shirt that clings to his biceps. “I know your type.”
“Wanna bet?”
He leans in. “Bet what?”
My gaze flicks to that utterly distracting tentacle tattoo. I suppress a shiver. “Bet I can surprise you.”
“Didn’t your father ever tell you to stay away from men in chef’s jackets?”
“What, because you’re all assholes? Of course he did.” I tilt my head to the side, giving him a saccharine smile. “What’s
your obsession with my dad?”
I can’t quite read the expression that flits across his face. There and gone.
“How about this?” I add. “We get to ask each other questions. You don’t have to answer—but if you don’t, you drink.”
“If you can’t keep up,” he warns, “I’m not picking you up off the floor.”
“What did you do to fuck up things with your job?”
He immediately takes a sip of whisky.
I raise my eyebrows. “Already?”
“Pick another question.”
I cup my chin with my palm, leaning closer. “Nope. I want to know the answer to this one.”
A grimace. “Your father screwed me out of a promotion.”
“The new place on Sixty-Fifth?”
He nods tightly. “Green Street. Chef de cuisine.”
“Why?” That doesn’t sound like my dad.
“How many dates did you go on with that loser?”
“Enough of them to be surprised he wanted to dump me.” I take a small sip of the new drink he poured me to ward off the threat of emotion. “It was so stupid. I thought he was, um, proposing. Something like that.”
“He did bring you to your dad’s restaurant.”
“Right? Thank you.” Something occurs to me. “Didn’t you recognize him?”
“Was I supposed to?”
“He’s a basketball player for the Knicks. Ryan McCabe. Kind of a big deal.”
He shrugs. “I’m more of a hockey guy.”
I press my lips together, fighting a smile. “Was the lobster overcooked?”
“Fuck no.” He looks at me sideways. “He shouldn’t have called you a bitch.”
“You heard that?” I brave a larger sip, barely flinching this time. Maybe whisky is growing on me. Maybe it’s just a good
distraction from imagining how fast my public fuck-up is spreading online. Even though Ryan was the asshole first, no one
will know. I’ve been called a lot of nasty things in comments and messages since I became an influencer, and something tells
me this will only add fuel to that fire.
“Me and everyone else in the vicinity.”
My teeth drag across my lip. I fiddle with my hair, carefully curled over my shoulders. I wish I thought to put a hair tie
in my purse. “He’s the point guard who brought the Knicks to the NBA Finals last season. He can do pretty much anything and
get away with it.”
“And you?”
“I’m just a pretty face.” It’s the truth; it shouldn’t sting so much.
Despite my parents’ best efforts, I never found a way into a career they approve of. I make my living through brand deals
and sponsorships, dressing up like a doll for Reels and Carousels and TikTok Lives. Inviting me somewhere, be it a fashion
show or party or gallery opening, means guaranteed views and shares. When I promote a product, new customers come flocking.
I know what I’m good for—and I know Jack knows it, too. There’s a reason he calls me Princess.
Our knees brush underneath the bar. Mine, bare past the hem of my skirt, and his, clad in the ugly-hot pants all chefs seem to wear when they work.
He runs his finger over the rim of my glass, smudging the coral pink lipstick stain on the rim.
As I watch, he sticks his finger—along with the traces of my lipstick—into his mouth and sucks it clean.
“Messy,” he chides.
My eyes widen, elbow slipping off the bar top. I fight to ignore the heat gathering in my belly. A quick glance shows me we’re
still alone, minus the barkeep and a lone old guy in the corner nursing a beer. “Hartman.”
“I’m Hartman, now?”
“You’re a lot of things. Annoying things. Just to be clear. Also, that’s not lip gloss, it doesn’t taste like anything good,
so really, the joke’s on—”
“I lied,” he says abruptly, finishing his drink. “Your father didn’t screw me out of anything. I fucked up.”
“Oh.”
He smiles tightly. “I have no one to blame but myself.”
“What happened?”
“A lot of this,” he says, gesturing around the bar. “Not a lot of work.”
“Why?” He looks at me for a long moment, as if debating the merits of continuing the honesty streak. I didn’t expect him to
say much when I suggested this game, but now I need to know the whole story. “I won’t share it with anyone.”
A hard swallow, his Adam’s apple bobbing. He pours another drink, downs it in one go. Pours me another, too. “First place
I worked at was the Sailfish, down in Diamond Bay. Little town on the coast in Florida.”
“Is that where you’re from? Diamond Bay?” I don’t know much about Florida beyond the big cities, Miami and Tampa and Jacksonville.