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I had the uncanny ability to cut people off, and Calla Litvin had been plucked from my life five years ago, straight from the root. She was squarely on my shit list.
“The former is on bed rest, and the latter is recovering from the flu. Think harder. That brain of yours is good for more than taking directions from lonely rich women.” “I’m too hot to use my brain. Only average people have to saddle themselves with an actual personality.” “You have a personality,” I informed him dryly. “A shitty one, but it’s in existence nonetheless.”
“Donny’s bald.” Rhyland took another greedy sip. “He’ll be limbless too, once I’m done with him.”
Fuck. Descartes attracted people from all over the East Coast, mainly out-of-towners. The price point and fine-dining aspect of the menu didn’t appeal to Staindrop’s usual palate, which favored anything that was breaded, deep-fried, oversalted, and swimming in ketchup.
“Hold on a minute.” Rhyland held up his finger, brows pinching into a tight V. “Why are you dressed like an Italian mobster who got lost at a Neiman Marcus store?”
“Ten hours of community service and sex addiction rehab?” I asked conversationally. Someone needed to keep his ego from overtaking the continent. I was doing the whole nation a service.
“So you saw Cal.” Rhyland’s eyebrows were floating somewhere above the atmosphere.
Rhy and I never “talked” about things. We bickered and taunted. Sometimes even brawled. Had I really been that pathetic growing up? I remembered being in love with her, but I didn’t recall handing her my nuts in a flower bouquet for Valentine’s Day.
“You know, the one who’d have stayed here getting a McJob if it meant she let you in her flowery corduroy pants.”
“She eats saltine crackers with a fork.” He slid the rag over the butcher block, wiping the condensation and ignoring my words. “Anyone deserves better than that. Even your sorry ass.”
I still remembered Cal sitting with those saltines at my kitchen table, acting a fool because she didn’t like the way the salt clung to her fingers. Rhy was right. The woman was barely civilized. I had no business thinking about her, let alone pining after her. Was she even a woman? She was still acting like a child. She needed a babysitter, not a boyfriend. And I wasn’t interested in either position.
I flipped him the bird, trekking my way to the kitchen. “No fraternizing with the patrons!” I called out, as I did every night. “No promises,” he called back, as he did every night too. The evening couldn’t get worse if a meteor landed directly on my fucking head.
was wrong. The evening got worse. Exponentially so and at a plane-crashing speed. Hot mess would be putting it mildly.
The fast-paced culture of it. It drowned out my fucked-up thoughts and forced me to focus on the here and now. And there were a lot of fucked-up thoughts, courtesy of my messy childhood.
Overall, if I could erase this entire day from my memory bank, I would, and pay handsomely for the pleasure. “Chef!” The maître d’ popped her head into my kitchen. A twentysomething Swiftie with blond side bangs and bright red lips.
If parading myself around like a zoo animal meant getting patrons more hyped for my next culinary venture, it was no skin off my back.
Third, even if she had all the funds in the world, she still had the palate of a toddler. Her taste in food—if you could even call it that—was deplorable. She lived on a steady diet of corn dogs, Pop-Tarts, and Sour Patch Kids. She would eat her own foot on national television before willingly tasting an ortolan.
We approached a square table of what seemed to be a couple on a date. The first person appeared harmless enough—blond, leggy, the too-short-to-be-a-model type, in a dress that could moonlight as a sports bra, it was so short. Then my eyes landed on the man sitting in front of her. Kieran Carmichael.
I had suffered through twelve years of school with this prick. We were bitter rivals. Both jocks, both popular, both wanting to piss on each other’s territory. Ran in the same circles, dated the same girls. Kieran’s favorite hobby used to be telling me I stank of the fish my fisherman dad sold to his father every day, and I’d enjoyed reminding him he had less personality than a stop sign.
lava bubbling in my veins.
“FC.” Kieran patted the corners of his mouth with a napkin, a bored smirk mortared on his face. “I have the season off because of an injury.”
“Ohmigod, hi!” His date flashed me a megawatt beam, fanning herself with a menu. “Gosh, you’re so tall. I’ve seen you on TV but never realized you were this handsome up close!”
Kieran was such a fucking cliché, going for the Southern-belle type.
“No, really.” She squeezed her breasts together, leaning toward me. Subtle as a tank, this one.
I have to taste everything you make after seeing you on The Great Chef Down. And when you tossed pepperoni on that contestant and told him he was a prick pizza—priceless!”
leftover boner
My dick still twitched every time I thought about those blue hair tips.
He had ridiculous, shiny, light-brown hair and wore a black turtleneck, the international prick uniform. I didn’t buy the whole tamed-down version he was selling me.
“No amount of money is worth you contaminating my restaurant. The lady is welcome to stay.” I clasped my hands behind my back, ignoring Rhyland, who shot daggers at me with his eyes. “Dateless.” “She’s my cousin.” “Personally, I’m not a fan of incest, but that explains your IQ.”
I Loathed this man with a capital L. If I could serve him a piece of extra-cold revenge for everything he had put me through, I didn’t mind the
Chefs were known to be douche rockets. Gordon Ramsay’s entire career was built upon the ruins of other people’s hopes and dreams. “One of the most popular soccer players on earth at that?”
“He’s no Messi.” I glanced at Kieran’s plate, noting it was completely empty. “No, but you are.” Rhy scrubbed his face, probably itching for a joint. “Messy as fuck, not to mention reckless.”
Slender, cold fingers laced around my wrist.
contractual obligation for a TV show promo, in which case I had my people go over the questions in advance with a fine-tooth comb. My past was too tangled, too complicated for me to open my life up for the world’s entertainment.
“Unless it ends with ‘let me suck your cock’—in which case, the answer would be ‘no, but thank you’—the answer is still
“Heyyyyyy there!” Rhyland slid between us, chuckling good-naturedly. Sophie Avent’s face looked like I’d just slapped her, and I didn’t blame her. There was no excuse for this level of asshole-ness.
She curved an eyebrow.
his American Psycho smile still intact.
“What the hell was that?” He punched a wall as soon as we closed the door and were out of sight. The whole building rattled. He pointed at the door. “Every single person in that restaurant was staring at you like you were crazy. Know why?”
“Yeah, I remember, I had a front-row seat to that horror show. You two had a four-year-long pissing contest, and everybody got rained on.” Rhyland pushed off my counter, pacing the small space between us as I lowered the flame. “But you’re no longer in high school, and he might no longer be a dick.”
“It’s a free country; I can serve whomever I want.” I tilted the pan here and there, letting the peach simmer in its own juices. “And I choose not to serve male genitalia.”
“Fine. Kieran is a sore subject for you, so I’ll let it slide. That thing with the journalist, though?” He pointed at the door. “That’s sexual harassment.” “I said I don’t want to fuck her.” I glowered at him, sliding the peach onto a plate. “You said she wants to fuck you.”
“Where’s the lie?” I flicked my gaze over his shoulder to watch through the partition window as a server handed the Sophie chick our best wine. “If I had a drink for every journo who made a pass at me, I’d be Hemingway.”
“You’re making me sound like a misogynist. It’s not like I talk to men either. I’m an equal-adversity person.” “Well,
McMonster is deleting… McMonster is typing… McMonster is deleting…
We were both strewn over the couch in the living room, eating ice cream and watching a reality TV show about lavish L.A. realtors who dressed like Barbies. I slapped her foot away, screeching, “I’m trying, Mamushka. Running a true crime podcast is a career, okay?”
So far, I’d been dragging my feet about getting a real job after graduation because the idea of doing my own podcast with the occasional guest appealed to me more than becoming an intern in some marketing agency that refused to pay me enough to subsidize my weekly subway pass.
Staindrop wasn’t exactly the Big Apple of opportunities. It was more…the Small Raisin of unemployment.
right. I did need a job. I’d just figured that job was going to be selling my internal organs on the black market or being a phone sex operator for old married men. “Let me tell you where you’re
“I tried.” Along the years, I had. I’d sent letters. Text messages. Birthday presents. Telepathic pleas. I’d have tried smoke signals if I didn’t know she was borderline asthmatic. She had never replied to any of them.
