His suggestions were obnoxious.
And genius.
The weekend I served a mashup of poutine and pot roast with slow-cooked chuck roast over French fries with fried cheese curds, gravy and a side of roasted balsamic carrots, he sent this lovely note: What is this, Canada? Make it taste better, Delane.
I’d actually sent a note back that time that said, What does that even mean?
He didn’t waste any time. Not five minutes later he wrote:
1. Chuck roast—cheap. It’s so cheap. Why are you so cheap, chef?
2. Fries—soggy.
3. Cheese curds—stringy.
4. Carrots—how are those working out for you? That’s what I thought.
5. …
Well, to be honest, I already knew what number five was going to say, and I didn’t want to read it. Or care about it. Or bother with it.
5. Gravy—I’m sending someone over to confiscate your salt. Don’t fight this. It’s the best thing for both of us.
That Friday morning, I stopped by Tractor Supply and picked up a twenty-five-pound salt block for $6.99. I made Wyatt take it over to him later that night. It had been as satisfying as I imagined it would be.
He stopped by around midnight and tricked Vann into letting him order. I’d made his food and had it halfway out the window before I realized it was him. Before I could pull it back, he’d grabbed it and taken off across the street.
I shouted after him, “You better run, Quinn!”
He’d turned around to flash me a smug grin and almost got hit by an oncoming Volvo.
The weekend I tried a play on Reubens by stuffing biscuits with pastrami, Swiss cheese, house-made sauerkraut and Thousand Island aioli to dip it in, Killian made a traffic ticket out of an order pad and fined me one million dollars for “Forcing soggy biscuits on unsuspecting customers.”
One million dollars.
I copied his ticket on an order paper of my own and fined him one billion dollars for being such an asshole. (Molly’s idea!)
He stopped by that Saturday night to add ketchup to my aioli, and I quote, “Because nobody ever expects ketchup.” Then he showed me how to bake the biscuits halfway so they didn’t get mushy and squeeze the excess juice from the sauerkraut—something I had known how to do once upon a time. But let’s be honest, I didn’t work with sauerkraut a whole bunch. I was bound to forget something every once in a while.
This weekend I’d picked chili dogs to feature, and I was keeping those pretty straightforward only because my chili kicked ass. My butcher had gotten me a sweet deal on spicy kosher hot dogs, and they had a fair amount of heat to them. I’d pickled my pickles two months ago and then quartered them for the hot dogs. They were the perfect blend of spicy and sweet, crunchy and soft.
When Killian sent back his criticism, I was beyond being surprised by his notes or him as a human. I’d accepted this as my new reality. Yes, I owned a business, set my own hours and made whatever I wanted! Yes, I also had to deal with Killian Quinn every day—my punishment for living the dream.
I could never catch who took him my food. To be honest, I didn’t try that hard. Whoever they were always paid, so at least there was that. I had my suspicions, but there were close to two hundred customers nightly, and I only recognized a couple of people from Lilou, specifically. Regardless of who took Killian my food, Wyatt was always the one that brought the note back.
I glared at him as he walked up to the truck, shoulders slumped in acceptance. I couldn’t help needling him. “The messenger I’m dying to shoot.”
He pouted. “I miss eating here.”
“Yeah, well, you’ve been banned.” I reached out of the order window and tapped the siding next to the chalkboard menu. I’d made Molly hand draw wanted posters of Wyatt and Killian. Although they were a little worse for wear since they’d been taped outside for three weeks. I probably should have laminated them.
Wyatt frowned at his faded, windblown picture. “If it makes you feel any better, tonight he chewed my ass on three separate occasions. Once he even threatened to call animal control.”
I suppressed a laugh. “On you?”
He nodded, resigned. “On me.”
“Oh, poor Wyatt. We don’t think you’re an animal. You should quit Lilou and come hang out with us. We’re way more fun!”
Molly leaned over, “We also have a two ass-chewing maximum. So the most you ever get your ass chewed is twice per night.”
His head tipped back, and he closed his eyes. “That shouldn’t sound amazing, but it does.” Meeting my eyes once again, he looked like he was considering it. “What do you pay?”
I opened my mouth to speak, but Molly cut me off. “I can answer that since I’m her highest paid employee.” She leaned back on the stool, resting the book she’d been reading between customers on her lap with her finger in place to hold the page. “Nothing. She pays us nothing.”
Wyatt grinned at her. “Slave labor? I like the way you roll, Vera.”
“Like it enough to become a minion? The position also comes with hugs!”
“I’d love to defect and join the resistance,” he told us seriously. “But I need dental.”
Molly perked up. “You have insurance?”
He leaned in conspiratorially, “And mental health days.”
Molly stared dreamily across the street as if she were the one considering defection. I cocked my head back and glared at my delusional best friend. “Molly, you have health insurance. And mental health days. At your real job. Remember the fancy marketing firm you work at every day?”
She picked up her book again. “Oh, right. Sorry. Sometimes I get so sucked into the drama here, I can’t remember what’s real and what’s foreplay between two insane chefs.”
Wyatt barked a laugh, his entire body rocking with the force of it. She smirked, proud of herself. And I contemplated creating a Tinder profile for her. Because revenge.
“Anyway. Why are you here, Wyatt?”
He held up a folded over piece of printer paper. “Same old.”
I snatched it from him and waved it at Molly. “This isn’t foreplay. This is motive. Which is a pity since pale people shouldn’t be forced to wear orange.”
Molly rolled her eyes, but she set her book down again. “This is like… if I had a favorite daytime soap. Wyatt, we’re going to need popcorn and Twizzlers.”
Ignoring them both, I opened the note. Congratulations on the least original food truck idea ever. If you’re hard up for inspiration, you can always ask me for help. Just when I thought he’d leave the salt out of it, he added a quickly scrawled, Be real, is salt holding you at gunpoint right now?
I lifted my head, “Huh.”
Wyatt cringed. “What does it say?”
Molly gaped at him. “You mean you don’t read them?”
He stared back at him. “He trusts me. At least with this.”
“You’re a better person than me,” she told him. “I’m too nosy.”
Wyatt turned back to me, apparently just as meddlesome as Molly after all. “Care to share?”
“I feel weird saying this, but I think he liked it tonight.” I read the note again, waiting for the missing soul-crushing put down, but I couldn’t find it. I mean, it wasn’t like the nicest thing I’d ever read, but it lacked Killian’s flare for sending me to therapy. He’d even offered to help me.
Wyatt snorted. “He likes everything you make.”
I tore my eyes from the note and gave Wyatt a look that questioned his sanity. “Obviously, he loves everything I make. Which is why he’s always insulting me. I’m sure it’s just how his tiny, cold heart shows affection.”
“Vera, seriously. Last month he fired a dishwasher because they turned the kitchen radio station to country during clean-up. He doesn’t tolerate bullshit.”
“He didn’t really fire someone for liking country music.”
Wyatt’s lips twitched. “Okay true. He was constantly late and had three no-shows. He might hav
e had it coming. But the country station thing was the last straw.”
I considered my revenge for a long time before settling with something as equally anticlimactic as Killian’s had been. Turning the paper over, I scrawled back a response. It would have been better if I could have written it in magazine cutouts, but there was no time, man!
Salt wants me to say that I’m not being held against my will.
I mean, I love being held against my will.
I mean, I love salt.
I think it’s Stockholm Syndrome.
Send help.
I passed the note back to Wyatt and capped my pen before sticking it somewhere in the dangerous abyss of my hair.
He looked at the note, then at me. “That’s it?”
“That’s it.”
“No diabolical present? No maniacal threat? No trip to the feed store?”
“Go away, Wyatt.”
He touched the corner of the folded note to his temple and meandered back across the street to his side of the fence.
We watched Wyatt disappear through the side door of Lilou in silence. As soon as the door slammed shut behind him, Molly asked, “Really, what did the note say?”
I turned around to stir my chili. “He called me unoriginal and made a lame joke about salt.”
“Huh.”
“My thoughts exactly.”
“So do you think he’ll stop by later?” she asked quietly since a few customers had stepped up to the menu board.
“Yeah.”
Her feet hit the ground emphatically. “You do?”
“He’s stopped by before,” I reminded her.
“You sound super sure tonight. Did you invite him over?”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
She couldn’t let it go. “Then how do you know?”
I shrugged. Because he offered help and I jokingly asked him for it. But I didn’t tell her that. For some reason, it felt like an inside joke between Killian and me and I was reluctant to share it with anyone else. “Gut feeling.”
She let it go, but couldn’t help herself. “He’s so into you, Vera.”
I started laughing because honestly that was hilarious. “He’s so into food. And I think he’s really bored with his life.”
“Why do you think that?”
“Because he lives at Lilou. Seriously, he works every single day. His life consists of that square building and the troll bridge he sleeps under. I kind of feel bad for him.”
Molly fell quiet again, probably trying to figure out the logistics of Killian’s life. She could join the club. In the time that I’d opened my food truck, he’d only been absent for dinner service a handful of times.
He started his morning early at Lilou with deliveries, of which he was always present for. Probably to ensure the food being delivered was up to his standards. Then sometimes he disappeared during the middle of the day, and sometimes he worked straight through lunch. But even if he took a break, he was almost always back in time to prep for the night.
Not that I was stalking him or anything.
Besides, that was the price you paid for running a kitchen like Lilou. That was the life we lived. We were all workaholics. Even chefs who didn’t work every single night, like me, couldn’t ever let it go. It didn’t end. We never let it end.
Just like I predicted, he showed up an hour later after my late-night rush. He walked right up to the window and said hi to Molly. I pretended not to notice him. I had chili to stir. And other stuff.
Apparently, he couldn’t stand not having all the attention. “I didn’t realize you were getting your best ideas from concession stands.”
Do not engage. Do not engage. Do not engage.
I spun around, totally engaging. “The chili dogs have been a huge hit, so…”
I had no willpower. I would have made a terrible ninja.
“So, you’re catering to the masses now? How revolutionary.”
Leaning forward, unable to restrain the snarky biotch he brought out in me, I said, “Hey, the masses pay the bills. I’ll leave the food revolution to you. If only you could combat climate change by taking away everyone’s table salt.”
His lips twitched, and I could have sworn he wanted to smile. But he didn’t. “It wasn’t overly salted tonight. I’m impressed, Delane.”
“It’s never overly salty,” I returned. “You have an overly sensitive palate.”
He stared at me, those green eyes glittering with something he wanted to say, but for some reason, he held back. Which wasn’t fair. I wanted to know what it was. And I wanted to know why he held back. And I wanted to know a hundred other things I shouldn’t want to know.
Another minute passed before I realized we were just standing there, staring at each other, locked in some kind of weird hate spell. People started walking up and standing in line behind him, and we were simultaneously released from the enchantment.
“Did you come over here for another one of my underwhelming chili dogs? Or was there something else?”
His voice dropped low, sending a tingle of something through my belly. A single butterfly leaped inside me, flapping unwelcomed wings and sending uninvited shivers down my stiff spine. He ran a hand through his hair, pushing it back from his face. “I just stopped by to see if you needed help. That’s all.”
My breath caught. He was so sweet at that moment. Gentle. Reserved. Open.
Fear curled inside me, fueled by his gesture of kindness and the way his hair fell in tousled waves. I wanted to run my fingers through it like he had. And that terrified me.
I didn’t have time for him. Or this unwanted attraction. I’d sworn off men. All men. Including, no wait, especially, arrogant, pigheaded, pushy chefs like Killian Quinn.
“I’m good.” I cleared my throat and gestured at Foodie. “We’re good.”
He took a step back, withdrawing physically and emotionally. Not that he was emotionally involved or anything. But it was like he closed back up behind shuttered eyes, closed up and retreated from our innocuous conversation. “Of course you are.”
“See you later, chef.”
He bobbed his head, seeming to decide something. “Lay off the salt, Delane.”
I watched him walk away, wondering how I could get us back to the place where I hated him. Nothing had changed tonight. Nothing significant or life-altering or obvious. And yet something had changed. Because I wanted to hate him, but I didn’t.
I wanted him to stay away.
But I so didn’t.
And I didn’t know what to do with any of it.
“He’s so into you!” Molly gloated after he’d gone.
I wrapped my arms around my waist, annoyed by the lump in my throat. “He’s not. For real. Sorry to burst your bubble, but I’m right about this, Molls.”
I proved it two hours later when Killian closed Lilou and left with a pretty blonde on the back of his motorcycle. They’d walked out of the kitchen together, but she was dressed in tight jeans and sky-high stilettos, obviously not one of his employees. He’d given her his helmet, and she’d wrapped her arms around his waist. They’d driven off, his engine roaring through the plaza, and not once had he looked in my direction.
See? I was right.
Eleven
“Where is he?”
“Shh!” I ducked down, flattening myself against the table.
Molly giggled and continued to look back and forth around the restaurant. “Is he going to bring out our food?”
I snorted. “Killian Quinn associating with commoners? Highly unlikely.”
“Welcome to Lilou, ladies.”
I snapped upright and flashed a tight smile at the waiter hovering over the table. He wore a serene expression despite our suspicious behavior. I caught Molly’s eye from across our small table and used every ounce of self-control to keep from laughing.
“My name is Shane, and I’ll be serving you this evening. Have you been to Lilou before?”
“No,” I mumbled.
> Molly sounded significantly more put together. “It’s our first time. We’ve heard such great things about the chef.”
Shane beamed, nodding his head toward the kitchen. “Chef Quinn is truly the best. You won’t be disappointed.”
“We’ll see about that,” I murmured under my breath.
Shane gave me a curious look, but it was brief and replaced with the bland, professional look all the servers sported. “Chef Quinn is introducing a new menu this evening.” His hand swept gracefully toward a rectangle of creamy cardstock. The cursive letters arched across the smooth surface, freshly printed. “Please take your time perusing, and I’m happy to answer any questions you might have.”
“I do have a question,” I blurted before he walked away. He waited patiently while I found the courage to snoop. “Does Chef Quinn change the menu regularly?”
Shane had no reason to distrust me. Killian was well known enough that industry insiders ate here all the time. I could be another food blogger for all he knew. “Seasonally,” Shane finally admitted.
It was the end of July. Hardly a new season. “Is this the fall or summer menu?”
He didn’t know exactly how to take me. “I’m so sorry. Were you hoping to try something from the last menu? If you’d like I can see if he’ll accommodate you, although I can’t promise anything.”
Oh, God, the last thing I wanted to do was draw attention to myself. “No! No, thank you. It’s just that it’s the middle of summer. How new is the menu?”
One of his eyebrows raised, suspicious. “You’re right. Up until two weeks ago, we served a different menu, but Chef Quinn felt that a change was necessary. We trust he knows best.”
I was like a dog with a bone. “Any particular reason?”
Shane released a short, nervous laugh. “Inspiration.”
“Excuse me?”
“Inspiration,” Shane emphasized. “We were told he was inspired to change it. I’m afraid I don’t know what that means, only that it’s one of his best menus to date. I’m positive you’ll be pleased with it.”
Opposites Attract: The complete box set Page 12