Most of all, he wasn’t anything like one man in particular.
And that was huge for me. Not only did I not distrust Killian, but I trusted him. I trusted him not to hurt me physically, verbally or emotionally. Maybe he’d said some exasperating things in the past, but they hadn’t been meant to manipulate or control me. He hadn’t been spiteful or mean for the sake of being mean.
Most of all, they hadn’t destroyed whole pieces of me at a time. If anything, I’d become a better chef because of him.
That didn’t mean he was completely forgiven for past actions or that my Yelp review wasn’t completely justified. But it did mean that maybe I wasn’t completely broken after all.
“Make me,” I dared him.
His eyes dropped to my lips again, and I resisted, but barely, the urge to lick them. “Admit that it’s yours and I won’t have to torture you.”
I raised my eyebrows in surprise. “I’m terrified. Really.”
Half his mouth lifted in a cocky smile. “Good.” Then he extracted his revenge. By tickling me.
The bastard.
One hand clamped down on my right hip. I was so surprised at first, that I squeaked. But then he pressed his thumb into a sensitive spot, and I started to wiggle. His other hand grabbed my other side, and I looked like a lunatic trying to shake him off me.
I gasped for air as his hands moved over my torso from hip bones to ribs, poking, squeezing and prodding until tears leaked from the corners of my eyes. He didn’t let up. He tickled me until I didn’t think I could breathe—until I was positive that I was going to die from being tickled too much.
“Okay!” I panted. “You win! You win!”
“Admit that you wrote the review,” he demanded.
And since he hadn’t stopped tickling me yet, I nodded furiously. “Fine, I did it. I’m Nanananabooboo!”
He backed off a little, but not enough. “Now, tell me you’re sorry.”
“I’m sorry,” I laughed, now that it was easier to breathe. “Oh, my God, I’m so sorry.”
He stopped tickling me, but his hand remained on my waist, and I realized my fingers had grasped his t-shirt in a desperate attempt to shove him off me. It hadn’t worked. Apparently, I’d decided to cling to him instead.
We were intimately close. Our bodies draped over each other from our tussle, hot everywhere we touched, buzzing with new energy and new interest.
He had what he wanted, but he didn’t pull away. “Now I’m going to need you to remove the review completely."
His intense, serious expression stole my amusement and revenge fun. I wanted to wiggle under his stare, but we were too close. Wiggling would only lead to more trouble. “What if I really feel that way?”
His eyes flashed with uncertainty. “Do you? Feel that way I mean?”
I nibbled my bottom lip, but couldn’t convince myself to lie. “No,” I whispered. “Not even a little bit.”
His head dipped toward mine again, closer, within biting distance.
Within kissing distance.
“Then will you remove your mean review? Please?”
It was the please that did it. His please would always do it. The word sounded too fragile for his filthy mouth, too sweet to come from someone so hard. I didn’t stand a chance.
I patted the counter blindly until I found my phone. Making a show of unlocking it and pulling up the Yelp app, I went about removing my review from the site.
I hadn’t planned to keep it up anyway. But I had been curious to see how long it would take him to find it.
Three days.
Apparently, I wasn’t the only one obsessed with reviews.
I showed him the confirmation screen. “There. All gone.”
He dropped his head in relief, his forehead brushing my cheek. “Thank you.”
“I hope your ego recovers,” I joked to untangle us from this spot—figuratively and literally. He was still leaning over me, making all my neglected girly parts wake up and pay attention.
He chuckled, his chest vibrating against mine with the sound. “My ego is never safe around you, Delane.” Lifting his head, he caught my gaze and held it. His hands brushed over the counter and over my hips. For a second I was afraid he was going to start tickling me again, but then his fingertips dipped beneath my white t-shirt and his hands wrapped around my waist instead. “Thank you for removing the review.”
“You already said that,” I whispered, nervous and excited and confused all at once.
“I mean it, though.” The corners of his mouth lifted in a sincere smile. “I just wanted you to know.”
All I could do was blink. I knew he was going to kiss me. I just knew it.
And I was right. He closed the distance between us, his lush mouth finding the corner of mine and placing a sweet, lingering kiss.
I squirmed when his beard scratched my skin, brushing over it with an interesting mix of soft and rough. I decided very quickly that I liked the feel of his beard on my skin.
I liked it a whole lot.
He kissed me one more time along the jaw, then he pulled back, separating us entirely. I shivered again, but this time it was because I missed the heat of his body, the cover of his skin against mine.
“Break a leg, chef,” he murmured, sounding as hot and bothered as I felt.
“You too,” I croaked.
He gave me one more searing look before he hopped down from my truck and ambled back across the street to Lilou.
I stared at his back in complete wonder as he walked away. I didn’t think my fake review would bring out that kind of reaction from him. I wasn’t even sure what to do with that reaction!
Well, I wasn’t sure until my phone pinged with a notification. What I should have done was shake off Killian’s skin and scent and get to work on dinner service. Instead, I stupidly checked my phone thinking it might be him.
I swiped my phone open and instantly regretted it. The notification wasn’t from Killian.
It was from Derrek.
He’d messaged my personal account on Facebook. The one I’d been reluctant to create just because I was terrified of something like this happening.
The message, from the familiar profile picture of Derrek Hanover, simply said, “Where did you go?”
That was it. That was all he said, but it was enough to have me contemplating running off to Europe again. All I wanted to do was run away. All I wanted to do was deactivate my account and set my computer on fire. My smartphone too, while I was at it. I wanted to curl into a ball on the floor and cry for the rest of the night. Maybe the rest of the week.
But most of all I wanted to go back to before the message, to when I was lusting after Killian Quinn and considering that maybe life wasn’t full of lemons and sour moments. That maybe there was something good out there too.
Only my heart knew better. My hope was wiser than that. Because if I’d learned anything in twenty-six years, it was that if something bad could happen, it would happen.
And Derrek Hanover was the bad thing that just kept happening to me.
So maybe his message was a good reminder. It made me wake up where Killian was concerned anyway. It made me realize that I didn’t want a relationship or to ever be put in a position where I had to trust another man ever again.
I had moved on from Derrek. I had opened a business and learned to manage my life. The only reason for Derrek to be anywhere in my life these days was as a cautionary tale of failed love. And nothing else.
But that’s all Killian would be too. A bullet dodged. An awkward circumstance avoided. I friend that would always stay a friend.
Thirteen
The next weekend I stood at the pickup window, listening to a customer list off everything he hated about my buttermilk fried chicken and jalapeno waffles. It was Friday night, and so far, things had not gone smoothly at all.
They hadn’t gone well Thursday night either. I contemplated giving up this dish altogether and abandoning profit for the weekend. But I wa
s too stubborn to admit defeat. Plus, I couldn’t afford to give up.
I could agree with the guy that my fried chicken was nothing like his grandmother’s. I’d used a tempura fry on chicken tenderloins. Because they were easier to eat than a hunky breast or thigh. And to be honest, because they were super cheap this week.
My waffles were also nonconventional. I’d grabbed my dad’s ancient waffle iron that hadn’t been used since my mom was alive and made the batter with diced jalapenos and sriracha. I’d been going for a savory/spicy/sweet kind of mashup.
I’d been optimistic in my test run. My waffle had been fluffy. Maybe a little too spicy, but it looked pretty. My chicken had been crispy. And the maple syrup tied everything together.
Unfortunately, made in mass quantities, I wasn’t nearly as proud. I’d made the executive decision to ban all future chicken and waffle ideas until the end of time. Forever and ever, amen.
I just had to get through the weekend first. And then the cleanup process. The interior of my truck was coated in maple syrup, thanks to Molly’s offering to fill up the to-go ramekins. And waffle batter had dried in big, bulbous clumps all over the counter, the floor and me.
And this wasn’t the first customer to complain. My entire night had been one upset customer after another.
Okay, maybe that was an exaggeration. But there had been enough complaints to send me into a tailspin of existential crisis. What was I even doing with my life???
I still had at least two hours left. Jesus, take the wheel.
“Sir,” I tried gently at first. Gently didn’t work. “Sir!” He paused in his tirade. “Would you like your money back?”
He snorted. “Obviously.”
I picked the remnants of my dignity off the ground and accepted the ten dollar bill from Molly. “I apologize again for the waffles being so hot.” I offered him a genuinely sincere smile when I handed his money back to him. “The menu is different every weekend, though. I hope you give us another shot soon.”
He snarled a terse, “Not a chance in hell.” Luckily for me, it was easy to pretend he’d said, “I’d like that as well,” instead.
What separated humans from animals? The incredible ability to plant our feet in denial. Beautiful, blissful denial.
“Is it a full moon?” Molly asked, stretching her neck out the window. “People are cranky tonight.”
I looked back at my fryer and batter-covered station. It hadn’t just been the complaining customers that made the night difficult. I had been overly ambitious trying to fry chicken fresh and make hot waffles for every order. I’d been bouncing around the narrow space all night like a pinball. “Lesson learned, Durham. No more chicken and waffles for you.”
“How about one more?”
I spun around, surprised to see Killian at the window. His gaze moved over me, quick, assessing, amused.
I brushed my hand down my front, realizing how disheveled I must have looked. My white chef’s jacket was covered in grease and syrup and sriracha. I had been fighting my bandana for hours, pulling clumps of batter out of wayward hair that wouldn’t stay tucked away.
He had worked tonight too. But in a white t-shirt that hugged his tattooed arms and low slung black pants, he looked tired, but not like he’d spent hours in the kitchen slaving away.
More like he’d had a grueling day shooting Armani underwear ads.
“No.” I hadn’t meant to sound so serious, but he was pissing me off already, and he’d just got here. I didn’t have the energy to listen to him pick apart my dish. I already knew it wasn’t a keeper.
He laughed, but it was unsure and nervous. “Excuse me?”
I shook my head and tried one more time to muster up manners. “No, you can’t have one.”
Killian stepped closer to the order window, peering inside. “Hey, Molly,” he said as an afterthought.
“Hi.” She stood up, taking a step back from the window. Killian made her nervous.
He made me nervous too. But he also pissed me off. Usually, the anger canceled out the nerves.
His attentive gaze found mine again. “Rough night?”
I resisted the urge to kick the stove. “Chicken and waffles,” I sighed. “I should have known better.”
I could have sworn his lips twitched, but it was hard to tell since they were hidden behind that beard. “Let me try.”
“No.”
“Can I come back there?”
“Why? So you can fix everything? Make it better and remind me how much I suck?” The words tasted like vinegar, whiney and self-pitying.
“Geez, you’re in a mood tonight. It can’t be that bad.”
I turned away from him, pulling a towel down to start wiping up the counter. “It’s fine,” I said to the hard balls of batter that had crusted on the stainless steel.
His voice dropped to a low murmur as he addressed Molly. “How bad was it?”
“Mean customers,” Molly explained. “That last guy was a real jerk.”
Embarrassment sharp and stinging sliced through me. It wasn’t that I cared about Molly or Killian’s opinion of me. But it bothered me that I cared at all, that a few harsh words had upset me so completely.
The door opened, and Killian stepped inside uninvited. His footsteps echoed around the space while neither Molly nor I moved.
I wanted to remind him that he wasn’t invited. That I didn’t want him in here, but I couldn’t find the courage to even look at him. If I would have been closer to the pick-up window, I would have jumped out of it by now and ran away.
Never to be heard from again.
“I hate bad reviews. I mean, I really hate them. I don’t think there’s a single other thing I hate, actually.” He stepped up next to me, his words honest, but his tone gentle. “Except maybe eggplant. I also hate eggplant.”
I stilled, remembering his reaction to my Yelp review. It wasn’t hard to imagine just how much he hated negative feedback. Even the joking kind.
He’d walked over so he could stand right at my side, not touching, but close enough that his presence invaded every single one of my senses, burrowing so deep I felt him in my blood, my bones… my breath.
“It’s one thing when they come from a critic,” Killian went on. “But it’s physically painful when it comes from a regular, or someone who doesn’t know you at all. Then you know it wasn’t a small technicality or minuscule mistake. Then you know you just suck.”
I smiled, it was small and barely there, but I felt a chink in my pissed-off armor. “I thought you came in here to make me feel better.”
His tone turned teasing. “You’re so young, Delane. So very young. And so very naïve.”
“Stop with all the compliments. Seriously, my ego is like—” I made an explosion sound, mimicking the motion with both hands.
He turned, propping his hip against the counter. “How old are you? Fifteen? Sixteen?”
“Gross, stop.”
His lips twitched again. “What I’m trying to say is that I’m older than you. Wiser. I’ve been doing this for a lot longer than you, and I can honestly say they all sting. Every last one of them. There’s no way to get around the pain. There’s no way to ignore the feeling of incompetence. You just have to ride it out and show up anyway.”
I knew he was right. I’d been here before. It wasn’t like this was my first bad night. Or even close.
But this was the first shitty night that was mine completely. I wasn’t working for someone else. A different chef didn’t have their name on the final project or banner. This was mine. Completely. And I’d screwed up.
“Name them,” he demanded.
I raised my gaze to find his. I’d been perfectly happy staring at his beard, but now I needed his eyes, the strength that was always present there… the courage. “Name what?”
“Name your fears. Your insecurities. Name the truth you heard in the complaint, the thing that’s got you so wrapped up you’re ready to quit.”
Logic started to dawn i
n my otherwise dark night of pity. I realized he was right. My fears had become a roadblock inside my chest, a tangle of lies and fears and uncertainties. I opened my mouth to say them out loud, but I couldn’t get them out of my mouth. They stayed lodged in my throat, an inconvenient lump growing into a jagged boulder.
“My chicken was tasteless.”
His eyes widened, revealing his surprise. He hadn’t thought I could do it. “You forgot salt. Didn’t you?”
I hated him just a tiny bit more for teasing me. Hated him and liked him. “I didn’t forget it,” I growled. “I just… ugh, I just didn’t use enough. And my waffles were too doughy. I overcooked half of them tonight trying to manage everything.”
He grinned at me. “What else?”
“I don’t think I can do this. It’s too much. Too hard. I don’t know what I’m doing. I’ve never even been in charge of my own kitchen. I don’t know why I thought I could run my own goddamn business.” I slapped my hand over my mouth, surprised that I’d said so much.
Surprised that I felt so much.
Killian had lost his smile, his amusement. Those green eyes glittered brightly above the darkness of his beard, seeing more of me than I ever wanted to show him. “Now do you realize how absurd those thoughts are? You had a bad night. So what? You learned something. You pushed yourself to your limit and found out what you’re capable of. What works. What doesn’t work. And now you can go on with your life. You won’t make this dish. You won’t ever use that antiquated piece of shit waffle iron again.” He did a double take, his eyes widening at the sight of it covered in dried batter, rusted near the rubber feet. “Good lord, what is that thing?” He nudged the chipped handle with the tip of his finger as if he was afraid it would give him some kind of disease. “And you’ll remember the fucking flavor. Yeah?”
I nodded even while I said, “I hate you almost as much as I hate salt.”
His lips twitched with an almost smile. “You don’t hate salt.” He stepped closer. “And you really don’t hate me.”
“I do too,” I insisted. But it was an unconvincing whisper. And a dirty lie.
Opposites Attract: The complete box set Page 15