I took three steps back and grabbed the counter with both hands, the sharp under-edge of it cutting into my palms, curbing the instinct to grasp his t-shirt with two fists instead. “Thanks, Wyatt. You’re the best.”
“I haven’t agreed to anything, Kaya!”
Grabbing my chef coat, I headed to the kitchen staff cubbies to retrieve my purse. Before I made my escape from the kitchen, I turned to face him and winked. “I think we both know you did.”
I didn’t wait around for his response, but I thought about the half smile he was wearing as I hurried across the dark parking lot to my pride and joy. I drove a 1988 Toyota Land Cruiser. She was vintage and sassy and unexpectedly cool. She also wasn’t in the best condition. I mean, she was thirty years old. Older than me. But her engine was solid and what she lacked in air conditioning, she cranked out in super lukewarm heat during the cold months.
The night air revived my senses during my quick jaunt to my SUV and gave my brain renewed energy. That was when I realized how ridiculous I had behaved. My body thought Wyatt was flirting with me, but my mind had finally realized that this was Wyatt, and Wyatt didn’t flirt with anyone, let alone with little old me—his arch nemesis. Exhaustion and the chemicals from the deep clean had momentarily erased my ability to think clearly.
The fresh air renewed my semblance of sanity. Rational and realistic once again. Wyatt wasn’t flirting with me. And he wasn’t sexy, even when he was sleeping at his desk. And I didn’t enjoy it the few times we’d accidentally touched each other tonight.
Obviously.
That’s why I had stopped thinking about him and my skin had stopped buzzing from where I’d felt him.
Or I had done the opposite of those things. Argh!
I dropped my forehead against the faded steering wheel and laughed at myself. This was out of control. What was wrong with me?
I grabbed my phone from the depths of my purse and ignored the billion notifications from a solid day of ignoring it. I hadn’t checked it since before I got to Lilou. Now it was pushing two in the morning and I had a lifetime of social media to catch up on. Only it wasn’t going to happen tonight. And tomorrow I was due back at work at the same time… Maybe I could finally sit down and re-engage with society this weekend. Or maybe not.
Dillon had texted me hours ago. I had intended to open her message and accept her well-deserved gratitude for cleaning her station. My next planned move was to demand that she find me a date to make us even and to make me sane again. Clearly, I needed to interact with the outside world. My workaholic propensity was driving me insane and if I didn’t do something about my libido I was likely to throw myself at the newest dishwasher. The actual machine, not Endo’s seventeen-year-old nephew. I was desperate, not a criminal.
But her text totally derailed me, and I forgot about my weird night with Wyatt and my worrisome social calendar altogether.
Dillon: Ezra said his head chef at Sarita quit tonight. YOU SHOULD GO FOR IT!
What? What-what-what?!?
Call me tomorrow, I demanded, knowing she was in bed by now. I want to know every single thing.
Sarita was one of the four restaurants Ezra owned. All of them featured premier city dining and reputations of excellence. But recently, Ezra had struggled to find loyal chefs to head them. It wasn’t a total anomaly for our industry. Ego went a long way in this business and it was hard to find a chef that could back-up his claim to fame. And on the other side of the coin, Ezra was notoriously hard to work with.
Before Killian left Lilou, Bianca lost her executive chef over creative differences with Ezra. Lilou had always been the shining jewel out of the four restaurants. Even with Wyatt, who had never been EC before, she still managed to maintain her top spot. But now that Sarita was without a chef, Ezra had to be freaking out.
The constant turnover was a testament to how persnickety Ezra could be as a manager. This was not a secret. Even Killian had struggled working for him, and they were best friends.
Ezra was opinionated, stubborn, and emotionally invested in every aspect of his restaurants.
I’d enjoyed watching Wyatt struggle for the past few months. It was fun for me. Not so fun for him. Ezra and Wyatt argued about everything. I’d walked in on them several times having explosive menu disputes.
The same had been true when Killian worked at Lilou too, but the difference was Wyatt managed to be more stubborn. Or maybe Ezra was tired of fighting the same battles. Regardless, Wyatt had actually been winning lately and I had been excited for the small changes he’d managed to make to the archaic menu.
But Dillon’s text changed everything. Bianca was still without a head chef, leaving Ezra extra vulnerable now that he had to deal with Sarita too. That, in turn, made him prone to make decisions he might not ordinarily make.
I slumped in the driver’s seat and clutched my phone with two fists. A mixture of fear, courage, hope, and despair churned inside me. I wanted to believe I was good enough for this, that I could handle a kitchen of my own. This was what I had been working for since before I graduated high school. This was what I wanted more than anything.
Could I run my own kitchen? Could I convince Ezra I could handle it?
The number of women executive chefs compared to men was abysmal. We were highly underrated throughout the entire world. In of the top four restaurants in Durham, did I even stand a chance?
My hands shook as I set my phone down and started my car. They didn’t stop shaking the entire way home. Or as I showered and washed my face and climbed into bed. This was it. This was my chance.
Of course, I was going to take it. Of course, I was going to do whatever it took to make that restaurant mine, to prove what a kickass, capable chef I was. Sarita was the perfect restaurant for me. The vibe, the food, the culinary profile? It was everything that I was.
I was made for that restaurant. And there was nothing anybody could do to stop me. I would throw myself into this wholeheartedly, dedicating all my resources and time to get this job. I would do whatever it took to land this once-in-a-lifetime position.
I merely had to stop thinking about Wyatt’s stupid half-smile first and the text he sent right before I drifted off to sleep.
Proteins are yours again, Swift. But only if you do them as well as you cleaned your station tonight.
He’d finished the text with a winky face emoji just to be smartass. And I accidentally fell asleep smiling.
Three
I woke up the next morning later than I’d wanted. It was a little before eight in the morning when I finally dragged my butt out of bed, but since I didn’t finally nod off until after three, I felt justified sleeping in.
I growled at my clock. Was this really considered sleeping in? Five hours of sleep was overdoing it? God, I was a masochist. And the crazy thing was that I knew I was asking for more. If I ever landed an executive chef position, whether it was Sarita or something completely different, I could forget about sleeping altogether.
Wyatt, for example, didn’t leave until after I did, and he would already be at Lilou this morning accepting deliveries and taking care of the business side of his job. It wouldn’t be like that forever of course. Occasionally, Wyatt and I accepted deliveries for Killian to let him catch up on sleep. But it wasn’t like Killian took vacations. Wyatt was the same. He would never be able to entrust Lilou to someone else.
And if I managed to finally secure the job I wanted? I would follow suit.
What had Dillon said about Ezra? This was the first vacation he had ever taken.
This was a special kind of club for people that would rather work than live.
Yes, this was my dream job and I loved it with every ounce of my being, from my very bones to the metaphysical pieces of me that didn’t even have a name. This was what I was born to do, this was my gift to the world, what I would give away and give away until there was nothing left of me. But I also hated it sometimes and the payment it required from me.
My soul had been
given purpose and my life had been gifted meaning, but the blessing of finding the thing I was meant to do required daily sacrifice. I was convinced I would live my life doing what I loved, but that what I loved would eventually kill me.
It was a morbid way to think about my job, but it was true. And it was true for all of us. Food was art for us. And we poured ourselves into it, into the creation, perfection, reputation, and also the branding and legacy. Working in the culinary field took everything from us and we welcomed it willingly.
Because we loved it. I loved it. I had never loved anything more than this… cooking… creating… working with food. Cooking defined me. It was my sum total. And all I wanted to do was grow. I wanted to get better and better and level up in big ways in my career, but those felt like natural progressions as my love for this thing got deeper, consumed more of me, as we moved together through this little life of mine.
I couldn’t continue as Wyatt’s sous chef forever. Not only because we had the most dysfunctional relationship in the history of culinary arts, but I wanted more than second in command. There was more to me than working for Wyatt. I was as good as him if not better. I needed my own kitchen. I would do anything for it.
On top of that reason, there was this thing inside me that would never be satisfied living in another man’s shadow. Maybe especially Wyatt’s. Call it pride or drive or a greedy fucking monster, but I could not spend my life working as hard as I did just to hand the credit to someone else.
I wanted the glory. I wanted the fame. I wanted the massive responsibility that could go up in flames in any given second. I wanted it.
And I was going to get it.
Sarita was the perfect dining experience for me. We were made for each other. She was Ezra’s most eclectic restaurant, specializing in tapas and craft cocktails. She had flamenco nights, live bands, and a chef’s table that featured a fifteen-course meal. Sarita had personality and a gypsy vibe that made my heart ache with solidarity.
I’d grown up in rural North Carolina, a little town called Hamilton. My parents and two younger sisters, Claire and Cameron, still resided there, living the small-town life and surviving on local gossip and small mindedness. I’d fled the town at the first opportunity.
I was the total cliché. The bad girl that never fit in. The rebel without a cause. The goth/hipster/emo chic that struggled to find her place in a society that didn’t even acknowledge her.
I was desperate to be anything but the high school cheerleader that married her quarterback boyfriend and never left town. I couldn’t stomach the idea of not doing anything with my life. I didn’t live expecting to get pregnant, hoping to breed future cheerleaders and quarterbacks, surviving on all the happenings around town— who was sleeping with who, and what little punk was selling drugs, and oh my God, did you know that so-and-so filed for bankruptcy?
I could not do it. I couldn’t even pretend to approve of that pathway for anyone else.
My rebellion made me a huge disappointment to my parents, who wanted nothing more than a prom queen daughter and future prom royalty grandchildren.
In protest, I’d spent middle school smoking under the bleachers and high school ditching class and avoiding team sports. And I’d almost made it out unscathed.
It was junior year and I was at my wit’s end with my parents and my shining star sisters that were happy to drink the Hamilton Kool-Aid. I met someone who got me in a way that nobody ever had. He listened to me and thought it was cool I liked to read instead of cheer. He liked the boho way I dressed and that I dyed my hair every color of the rainbow. He even liked that I wanted to leave Hamilton, that I saw my life bigger and better, and more purposeful than what that town had to offer. Because he wanted to leave too. Or, at least that’s what he’d told me when we talked about the future.
That’s how I ended up dating the star quarterback. Nolan and I had been friends since childhood, but in junior high, he’d gone his way and I had gone mine. Until eleventh grade, when Fate had partnered us for pig dissection. What had started as a familiar friendship quickly turned into something so serious I was still recovering from it.
And the worst part? Worse than falling in love with someone who lied to me, led me on, promised to marry me and did all that he could to trap me in that stupid town? I ended up accepting everything I didn’t want or like—high school politics with popular best friends and small-town dreams.
I was willing to give up everything for him. My parents saw Nolan’s power over me and jumped on the opportunity to trap me.
They bribed me with a sweet car to encourage me to go to school consistently. Homework was easy for me, so the good grades followed. They turned a blind eye to the partying because that’s what all the kids in town did. My parents carefully encouraged when Nolan started talking about the future and what life could be like for us once we’d graduated. They dropped helpful suggestions about where we could live and how quickly we could marry.
Nolan wasn’t the life I wanted, but I was in too deep to remember that. I loved him more than I had ever loved anything. And with our parents’ support, I slowly forgot my dream of leaving Hamilton and making something of myself. I forgot about doing bigger and better things than playing house.
He loved me too after all. And he didn’t want to leave Hamilton anymore. He liked it there. Plus, if we were going to get married so young, we should stick by our parents’ because they could help us if we ever needed it. And what about kids? Didn’t I want to raise them in a town I trusted and make sure they had the same idyllic childhood I did?
His argument tasted sweet and safe and it was embarrassing how easily I gave in.
Of course, I would stay. Of course, I would marry him. Of course, my plans could evolve now that I had him.
Everything changed the spring of my senior year. I had signed up for a semester of fluff, so I could skate through to graduation. One of the classes was a cooking class. My teacher, Mrs. Wilton, wasn’t the most inspiring mentor ever, but she didn’t need to be. All she needed to do was give me sharp knives and the opportunity to find myself in food.
And I did find myself. In the best way.
I ignored all my local college acceptance letters where Nolan had also been accepted and secretly applied to culinary schools. When I get the letter from the culinary arts program at The Art Institute at Raleigh-Durham, I cried tears of real joy for the first time in my life.
Not only was it one of the best programs in North Carolina, it took me far away from Hamilton and the life I’d been willing to settle for.
I kept the news a secret until after graduation, but even when I told Nolan and my family the change of plans, I made it seem like the AI was only a detour from the original plan. Not a total deviation in the trajectory of my future.
At the time, it was what I believed too. I hadn’t planned to leave Nolan. I hadn’t planned to abandon the plans we made for our future. And yet when it came down to it, I couldn’t make myself go through with community college. I couldn’t stomach the idea of living there a second longer, even if we were saving up for a place of our own.
Culinary school had been less of a carefully crafted alternative and more of a panicked, wild-eyed desperate last-ditch effort to save my soul. It sounded dramatic now, but that town had crushed my spirit. I couldn’t breathe there. I couldn’t be me. And I knew that if I stayed, I would never be happy either.
My parents were pissed of course. They couldn’t understand what I would do with a culinary degree in Hamilton. To this day, they were still waiting for me to regain my senses and come home. Every time I called them, they tried to lure me in with local drama and reminders that Nolan still hadn’t found anyone to settle down with.
I gently reminded them that I had landed my dream job and I was still able to pay rent on time, but I’d call them the following Sunday and we could do the song and dance all over again. We hadn’t ended a conversation pleasantly in years.
Mostly, it was my mother. She blamed me
for ruining her life, for letting go of Nolan, for screwing everything up like I was so prone to do. My dad was disappointed he couldn’t see me whenever he wanted, but he didn’t try to emotionally blackmail me to move home.
And then there was Nolan.
For as young as we were, our love was real. We stayed together for way longer than we should have. Seven years of my life had been spent holding onto something neither of us was brave enough to let go of. We fought all the time. He kept promising to follow me to Durham. And I kept believing him. It was only a matter of time before we self-destructed.
At first, he would visit me on weekends and we would look for apartments we both liked and Google jobs he would enjoy. As the years piled up, he stopped visiting as much and I stopped expecting anything from him. Eventually all the reasons we should be together stopped making sense. We wanted different things out of life. We’d grown into new people that didn’t have anything in common. We said we still loved each other, but if it was love it was selfish and entitled. Neither of us had been willing to compromise. Neither of us had really wanted to change—no matter how many empty promises we made.
Seven years. Seven years with a man that couldn’t follow through on anything. From when I was seventeen until I finally let go three years ago at twenty-four, he always had an excuse for why he couldn’t transfer schools or quit his job at the high school or move in with me. Seven years of phone calls full of awkward silences and disappointed weekends when he would cancel our plans. Seven years of making the arduous back and forth, trying to make a long-distance relationship work between two people totally unwilling to try.
He even proposed. Right after he’d graduated with his teaching degree and accepted his position at Hamilton High School, he showed up on my doorstep with a black square box and a tiny diamond. “I love you, Kaya.” He promised. “I want to do right by you.”
Opposites Attract: The complete box set Page 64