I knew that’s the place he was talking about. He even pronounced it correctly.
I’m sure he’s going there to meet up with Wrigley.
Stupid, dumb-named, crevice-flaunting Wrigley.
Wait.
If he’s off the phone, what are the chances that he’s about to—
The door opens and I almost fall into the room.
“Leila!” he says, jumping back. “What are you doing?”
“I’m sorry,” I say.
I’m stuttering. Why am I stuttering?
“I got a bit lightheaded on the way back to my room. I drank way too much last night.”
I’m trying to look casual as I lean against the door jamb. I have a feeling that I’m not pulling it off.
“Yeah,” he says. “You were pretty out of it last night. Actually, I think maybe we should talk about that.”
“Why?” I ask, having no recourse left but pure denial. “What happened? I don’t really remember anything after I got home.”
“You don’t?” he asks.
It’s a plausible story, Dane. Just go with it, ya bastard.
“No. Why? I didn’t try to drive, did I?”
There is a difference between playing stupid and being stupid. I’m not sure exactly which I’m doing right now, but I’m fairly sure it’s somewhere in between the two.
“You don’t have a car,” he says.
Oh, just let me off the hook, will you? I’ve done really well pretending like I don’t hear every tiny, disgusting noise coming out of your room. The least you can do is just let me act like I never came onto you.
He never mentioned any special skill in reading minds, but I’m hoping that the force with which I put those thoughts through my head is sufficient to communicate my meaning.
He laughs quietly.
“Got ya,” he says. “No, you didn’t do anything too far off the reservation. Although…”
Oh, just kill me.
“It’s kind of silly,” he says.
“What?” I ask.
We may as well get it over with.
Let the mocking begin.
“You were eating peanut butter out of the jar with your hands,” he laughs.
All right, I guess no one has to kill me. Call off the hit.
“Really?” I ask. I remember the incident, but only vaguely. Pretty much the clearest portion of the evening involved me trying to—oh my god. I dropped my pants and asked him if I have a big butt.
“Yeah,” he says. “I had a hell of a time cleaning it up this morning. Never mind trying to help you clean your hands. You weren’t very cooperative.”
I laugh. Ah, relief, sweet relief.
There’s no doubt he remembers everything, but we’re not talking about it and every synapse in my brain is focused on the concept that that’s good enough.
“Really?” I ask.
I know I’m just repeating myself, but I don’t know what else to say. I don’t know what might make him bring up the impromptu mooning.
“Yeah,” he says. “It was like trying to herd cats into a bathtub.”
“That’s,” I snort. I’m pointing now. Why am I pointing? Crap, I still haven’t finished my sentence. “Hilarious,” I say. “That is hilarious: hearding cats into a bathtub.”
I’m laughing way too loudly and he’s just standing there looking at me. If I close my mouth, I don’t know what’s going to happen, so I just continue to make things awkward on my own terms.
“Yeah,” he says. “Well, I’ve got to go to work.”
“Oh yeah,” I say. “Do you know when your last day is going to be?”
“I thought you didn’t remember anything from last night.”
I should have just kept laughing. “What do you mean?” I ask, dumbly. “You told me they were letting you go a while ago.”
Come on, Dane, don’t let’s make this worse than it already is. Just keep playing along. You know it’s the right thing to do.
“Oh,” he says mercifully, “I guess I forgot that I mentioned it. Actually,” he smiles, “I’ve been really nervous to talk to you about it. I think that’s why I let it slip last night while you were drunk.”
“Yeah,” I tell him, “you already told me. Good memory there, chief.”
Leila, don’t push it.
“Right back at ya,” he says.
The smiles slowly fade off both our faces and it’s a lot longer than it should be before I realize I’m still standing in his doorway, not saying anything.
“So, yeah,” he says. “I should probably get going. Boss doesn’t like it when I’m late.”
“All right,” I say. “Go get ‘em, sport.”
Oh, what the hell are you doing to me?
“Right,” he says.
Now he’s just standing there. I thought he said he was leaving.
“Leila?”
“Yeah?” I ask, popping my lips for some absolutely unknown reason.
“I work outside my room.”
“You’re kind of a weird guy,” I respond.
“Yeah,” he says. “You’re standing in my doorway.”
“Oh,” I say and move with all the grace and majesty of a giraffe on a tilt-a-whirl.
To further embarrass myself, as I seem to be incapable of doing anything else in the world right now, I give him the “You may pass” gesture, or whatever it’s called, and he can’t possibly get out of the room quick enough.
“Yeah, well you have a good night, Leila,” he says. “Maybe dial it back a little on the sauce.”
“You betcha!”
Who am I right now?
He doesn’t say anything else on his way out.
Maybe that should have been my strategy: silence.
The door to the apartment opens and closes, and I’m smacking my forehead with both palms. The action doesn’t last more than a couple of seconds as my hangover rises from its grave to punch me right in the prefrontal cortex. So, now I’ve gone from smacking my forehead to cradling it.
“Are you okay?”
The sound that comes out of me is some kind of mix between a scream, a squeak and a sneeze.
“I thought you were gone,” I say.
Good move. You’re really making it better now.
“I forgot my keys,” he says.
He’d opened the door, remembered to grab his keys and closed it.
Great detective work, Leila. You’re an inspiration.
“Ah,” I say. “I do that all the time.”
“Really?” he asks. “I don’t think I’ve ever known you to forget your keys.”
“Will you just grab your keys and get the hell out of here?” I ask.
Shock adequately describes the look on his face.
“I mean, you’ve got to be running late,” I say.
“Right,” he says.
With that, I just give up and turn toward my own door. I open it and close it with myself on the other side, imagining a utopian scenario when I’d just done that after spending a much more reasonable amount of time in the bathroom, not bothering to say a word or even look at him once.
Ah, the joy of fantasy.
* * *
Call it masochism, call it stupidity, call it an insatiable craving for confit de canard, but I’ve been at this table in l’Iris for over an hour and I think Mike is starting to tire of just sitting here.
“Okay, what’s going on?”
“What?” I ask.
“You’ve hardly talked to me at all,” Mike says. “You just keep looking around the restaurant. Are we on a stakeout or something?”
His expression turns serious.
“Are you a spy?”
“You’re an idiot.”
“Are you a cop? If you’re a cop, you have to tell me. It’s the law.”
“I’m not a cop and that’s not a law anywhere. Do you have any idea how many morons have walked right into a sting because they thought cops weren’t allowed to lie? How do you think they get confession
s?”
“So,” he says, “if cops can lie about being cops, then you’re saying you actually are a cop.”
“Oh for heaven’s sake…”
He smiles.
“Why are we really here?”
“I told you about the confit de canard. It was delicious wasn’t it?”
“Leila, I swear to god, you’ve got to stop calling it that,” he says. “Just call it candied duck. You’re not French.”
“Whatever,” I tell him, dismissively waving my hand.
“See?” he says incredulously.
“What?” I ask, sipping my virgin tequila sunrise. Without the tequila, do I just call it a sunrise?
“Why are we really here? It’s not for the duck.”
“Canard,” I say, not deigning to dignify him any more by actually looking at him while I’m talking.
“Leila.”
“Fine,” I tell him. “I heard Dane on the phone making a date to come to this restaurant.”
“So what?”
“I just want to know if he’s two-timing what’s-her-name.”
“Wrigley,” Mike says. “Why do you care?”
“Mike,” I start.
I don’t know where to go from there.
“Yes?”
“How are things at work?”
“Skillful,” he says. “Things at work are fine. Why are we spying on your roommate?”
“I just want to know,” I tell him. “Isn’t that enough? I’ve lived with the guy for over a month, and I really don’t know anything about him other than the fact that he’s not really a musician.”
“How do you know that?”
“Have you ever met a musician who doesn’t subject you to their dreadful caterwauling on a daily basis?”
“Come to think of it,” he says, smiling, “I don’t think I have.”
“I’ve never heard him play or sing. I want to know what’s going on. He told me last night that he’s losing his job, whatever that actually is—besides, if he was making $120,000 a year as a musician, wouldn’t I have heard of him?”
“I don’t think you’re the musical aesthete you think you are,” Mike says.
“Whatever. Just help me keep an eye out.”
With the wicked smile that climbs up Mike’s face, I know I’ve made a mistake asking the favor.
“Don’t embarrass me,” I tell him.
“From the sound of it, you don’t really need my help in that area.”
“What are you doing?” I ask him.
What he’s doing is holding up his spoon and using it as a crude mirror to look over his shoulder at the people behind him.
“I’m helping you spy on your boyfriend.”
“He’s not my boyfriend,” I snap.
Mike just smiles that adolescent smile of his and I’m starting to regret inviting him along.
Our waiter, a man with very little patience and a thick English accent, approaches.
“Will you be requiring anything else this evening?” he asks.
“I have a question,” Mike says, alternating eyes as he continues to pretend like he’s doing something useful with the spoon in his hand.
The waiter lets out a sigh. This isn’t Mike’s first question of the evening.
“Yes?” the waiter asks.
“Why a French restaurant?” Mike asks.
“What do you mean, sir?”
“Mike, leave the man alone,” I say, trying to get my oldest and dearest friend to stop being a jackass.
“Well,” Mike starts, “you have quite the British accent.”
“Yes, sir,” the waiter answers.
“So, why work in a French restaurant? Aren’t there any good English restaurants in the city?”
“Will you be requiring anything else this evening, madam?” the waiter asks, doing his best to ignore Mike’s idiocy.
“No, I think that will be all,” I tell him. “I do apologize for my companion. He doesn’t get out much in proper society.”
“I will have you know,” Mike butts in, “that I have personally attended many a silent auctions where I have placed bids alongside many of New York’s cultural elite.”
I’m starting to wonder if our food came to the table clean.
“Yes,” the waiter says, “well. If there’s nothing else.”
I take one more look around.
The waiter’s going to kick us out if we don’t leave soon and Dane is nowhere to be found.
“Actually,” I start, “if you don’t mind, I’d like to compliment the chef. I’ve only had confit de canard like that once before in my life.”
“Very good, madam,” the waiter says. “Perhaps your friend can fetch your coats while I take you back.”
He glares at Mike, and I’m having a little trouble keeping a straight face. I get up from the table and lead the waiter away before someone throws a punch.
When we get to the kitchen, the waiter asks me to wait outside. He’s not in there for five seconds before I can hear the chef yelling at him.
The waiter comes out, saying, “The chef will see you now, but I’d make it quick.”
I just kind of stand there for a minute.
On the other side of the door is the most talented chef I’ve ever come across since my father died, and I really don’t know if I can deal with him screaming at me. Things have been tense enough in my life.
Oh well, here I go.
The room is hot, busy. People are talking over each other, somehow keeping everything straight in the process.
It reminds me of my dad’s kitchen.
“Will you fucking look at this? It’s supposed to be braised, not reduced to soggy shit!”
“Dane?”
“What?” he shouts.
He turns around and, once he sees me standing in his kitchen, the murderous expression falls from his face.
“Leila,” he says. “What the fuck are you doing here?”
I don’t have a good answer for him.
“I could ask you the same thing,” I respond.
“I, uh…”
“Chef?” the man standing to the left of him says.
“What the fuck do you want, Cannon? I’m talking to someone here.”
The man goes back to his work without another word.
“So, you’re a chef.”
“Yeah,” he says, “about that—”
“Why wouldn’t you tell me that? Wait, is this the job you’re getting—”
“Hey guys, I’m taking a break,” Dane interrupts.
“Chef, we’re in the middle of dinner service.”
“Shut the fuck up, Cannon,” he says and walks over to me. “Yeah, we should probably have this conversation outside.”
A minute later, we’re standing out back and he’s lighting up a cigarette.
“I didn’t know you smoked,” I tell him.
“I wasn’t trying to hide the fact that I’m a chef from you, it’s just—”
“Just what?” I ask. “Oh, let me guess: You’ve got it in your head that if you were a professional musician, I would be that much more inclined to sleep with you?”
“No,” he says. “It’s not that at all. It’s just that, well, people kind of treat a person differently if they know he’s a chef.”
“What do you mean?” I ask.
This whole situation is surreal and only growing stranger.
“It’s really not important,” he says. “But yeah, this is the job that I’m going to be losing.”
“After hearing the way you talk to your people, I can see why.”
“Oh, that’s just Cannon. He’s only ever useful if you’re flat out abusive to him. That doesn’t matter, though. Listen, I’m sorry that I—”
“I came back to compliment you on the confit de canard,” I tell him. “Did you make that?”
“Yeah,” he says. “I’ve been kind of dreading making that dish ever since you interrogated me about it.”
“I didn’t interrogate—�
�
“You kind of did, Leila, but that’s not the point.”
“What is the point?” I ask. “Why are we even out here?”
“Other than the fact that you were about to announce to the grunts that I’m getting fired?” he asks.
“Oh, right.”
“Yeah,” he says. “I don’t know why I lied to you—well, the truth is that I didn’t want you asking me to make you French cuisine every day. I get enough of that at work, I assure you. When I come home—”
“Dane?”
“I don’t know why I kept lying.”
“Yeah, it was pretty stupid,” I tell him. “It’s not really a big deal, though.”
He takes a drag and looks off in the distance.
“My dad was a chef, did I tell you that?”
“Yeah,” he says, “when you were interrogating me.”
“I wasn’t—” I take a breath. “You’re talented,” I tell him. “I’m actually pretty impressed right now.”
“Thanks,” he says, blowing out another drag. “I don’t smoke, by the way,” he adds. “I just figured that maybe I wouldn’t have to hold my breath when I kiss… I can’t even say it.”
“Say what?” I ask.
“Wrigley,” he says with a shudder.
“Oh yeah, your bottoms-up chick.”
And I’ve just blown my cover. Maybe he’ll let it slide.
“You do remember what happened last night,” he says.
Maybe not.
“Bits and pieces,” I cover.
For a while, nothing else happens.
He doesn’t know what to say but, then again, neither do I.
“So,” he says, flicking his cigarette into the back alley, “I should probably get back in there.”
“Yeah,” I respond, “I should probably make sure Mike and the waiter haven’t gone to blows.”
“Mike?” he asks.
“He’s a friend,” I tell him. “I never mentioned him?”
“No,” he says distantly.
There’s some more awkward silence; as if we didn’t have enough of that in our recent relationship.
“Well, I should—”
“Yeah, me too.”
He opens the door and holds it for me.
“Thanks,” I say. “By the way…”
“Yeah?”
“Seriously, the food tonight was excellent.”
“Thanks,” he says. “I do my best.”
“Yeah, well…”
Escort (A Standalone Romance Novel) (New York City Bad Boy Romance) Page 58