Perfect Pairing

by Rachel Spangler

  She hopped out and slammed the hood, wondering how long it took to replace someone Quinn had spent months trying to convince was indispensable. She liked to think the meeting should take at least until lunch, but Quinn never did anything without a plan B. She’d even gotten the sense she had someone in her back pocket as far back as the pop-up.

  The pop-up. Shit. She should’ve seen even then what a massive clusterfuck their entire association was destined to be. Hell, she had seen. She understood exactly what Quinn could do to her, and she still hadn’t been able to resist.

  “Well played, Quinn,” she mumbled as she pulled on to the Massachusetts Turnpike. “You almost had me hooked. Almost.”

  Would the guy Quinn went after next put up such a fight? Probably not. He’d likely jump at the chance to get an all-expenses-paid trip to some tiny stake in Quinn Banning’s dream kitchen. A little voice in her head said her discussion with Quinn never actually progressed far enough to know exactly what kind of ownership stake her offer included. She wouldn’t offer anything near the majority, probably not even close to half, and anything less was unacceptable.

  She tried not to let herself think about what number might be acceptable, because she didn’t want a slice of someone else’s dream. Besides, the offer wasn’t on the table anymore. Not after the way they’d left things. Not that she would handle things differently if she had the chance. Not the break-up anyway. Better to rip the Band-Aid off quickly than let it slowly take a piece of her with it.

  Her chest ached.

  Maybe it would be more accurate to say she didn’t want to lose an even bigger piece of herself than she already had. No, that was crap. Quinn didn’t take anything from her she hadn’t already lost plenty of times throughout her life. If anything, her actions had served as a valuable reminder, like an emotional tune-up, scheduled maintenance. If the walls she’d built around herself didn’t get tested occasionally, how could she be sure they were doing their job? And this time they almost didn’t.

  She’d come so close to believing again. On their last night together, she’d actually let herself entertain the idea of a real future with Quinn. She’d said she’d wanted to be with her, to open up to her, and she’d thought Quinn had felt the same way. Sure, they hadn’t made any plans, but for once in her life she wasn’t thinking about the end, either. She’d let herself just exist alongside Quinn, without worrying about the inevitable crash. She hadn’t quite thought about happily ever after, but she’d come close. Too close, clearly, since she couldn’t seem to stop thinking about her even now. Which was shit. And totally unwarranted.

  Quinn had nothing to offer her.

  It was over.

  Quinn, the great planner, had had no problem getting on a plane and going back to her job, her life, her plans for her own future. Why should Hal, the one who was born to live in the moment and take things as they came, have any trouble doing the same? In the grand scale of her life, this disappointment hardly even ranked. Nothing about her life had even really changed. She’d had a few good nights on a great vacation, and now it was time to get back to the real world, the world she’d built for herself, the world she loved. Food, friends, freedom. She had everything she’d ever let herself want. It had always been just enough for her, and just enough was going to have to be enough for her again.

  “There are 250,000 people living within the city limits. Surely one of them can cook a freaking sandwich!” Quinn snapped as she threw a stack of papers across the booth.

  “So, yes or a no on the refill?” Dom deadpanned.

  “Yes,” Quinn said, “make it a double.”

  “So you’re going to be here for a while . . . again?”

  “As long as I need to.”

  “Lucky me,” he said as he tossed a bar towel across his shoulder and headed back to the front.

  Quinn sighed. She knew she had to stop biting people’s heads off, but she also knew she likely wouldn’t be able to do so anytime soon. At least Dom could take it, unlike the young research assistant she’d made cry at work today. She lowered her head to the table with a thud. Who had she become?

  No. She straightened up again quickly. She was a businesswoman, the same one she’d always been. Nothing about her had changed. She wanted the same things, and damn it, she intended to get them. If she had to find a chef, break them down, and rebuild them in her own image, she would.

  You can’t control people.

  Hal’s voice echoed through her frustration, and if she’d had any more résumés in front of her, she would have thrown them, too.

  Thankfully the regular customers had grown used to her outbursts over the last two weeks. Perhaps they thought of her as just part of the local flavor now. But, hey, if they could shout at the television over their Mets games, she could yell at her papers.

  Dom returned with her drink, but instead of dropping it and scooting away as quickly as he could, he pulled up a chair and sat down at the end of the table.

  “I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Quinn warned.

  “I’ve been in the line of fire before. I figure you’re not throwing anything as heavy as Bin Laden’s boys, so my other leg’s probably safe.”

  She rolled her eyes but got the hint. Her problems might not be that big in the grand scheme of things, but that didn’t mean they weren’t real. Still, if he could learn to walk again, surely she could overcome the loss of a food-truck chef from her business plan.

  Dom spun a few of the résumés to face him and scanned the details quickly before looking up. “You know anyone can be taught to flip a grilled cheese, right?”

  “You would think so.”

  “They can, Quinn. I lived on those things when I first got out of Walter Reed. Drunk college students make them all the time. If these people aren’t working out for you, it’s not because they can’t cook a sandwich. It’s something more.”

  “No shit, Captain Obvious.”

  “Okay, I wasn’t sure you were there yet since you’ve been doing the Rainman routine about sandwiches over here for three nights in a row.”

  “It’s not just the sandwiches. I need someone who can bring people to the table. Someone I can trust, someone dependable and energetic and creative.”

  “That’s a tall order. What about the dark and sultry vixen who bailed you out of here last month? She seemed to fit the bill.”

  Quinn rubbed her hand over her face as if she could somehow scrub her frown away. “She’s not interested.”

  “She turned you down?” Dom sat back. “That must have been a first for you.”

  “Yeah.” She didn’t mind admitting she wasn’t accustomed to rejection.

  “Wow. Which one of you was the idiot?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Well, you have a plan. It’s clearly a good one because, well, it’s yours. And she was exactly what you wanted obviously, if none of these other poor SOBs”—he nodded to the résumés all over the booth—“are even worth taking a second look at. So what happened?”

  That was the million-dollar question, the one she’d spent long days and longer nights trying not to ask herself. How had they gone from their last perfect night on the sailboat to shouting at each other in a gas station parking lot? How had they fallen from telling each other how much they wanted to be together to saying horrible things they could never unsay? They’d acted more like volatile teenage lovers than well-rounded, fully grown women. How had she let someone spin her around so badly she’d lost sight of who she was?

  “Quinn,” Dom asked quietly, “what’s wrong?”

  “I . . . I don’t know. I just wanted something good.”

  “Something good?”

  “I just wanted to build something lasting. I wanted to be a part of the solution, you know? Something that made my own little corner of the world a little stronger, a little better in the long run.”

  “You already have.”

  “What?”

  “All those things you just said, you’ve don
e them. Look around you. You saved this bar. Hell, Quinn, you saved my life.”

  She shook her head, started to deny, but he cut her off.

  “You did. What would I have done without you? Everyone else told me no. I was going to be a freaking cliché, just another unemployed, homeless, wounded warrior. It’s only because of you I’m a third generation business owner.”

  “You deserved every chance you got.”

  “But I wouldn’t have gotten them without you. How many other business owners around this city can say that?”

  She shrugged. “I’m willing to bet it’s more than a few.” She wouldn’t pretend she hadn’t heard similar stories from other people she’d taken risks on. They all said she’d saved them, and she did feel a great deal of pride over each one of their accomplishments, but that’s how she saw them: as other people’s accomplishments. “I’m honored to have been a part of your story, Dom. I don’t mean to imply otherwise.”

  “But it’s not enough for you anymore?”

  “I guess it’s not.”

  “Why? You’re good at what you do.”

  “I am,” she admitted, but she also struggled to put into words the longing that had chased her for years. “I love that I was able to help you hold onto your past and secure your place in the future, but it’s your past and your future. I want to have those things for myself. I want to know where my place is and know it will stand the test of time.”

  “What you just described doesn’t really sound like a restaurant. It sounds like a relationship.” She stiffened, but he lifted his hand. “Let me finish. I love this bar. It’s not much, just a dirty little hole in the wall, but it’s a dirty little hole in the wall my grandfather built with his own hands. It’s the bar where my dad asked my mom to marry him. It’s the bar where I had my last drink with a friend who never came home from that Godforsaken desert. Thanks to you, it might just be the bar I get to hand down to my own son someday.”

  “Or daughter,” she added.

  “Or daughter.” He smiled. “But the point is, it’s not just some building or business I fought to save here. It’s the people who make the meaning. Without them, I’m just some sad Polish stereotype. With them, I’m a family legacy.”

  “Oh, Dom.” Her chest ached too badly to say anything more.

  “Don’t ‘oh Dom’ me. You know I’m a sad sap, but I’m right. Wise bartender syndrome runs in my family.” He grinned. “What’s your family business?”

  “I don’t have one. If you really get down to it, aside from a brother who has a new girlfriend and no time for his big sister, I don’t even have much of a family. No past worth clinging to, and no next generation on the horizon.”

  He waggled his eyebrows playfully. “I can help you with that last part. The IED broke things only from the knee down.”

  She laughed, just a small laugh, but it felt good to know the part of her capable of feeling something other than anger, hurt, and pain wasn’t completely shattered. “You’re such a man sometimes.”

  “And that’s just not what you’re into?”

  “It’s most certainly not.”

  “So the dark and sultry vixen wasn’t just a job applicant then?”

  The ache returned in force, but she tried to keep her expression light. “Go away, Dom.”

  “All right, all right. I’ll leave you to cry in your gin and yell at the walls, but I want you to remember my offer for baby-making stands.”

  “Leave now.”

  “I’m going, I’m going. What kind of a hard-ass rushes a guy with one leg?”

  She shook her head, but her smile was once again genuine, if a bit reluctant. Maybe he was right. Not about that baby-making—she grimaced—but about her business plans.

  Was a restaurant really what she wanted? What she’d longed for? What she’d mourned these past two weeks? Dom’s words, while sweeter and more thoughtful, sounded a little too close to Hal’s comment about no business being able to bring her family back. She didn’t like the connection any more than she liked the idea behind it.

  She slowly picked up the résumé confetti and stacked the papers neatly before putting them back into her briefcase. She wouldn’t find what she needed there, only now she was left to wonder if she would be able to find it anywhere, or maybe she’d already found everything she’d wanted, only to lose it.

  “Where’s Ian?” Hal asked curtly.

  “I gave him the day off.”

  “Why?”

  “He’s twenty years old, he’s on summer vacation, and he’s got a new girlfriend.”

  “That’s all? A girl? He’s in love, so we’re out a set of hands?”

  “A nerd with his first girlfriend is a big deal.”

  “None of that’s my problem,” she said, loading a bin of cheese onto the truck.

  “None of that’s a problem, period,” Sully said. “We’re just kicking around today.”

  “We’re supposed to be prepping our fall menu.”

  “Why does Ian need to be here for that?”

  Hal thought for a moment but produced no answer, other than the fact that she’d grown used to having him around. Another stupid move on her part. He was a college student, summer help, and she hadn’t even wanted to hire him in the first place, so why did it feel like such a betrayal for him to stand them up for some new girl? Who was she kidding? She knew why, and she didn’t want to think about it.

  “Fine, what did you bring?” Their menu-planning sessions consisted of each of them bringing in a few ingredients they found interesting and then mixing them around until they found a combo that worked, or occasionally they found none of them worked.

  “I got Granny Smith apples, walnuts, and maple bacon,” Sully said, setting a reusable grocery bag on the prep table of the truck. “What about you?”

  “I brought maple bacon, too.”

  Sully bumped her shoulder. “Great minds, eh?”

  Hal shrugged. She didn’t find the coincidence happy. They now had one less option to work with, and she didn’t like being reminded of her limits.

  “Let’s start frying up the bacon since we both went there. It must be a good omen.”

  Hal didn’t believe in omens, but she did believe in bacon, so she wouldn’t argue.

  Sully fired up the griddle and got a few slabs of bacon sizzling before turning to ask, “What else did you bring?”

  “Pumpkin and brie.”

  “Brie,” Sully repeated with raised eyebrows, then quickly turned away and rummaged through her grocery bag for nothing.

  “What of it?”

  “Nothing.”

  “You made a face.”

  “Just my face.”

  “No, like you had a smart remark you kept to yourself. Are you pacifying me?” Hal snapped. “I don’t need to be handled. I’m not fragile, okay.”

  “I never said you were. I just thought brie was a bit high-end for us, and I almost suggested Quinn had inspired some champagne tastes in you.”

  “That’s bullshit,” Hal said a little more loudly than intended, then more quietly added, “Quinn didn’t change me.”

  Sully raised her eyebrows again, only this time she didn’t look away. “And now you see why I didn’t want to say it.”

  “Sorry.” Hal sighed and buttered a few pieces of bread. “I know I’ve been testy lately.”

  Testy might have been an understatement. Little things bothered her more than they used to. Picky customers, the lack of space in the truck, lack of supplies, changes in plans, they all set her on edge. She felt like her skin was too tight, or her nerves too raw.

  “When are you going to spill?”

  Not again. Hal shook her head as she dropped the bread onto the hot griddle. Sully had tried for weeks to get the details of what had happened with Quinn, but Hal had only told her the part that mattered. It was over between them. “There’s nothing to tell. No gory details. We ran our course, and then we ended the way I always knew we would. I’m exactly where I starte
d, and she’s on to a newer model.”

  “Fine,” Sully said. “For the record, I know there’s more going on, but let’s for a minute pretend I’m wrong and Quinn got her fun and got out. If that’s the case, why are you so pissed off? You win. You told us so. Isn’t that convenient?”

  Hal stopped in mid-slice over a piece of brie. “Convenient?”

  “Sure, everything’s as expected. You don’t have to grow. You never have to change.”

  “I don’t want to change.” The retort sounded pouty even to Hal.

  “I call bullshit.”

  “You can’t call bullshit on my feelings. Only I know how I feel.”

  “Not true,” Sully countered. “I know how you feel. We’re brothers from another foster mother.”

  “Don’t psychologize me. I’m happy with my life. I don’t want to change.”

  “Happy people don’t mope around.”

  “I’m not moping.” Hal flipped some bacon and brie onto the toasted bread, then gestured toward the creation as if to accentuate her point.

  “Happy people don’t bite friends’ heads off for innocent jokes,” Sully continued, undeterred. “They don’t lie to their best friends, and they don’t let women like Quinn walk away because they’re afraid of change.”

  “I’m not afraid to change.”

  “No, you’re right. It’s more than that. You’re afraid to even admit you can change.” Sully’s voice softened. “You’re afraid to admit other people can change, too, because if you admit things can get better, you might be forced to actually try.”

  “I do try. I built a business. I have friends. Don’t make me sound like I gave up on life. I do well for myself, but I can’t waste my time and energy on someone who’s only going to let me down.”

  “How do you know they’re going to let you down if you never give anyone a chance?”

  “People always let you down. It’s the way the world works. You know that as well as I do.”

  “I don’t,” Sully said.

  Hal stared at her. How could she not? She’d seen people’s real nature as much as Hal had. She had the same independent streak, the same free spirit. That’s why they worked so well together. They got each other. She was used to hearing things like this from movies and books and other people, but hearing them from Sully made her feel lonelier than she’d ever felt. She turned back toward the griddle and plated the brie and bacon sandwich but felt no desire to taste it given the way her stomach churned.