by Kim Barnouin
“I wasn’t sure you’d agree to a second go,” he said, shutting the door behind me. I followed him back into the kitchen where ingredients, pans, and utensils for the portobello mushroom burger were set up on the counter.
“Your assistant does everything for you?” I asked.
“Everything I don’t need to do myself, yeah.”
“Must be nice,” I said, getting busy with onions and garlic.
“It is.”
Entitled rich jerk.
“Can I help?” he asked. “I do help, even when I don’t have to,” he added, shooting me a smile.
I shot him back an I’ll-be-the-judge-of-that look and put him on slicing onions and the avocado. When he slid them into the sauté pan that was crackling with oil, his shoulder and hip brushed lightly against mine. I didn’t move, and neither did he.
“Stir gently, right?” he asked, glancing at the recipe.
“Right.”
As I was making a thick paste of avocado and garlic as a condiment, I was aware of him cleaning up around me. Aware of him, period.
Forget the explanation, I told myself, slathering the warm brioche buns—which I’d made myself a few hours ago—with the avocado paste. It doesn’t matter. You can’t go there with him.
Especially since anything he said the other day was canceled out by the way he’d dismissed me.
“So I’d really like to explain about the other night,” he said.
I turned to face him. “Zach, no need, okay? You’ve clearly got a girlfriend. I clearly am a vegan. Two good reasons why there shouldn’t be a second kiss. So let me just audition the best not-meat burger you will ever eat, and we’ll exist in harmony on Montana and 14th.”
He poured us glasses of one of my favorite organic white wines. He’d clearly done a bit of homework. “To harmony.”
I took the glass and clinked his.
“But I’d still like to explain. Tabitha—the woman you met Monday night. She’s actually an ex-girlfriend. We were dating for a few months, and it wasn’t working out, so I ended it, but she took it hard.” He sipped the wine. “She’s been kind of . . . fragile about it, so I didn’t just want to show her the door or make her feel like I’m already seeing someone new. I’m sorry for how I handled things. So the kiss stands.”
“Except you said ‘an’ ex. Which makes me think there are lots of women in your life.”
“Can I get nothing past you?” he asked with his slickest smile yet.
“Just be straight with me. You’ve got a few girlfriends, I assume.”
“I date,” he said. “If I meet someone who makes me want to commit, I’ll commit.”
I went back to the brioche buns. I was not getting involved with this guy. He was probably sleeping with half the models and wannabe actresses in Santa Monica. Cook and leave, Clem.
“I made you something.” He opened the refrigerator and pulled out a covered dish, then got a bag of tortilla chips from the cabinet. “My homemade guacamole. When I was a kid, I ate guacamole like it was chocolate.”
“Me, too. I made my own guac when I was five. It sounds crazy, but I knew even that young I wanted to be a chef.” While my sister was having her dolls interrogate each other as a sign of her future profession, I was in the kitchen with my dad, kneading pasta dough, learning about herbs, soaking beans.
“You’re lucky you figured that out so young. I never really knew what I wanted to be.”
“Rich?”
He laughed. “Maybe, actually. My grandparents started with nothing and were self-made. They took acres of land in the middle of nowhere, started with maybe ten heads of cattle, some pigs. They turned the Silver Creek Ranch into a major operation. How they did it, what it took—that’s what interested me. Not necessarily the getting rich part, but how you go from nothing to something.”
I realized I was staring at him and turned around to top the burgers with the buns. He walked over to me, a guacamole-laden chip in his hand, which he held up to my mouth. He kept his eyes on me as I parted my lips for the chip.
Damn. It was delicious.
Ruin this, I sent to him telepathically. There’s no way I’m falling for you. I can’t fall for you.
He would definitely ruin it. He had both times we’d gotten together. In my apartment when Baby called in the first place. And here, last time, when she shook her ass up the stairs. Where are you when I need you, Tabitha? Barge in now. Save me.
“What do you think?” he asked.
I think I want you to kiss me again. Everywhere.
“It’s really good. Really, really good, Zach.”
He smiled and touched his finger to my lip. “Crumb.” As he was about to kiss me, my phone started ringing. No. Not ringing—chiming.
“Oh, shit,” I said, lunging for my bag on the windowsill.
“What?”
Six months ago, I’d been at a club with Sara and Ty and had ignored my ringing phone, especially when I saw it was just Elizabeth, who’d been calling the past few days to make sure I’d bought renter’s insurance like I said I would. I’d thought she was just calling to nag. So I hadn’t answered. And my father had been lying in a hospital bed, fighting for his life from a cancer-related complication. She’d had to leave Santa Monica without me and race up to Coastal General. I hadn’t called back till the morning.
I never wanted to feel that bad again. Never wanted to make Elizabeth feel that alone again. And so when she insisted on setting up a special ringtone to indicate an emergency, I let her.
If my phone was playing that chime, it was Elizabeth calling with bad news about my dad.
I grabbed my phone. “Elizabeth, what’s wrong?” I tried to hear what she was saying, but she was crying. “Just tell me where you are, and I’ll come right now.”
“I’m at Coastal General,” she said. “Oh God, I drove up to Mom and Dad’s to help set up for the party, and we were just in the living room having tea and cake and laughing about something one of the inept interns did, and then Dad just slumped over. Clem, just get here as soon as you can.”
My heart stopped. “Elizabeth, tell me now. Is he okay?”
I heard her suck in a breath. “They don’t know.”
I closed my eyes. “Okay, I’m coming. I’m leaving right now.” I shoved the phone in my bag and turned to Zach, who was staring at me. “It’s my dad. I have to go. Oh my God. My dad’s back in the hospital. I have to go.”
“I’ll drive you,” he said, shutting off the burner and taking my hand and heading toward the door.
“He’s at Coastal General in Grovesburg. That’s three hours from here.”
He nodded. “So we’ll take the car instead of the Harley.”
I stared at him. “You’re going to drive me three hours to the hospital?”
“Yeah, I am. So get moving.”
Half numb and half scared I followed him, barely remembering to buckle the seat belt in the soft leather seat of his black Mercedes. I stared out the window and didn’t say a word until we got to Route 5 and set on a long stretch of the trip.
“Please let him be okay,” I said, my eyes closed.
He put his hand on my shoulder for a moment. “Clementine, if it helps, my father had a massive heart attack last year. When I got the call, no one knew if he’d make it. But he pulled through. He’s fine now. You can’t focus on the what-ifs.”
“But he has cancer. He’s so weak. He can’t withstand whatever happened—last time, some infection almost killed him.”
“You can’t think worst-case for these three hours, Clem, or it’ll tear you apart. Right now, tell me about Dad. Tell me what makes him strong.”
“He is strong. If it wasn’t for the fucking cancer eating away at his organs, he’d be in the fields at the farm with his dogs beside him, checking on the crops or harvesting or giving an elementary school class a field-trip tour. He loves kids.”
“He sounds like a great person.”
“He is,” I said, my stomach chur
ning. I turned to look out the window, and Zach seemed to sense that I needed some quiet time and privacy. He put on some bluesy jazz. I listened to the music and focused on the passing scenery.
Just after ten thirty Zach pulled up to the hospital’s emergency room and told me to go, that he’d find me. I took his hand, said a fast “Thank you,” and then ran.
Pneumonia. My dad would be fine. For now, anyway. The thousand-pound weights lifted off each shoulder as my mom said he might have to stay for a few days but would be all right. I kissed my dad’s cheek, hugged my mother, who sat down at his bedside, then I quietly left the room to see if Zach had come up yet.
Down the hall, Elizabeth was waiting for the elevator for a Starbucks herbal tea run when the doors pinged open. Zach stepped out; Elizabeth went in. I’d make the introductions later.
“Any word?” he asked.
“He’s going to be all right—for now.”
He squeezed my hand. “Glad to hear that.”
“My sister went on a tea run to Starbucks. My mom’s expecting the docs back with my father’s test results in the next half hour or so. Looks like a waiting area over there,” I said, gesturing across the hall.
Zach sat beside me in the otherwise empty waiting room. He didn’t touch the stack of magazines scattered on the table. He didn’t pull out his iPhone and check his messages. He just sat there, next to me. “Zach, thanks for being here. For bringing me. I couldn’t even think straight when my sister first called me. I owe you.”
“You don’t owe me anything.”
“Except maybe to admit I might have been a little wrong about you,” I said.
He smiled and slung an arm around my shoulder. “Oh, wait, you do owe me that mushroom burger. Someone clearly doesn’t want me to ever try it, though.”
I laughed—and I didn’t think I was capable. “Who knows what’ll happen the next time I attempt to audition it for you?”
He smiled and took my hand, holding it between us on the armrest of his chair.
At midnight, Zach and I were in the bar of the Mayfair Hotel, which was right across the street from the hospital. When he’d heard that my dad would need to stay the weekend, Zach had booked three hotel rooms for my mother, sister, and me through Sunday—and paid for them in advance, which we were stunned to discover when we’d checked in.
“You two must be serious,” my mother had said with a prompting smile at the registration desk.
“He’s sort of a client, actually. Maybe the tiniest bit more. We’ll see. He’s dating all of L.A.”
“Well, all I know is that he’s incredibly generous. He drove you here and he took care of your family’s hotel arrangements with your dad in the hospital?”
“He seems like a nice guy, but don’t have expectations,” Elizabeth said as she’d pocketed her room key.
“He eats meat anyway,” I mumbled.
“So do I. And we get along fine.”
“Yeah, but I have to get along with you.”
Elizabeth yanked the ends of my hair, then she and Mom headed to the elevator, both looking as exhausted as I’m sure I did. I went to find Zach; he was waiting for me at a little round table by the window in the hotel bar. He looked so damned gorgeous under the low lights, a half-moon in the high window above his head. We had a glass of wine and made small talk, mostly, about hospitals, about this part of California, about how you just never knew what life would throw at you.
“So now I owe you even more,” I said. His generosity had almost knocked me on my ass. There was a lot more to Zach Jeffries than I ever expected. Which, to be honest, made me a little nervous. It meant I couldn’t pigeonhole him. Couldn’t know what to expect.
“Nope, not a thing.”
“I wouldn’t have pegged you for such a nice guy, Jeffries.”
“Always keep ’em guessing. That’s my motto.” He glanced at his watch. “It’s almost one. You’d better get some rest. Your sister will drive you back to Santa Monica on Sunday?”
I nodded.
“I’ll walk you up to your room.”
“You don’t have to.”
He put some bills on the bar and led the way to the elevators anyway. In that tiny space he was so close, and I was so surprised by him, confused by him, that I wanted to turn and grab him, just feel his arms around me. But then the elevator pinged open.
He slid the room key in the slot and opened the door, but didn’t step inside. “Get a good night’s rest.”
Don’t invite him in. Don’t invite him in. Don’t invite him in.
“You could come in for a bit, if you want,” I said.
“I want, Clementine. But for a few reasons, I’d better get back.”
Oh. What were those reasons?
“I’m headed to New York tomorrow afternoon for business,” he said. “I won’t be back till next Thursday, maybe Friday. I’ll give you a call.”
Why did I feel so dismissed all of a sudden? Like I made too much of all this and now he’d morphed back into Zach Jeffries, zillionaire meat eater with multiple girlfriends.
But then he very slowly, gently, backed me against the wall and kissed me so hard that my knees buckled. Then he looked at me, touched my face with the palm of his hand, and left.
Chapter 8
“Wait, Zach Jeffries drove you three hours to the hospital?” Eva asked as she sliced the seitan on her cutting board on Tuesday night. For our third class, we were making black bean tortilla soup and seitan fajitas.
Duncan stood at the stove, stirring the black beans that I’d rinsed this afternoon. “And stayed with you in the waiting room?”
“Pleeeeease let me tell them the rest?” Sara asked, taking a sip of her wine.
When my sister dropped me off on Sunday night, I told Sara everything—but made her promise to keep the kiss against the wall of the Mayfair Hotel to herself. Not that it was the equivalent of hot wild sex on the carpet or anything, but still, it was private and I didn’t want it blabbed to the class.
Eva gaped at me. “Omigod, you slept together all weekend and now you’re pregnant.”
“Not even close,” I said. We had just one kick-ass kiss.
One kiss that I couldn’t get out of my mind. On Monday, Zach texted me with How’s your dad? Hope you got home ok. Z.
I texted back He’s doing fine and so am I. Thanks again for all you did. I wanted to add something else, a little sappy X for a kiss or something, but I didn’t want to be a total moron. I didn’t know what he was thinking.
But I did know I was sunk. Because when very nice, everything-in-common cute vegan chef Alexander Orr had called on Monday morning to ask if I’d like to have dinner Saturday night, at his house, I made up an excuse. For Sunday brunch, too.
“Are we just friends, then?” Alexander had asked, kind of wistfully.
I thought of our meh kiss. Then of the way I turned to liquid when Zach just looked at me.
“Is that okay?” I’d asked. “We do have a lot in common, and you’re a really cool guy.”
“I guess it’ll have to be. Plus, you never know, do you?”
“That is so true,” I’d said. So true.
I stirred the soup, which smelled amazing.
“Clem said he kissed her so hot and hard that her knees almost buckled,” Sara announced.
I rolled my eyes. “Sara, is nothing private?”
“One kiss? Kind of a letdown from my version,” Eva said, giving her shoulders a little shimmy. “And what, you’re suddenly a priss?” Eva asked, turning the peppers over in the sauté pan. “At least tell us if you’re officially seeing each other now.”
I took a sip of wine. “Well, he had to go to New York on business. He’s not coming back till Thursday or Friday. But I’ll give you this piece of information: I kind of miss him.”
“Well, I think it’s all great,” Duncan said. “I mean, you hated him last week. It gives me hope.”
“About your ex?” Sara asked, slicing a red bell pepper.
> Duncan sat down with a heavy sigh. “I can’t stand how much I miss her. I just wish she’d talk to me. But she won’t. I tried going to the club where she bartends, and she had the bouncer make me leave.”
I turned off the burner for the soup. “Maybe you need to let her go, Duncan. She sounds pretty sure.”
He looked miserable. “The day before she dumped me she told me she loved me. Then I come home and all her stuff is gone and she won’t talk to me. I even tried calling her best friend, and she hung up on me.”
“I wonder what went wrong for her,” Sara said.
“Me, too. I can’t sleep. I can’t eat. I can’t do anything. And I’m learning to be a vegan for a woman who won’t even talk to me.”
“Maybe we can find out what’s up,” Sara said. “Clem and I could go hang out at the bar and start talking about our jerk exes. She’ll chime in. Maybe. Worth a try.”
“No way I’m missing this,” Eva said. “I mean, who slams an ex better than me? Let’s go tomorrow night. Early enough so it won’t be crowded and we can set up the convo for her to overhear.”
Duncan raised an eyebrow and gnawed his lower lip for a second. “Don’t let her know you’re my friends. She’ll have that giant dude throw you out.”
“Clem, I think we forgot the tortillas,” Eva said, sniffing the air. Something was burning.
“Oh, shit,” I said, grabbing my oven mitts to pull out the cracker-like tortillas. “We can warm up some more.”
“We’re busy saving a man’s life here,” Sara said. “That’s worth a burned tortilla.”
The woman who wouldn’t be named was named Gwendolyn Paul, hated to be called Gwen, and worked at Ocean 88, a hot little nightclub with a tiny dance floor and a famous square-shaped bar that those semi-lucky to be chosen could shake their stuff on for a minute and get a free fourteen-dollar drink. Sara and I went there once, and the very hot male bartender nodded his chin at Sara and said, “Show your stuff, babe,” and she said, “Really?” totally game to get up there and shimmy for her free frozen margarita, and the jerk said, “No, not really.” He looked at me and said, “But you can.” I told him he was a pig and we left and never went back. My scathing email to the owner went unanswered, too.