Chapter 7

7

DEREK

S he’d been around for less than twenty-four hours, and by the end of the brunch service on Sunday, I didn’t know what I had ever done without Jodi. The woman was proving to be a godsend. Not to mention I didn’t get tired of looking at her tall, shapely body moving so effortlessly around the restaurant floor.

I really shouldn’t have been thinking about her that way. She was the new hire, and the only thing on my mind should be her serving skills. And those seemed to just be getting better. No matter what was thrown at her, Jodi didn’t flinch. She was unfazed by how busy it was, the complex menu, or the sometimes-fussy guests.

We didn’t get a lot of those. For the most part, our customers were perfectly pleasant people who came in to enjoy the atmosphere and incredible food. But there were always the exceptions.

A few of the more demanding regular customers came in for brunch that Sunday morning, and I carefully watched how Jodi handled them. It was nothing short of masterful. She was smooth and unaffected, letting their comments and entitlements roll right off her back and continuing to do what needed to be done without getting flustered.

But what impressed me the most was how she spoke with them. On more than one occasion, another server got into a conflict with a customer and didn’t know what to do to settle the situation. Jodi was able to slide into it and know just how to talk to the customer. Whatever she said, she was able to do it in a way that calmed the customer down and ended the difficulty.

It was fascinating to watch, and it made me wonder where she got the experience to do that. Ally told me Jodi had been working at a diner in town most recently, and I highly doubted she would have had to deal with the kind of particularness and attitude with the customers there that she did with the ones here.

I also couldn’t help but wonder about her requirement to be paid under the table. That whole thing was a curiosity and a situation I hadn’t yet encountered. But Cameron was okay with it, so I was okay with it too. What mattered to me was how well she did her job and that she was reliable. It wasn’t up to me to evaluate her life.

But Cam had told me there were still formalities we had to go through when hiring her. We couldn’t just say “welcome aboard” and have her show up for work. Even if we agreed to have her paid under the table for now, we still had to document her existence. Which was why I had a stack of papers to give her at the end of the shift.

She looked understandably and deservedly tired when I caught up with her after the last of the customers left.

“Hey,” I said. “How was your second day?”

She let out a sigh but nodded. “Good. But I have to admit, I’m glad Sundays are only brunch service. I think I’m going to need a little bit of time to get used to all of this.”

I let out a short laugh and nodded. “I can definitely understand that. And speaking of which, here are some papers Cam printed out for you. He wants you to fill them out and get them back to him as soon as possible.”

“Okay,” she said, sounding a bit wary as she looked down at the papers in her hands.

I could almost see the gears churning in her head, wondering what the papers were and what she should do next.

“He said if you have problems filling anything out, you should go talk to him and he’ll figure it out with you,” I said.

That seemed to reassure Jodi, and she nodded. There was a look in her eyes that made me wonder if she was running from something or someone. But I wasn’t going to pry. I’d just met her, and unless it interfered with work, I didn’t really have a reason to push it.

“Thanks, I’ll look over them this afternoon.”

“Great,” I said with a resolute nod. “Alright, you go ahead and take off for the day.”

“There’s still side work to do,” she said.

“Don’t worry about it. With as much as you’ve been hustling the last couple of days, you deserve some slack. Go on home and get some rest. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Are you sure?” she asked.

“Absolutely.”

“Okay. Have a good day.”

I watched her head out before making my way to the kitchen. I needed to clean up there and then take stock before getting ready to go to Alex’s house for dinner. The kitchen was empty and still when I walked into it. I drew in a breath and let it out in a satisfied sigh. This was one of my favorite times. I loved when my kitchen was quiet and calm, empty of everyone but me.

It was a different kind of feeling than any other time. I really enjoyed the energy and the rush of when the orders were pouring in, and we were trying to keep up as well. That was when I felt alive, and adrenaline was pulsing through me. It was a massive challenge to keep everything organized and effectively manage a busy service so everyone got their food in a timely manner, at the right temperature, and beautifully presented.

Doing that well was one of my greatest sources of pride.

But there was a simpler, purer joy in the kitchen when it was just on its own. It sounded ridiculous, and I would probably never say it to anyone but Ally, who happened to be one of my best friends in addition to my sous chef, but when the kitchen was like this, it felt like a different entity. Almost like it was alive.

The deep clean I gave the kitchen every Sunday was like a reset for the rest of the week. This was the time when I not only cleaned everything but took stock of equipment, ingredients, and supplies and noted anything running low. I sometimes moved things around, experimenting with different layouts and organization to see if I could make the space more efficient.

At the end of the process, I usually had a list of things to order, and I brought that right into the office to put the orders in so nothing got overlooked and everything would arrive before it was actually needed. My mind was drifting as I cleaned, and by the time I finished up and put the last of the soiled linens into the collection bag to be picked up by the service the next day, I realized hours had passed.

I was officially running late for dinner at my brother’s house. I rushed to change clothes and get there, but by the time I walked inside, they were already well into both the food and the wine. When I saw that, I braced myself. I knew what was coming.

“Hey,” Alex said, coming over to me and slinging his arm around my shoulders. “You finally made it.”

There was a grin on his face that had a lot to do with the glass in his hand, but not all. He had been much happier recently now that he and Camilla were together and planning their future.

“I’m sorry I’m late,” I said. “I was cleaning the kitchen and doing inventory and got distracted.”

“Oh?” Cam asked. “Whatever could have distracted you?”

“It couldn’t possibly be the new girl Ally hired,” Kane said with a teasing glint in his eye.

“Of course not,” Noah added, getting in on the ribbing. “Derek would never let something like a woman get his mind off his devotion to his kitchen.”

That was just the start of it. Like happened all too often, I got ribbed to hell about being single and teased about Jodi. That happened anytime I even took a halfway glance at an attractive woman, and I hadmost certainly been taking more than a halfway glance at her. If they weren’t teasing me or relentlessly pointing out there were only two of us who were still single and we needed to get a move on about finding someone, they were trying to do the work for me and set me up with someone.

I tried not to play into it. That would only make it worse.