Page 76 of Those Two Words

“Oh my god, who sat her at that table? IT’S UNLUCKY!” he cries. “What did she order? Someone get me that check now. I’m going to throw up.”

Simon searches through the pile of completed checks and hands him table thirteen’s.

“The bean-hole beans?” Booth squeaks out, his voice pitching abnormally high. He paces around the kitchen, and I walk over to him and grab him by the shoulders.

“She…” I don’t know why I’m dragging this out, other than it’s fun to fuck with him.

“She what, Johanna? Oh god, someone get me a shot of vodka. No, that isn’t strong enough. Just sedate me.”

Deciding I’ve tortured him long enough, I look him dead in the eye. “Booth. She loved it. Ate it up and said word for word, ‘Give my compliments to the chef.’”

He’s actually crying now. His arms shoot up toward the ceiling and he lets out an almighty whoop, and then picks me up and spins us around the kitchen.

“Holy shit, we did it! We cracked her.” He runs his hands through his hair, his face still glowing with wonderment. “This is all you, Jo. I would have never thought to have trialed it as a special first.”

“It was all you. You came up with the dish and your team executed it perfectly.”

The creak of hinges diverts our attention to the doorway, where we find a curious looking Patrick peering in.

“What are you two cheering about?” he asks.

“Big bro,” Booth says and claps Patrick on the back once he approaches us. “I quit, because my only goal in life was to make that old bird happy.”

I laugh at his dramatics, knowing damn well he isn’t quitting.

Patrick’s eyes meet mine, eyebrow quirked in question. “She liked it?”

With a huge grin on my face, I nod my head, and before I know it, he’s wrapping me up in his arms and spinning me around too.

As we celebrate the small success together, I can only hope that whatever the outcome next month, we can get through it together.

Each day that passes, hope returns to Patrick’s eyes. Every time a new customer enters the restaurant, or we beat the previous week’s revenue, I see the stress stop weighing him down. We’re running out of time, and even I’m shocked at how much of an improvement we’ve made. Will it be enough?

I know losing the restaurant would devastate him. It would gut me, but selfishly I’m more worried about what it would mean for us.

He’s been open and honest with me since the moment I returned to town, and as he tucks me under his arm and kisses me on the cheek, I chastise myself for thinking the outcome of the restaurant would change things.

Because it wouldn’t, right?

thirty-one

PATRICK

“It looks like a unicorn threw up in here,” Graham says to my right. Pink and purple streamers are hanging from his shoulders, complimenting the gold tiara on his head.

“I’m pretty sure that’s exactly what Lottie wants.” I adjust the crown on my head that my daughter told me to wear; because she said I was a queen.

“Does this tutu make my butt look big?” Booth asks from the other side of the room.

“Yes,” Dex says as he slides his own pink tutu up his legs, but halfway past his thighs, it splits in half and falls to the ground. “I’m sorry, I love Lottie, but this isn’t going to work. I’m better off being a dinosaur.”

The four of us look like some misfit boy band, but we’re all too scared of Lottie to not do exactly as she says.

Giving up on the bow I’ve been trying to tie for the last ten minutes, I let the ribbon hang limply from the chair. I’ve tried my best to recreate the tea party Lottie described to me. I spent all last night gluing tiny tiaras to plastic dinosaurs, so hopefully the room screams prehistoric fairy tale.

Carrie is bringing Lottie over in an hour, then her friends will arrive, and chaos will commence.

I can’t believe she will be five. The years have gone by way too quickly, and I wish they would slow down. It feels like yesterday a nurse put this squirming, pink thing in my arms.From the moment I held her, my universe shifted. She doesn’t know it, but she came into my life when I needed her the most. I didn’t realize how lost and empty I’d been until she opened those big eyes, stopped her crying, and stared up at me. From that one look, I knew I would do everything and anything for that little girl—which includes wearing a crown.

---