Page 55 of The Seven Year Slip

“Do you know why he passed?”

Because of me, I fear.“I don’t know.”

“Hmm. That’s tough.” He began to get up with our bowls, but I slapped his hand away and took the dishes away myself.

“You cooked, I clean, remember?” I declared, and turned on the water in the sink, waiting for it to get warm. He followed me into the kitchen, and as I stood there, he hooked his chin over my shoulder and leaned against me. He smelled like dish soap and lavender, and it took every willful bone in my body not to melt into him like ice cream on the pavement in summer. “Well,” he said, his voice rumbling against my skin, “could you go and try to convince him?”

I scoffed a laugh. “Sadly, it doesn’t work that way. And to make matters worse, both my friend’s and my careers were kind of riding on this. I just don’t get it. Weshouldhave made it to the next round.”

“It’s a pity he isn’t a chef. In restaurants, a good kitchen is a good team. We all work off each other and most of the time it’s better if we all like each other, too. My friends have been in places where everyone kept sniping at each other, and it was so awful they quit.Peopleare the most important thing in any kitchen.”

Thepeople? I eyed him. “You really believe that?”

He gave a shrug, like it was a no-brainer. “Absolutely. We don’t get paid enough to work somewhere shitty, especially if we have the résumé to go somewhere else.”

I turned off the water and stared at him, my brain whirring a hundred miles a minute. Oh my god, that wasit. All I had to do was appeal to the chef in him—the him who told methisexact thing. I’m sure he’d had a shitty time in a kitchen by now; from what I’d read, they’re a dime a dozen. It was a long shot—but I believed in long shots.

He hesitated. “What? Is there something on my f—”

Turning to face him, I looked up into his lovely moon-colored eyes, and planted my hands on either side of his face, smushing his cheeks together. “You’re agenius, Iwan!”

He blinked. “I... am? I mean—of course I am.”

“Agenius!” I pulled his face down to kiss him. His lips were soft and warm, startled at first. He barely even registered it before I pulled away. “I’ll see you later, okay?” I turned to leave, but he caught me by the hand and pulled me back. His grip was tight—tighter than usual. In a desperate, longing sort of way.

“Just a moment,” he murmured, and kissed me again.

This time he was ready for me, his mouth hungry, and I melted into him. I curled my free hand around his shirt, keeping him close. He let go of my hand and, reaching down to grab my waist, suddenly lifted me up off the floor and planted me on the counter. He looked up into my eyes, the bright paleness of his turned stormy. His floppy hair fell into his face, and there were bits of gold in it when the fluorescent lights of the kitchen hit it just right. “Incentive,” he growled, and kissed me again and again, quick snaps across my cheeks, against my neck, “so you’ll come back a little sooner.”

“Did you miss me that much?” I asked, my arms wrapping around his neck.

He murmured against my mouth, “I’d have to lie to say no.”

And the worst part was? I wanted to stay. I wanted to stay as he kissed me savoringly, his hands gripping my thighs as he leaned into the kiss. But I could see the time on the microwave behind him, and it was already nine o’clock. If I wanted to make it to the Olive Branch before it closed, I had to leave now.

“I’ll come back,” I whispered, regretting that I had to go.

He didn’t believe me. “Promise?”

“Promise.”

Even though it really wasn’t up to me, it wasn’t a lietechnically. I would see him again. But if the apartment had brought me back now, I knew it could again—and somehow in my heart I knew itwould. So he kissed me one last time as I slid off the counter, as if he wanted to seal the promise with his lips, and I knew I had to go then if I wanted to leave at all, because it was getting harder and harder to break away.

Remember rule two, I told myself, and tore away from him. I gathered my purse and what little resistance I had left, and fled before I convinced myself to stay.

23

Main Course of Action

I knew it wasa bad idea, but I didn’t have another. Not if I was going to salvage this.

I hailed a taxi, told the driver to head to the Olive Branch down in SoHo, and found myself in front of the hopping restaurant not twenty minutes later. Without a plan. The doors were all pulled wide, the windows open to let in the evening summer air. The patrons at night were a world away from the ones I’d seen at lunch, all trendy young people in their new glittery fashions, snapping photos of their food while barely eating a bite—and most plates only had a bite on them. I felt more out of place than I had felt in a while, and that almost stopped me from going inside at all, but then I steeled myself, and thought about what my aunt said—

“Pretend to belong until you do.”

The hostess stopped me at the front of the house and asked for my reservation name. That was my first hurdle. I didn’t have one, obviously, and she wouldn’t let me into the restaurant if I didn’t. SoI pulled back my shoulders and raised my chin, and pretended with the best of them. “I’m here to see James.”

The woman’s eyes widened. She gave me a once-over. “And you are...?”

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