Page 91 of Knockin' Boats
Charity chuckled. “I bet not.”
“If Sawyer hadn’t come by and barged in to help unasked, I might have totally melted down.” I shook my head, smiling. I could see the whole situation with more amusement now. Even the part where Sawyer saved my ass while supposedly hating me.
He hadn’treallyhated me, even then. A lot of guys—guys without grudges—would have shrugged it off as not their problem. They would have let me drown on my own.
Not Sawyer.
“This Sawyer guy must have been a great assistant, huh?” Charity said. “I feel like I have big shoes to fill.”
I barked a laugh. “Uh, no. He was kind of the opposite.”
She raised her eyebrows. “But you keep bringing him up. I just assumed you missed him.”
Imayhave mentioned him once or a dozen times while we were prepping and loading the boat.
Sawyer was my only frame of reference for working with someone on the boat, of course. But it wasn’t just that. He wasSawyer.I did miss his snarky mouth, his bossy opinions, his winding me up only to kiss the crap out of me. Not to mention the skinny dipping…
Couldn’t make out or skinny dip with Charity, could I? She wasn’t likely to grab me by the throat and make me so hard my head spun.
“Oh. Uh. Well.” How to explain? “We’re old friends. He was just helping out on the boat temporarily, not as a chef. He was a pain in the ass, really, but he did make me see I needed to tweak my menu and figure out what people really wanted. Find a way to blend what I want to prepare with what people want to order.”
“Ah. Yeah. I saw a few of the menu items.” Charity’s eyes twinkled. “Those are some interesting dish names.”
I laughed. “Yeah, well, when you can’t beat the backwater hicks, you join them, right? I can say that because I’m a backwater hick, born and bred.”
“Oh yeah?” She laughed. “Well, me too. And I love the Nauti Fries you’ve got on there. It’s so clever, because those fries are gourmeted the fuck up.” She covered her mouth. “Ope. Sorry for cussing.”
“Cuss up a storm. I sure will when we get busy.”
She chuckled. “Okay, cool.”
“Yeah, I tried calling them truffle artisan fries my first week. That didnotfly. But the worst thing was my spicy sweet potato and beet sandwich.”
She winced. “Tough sell?”
“The toughest. I don’t think there’s a lake pun that would sell that one. It was delicious though. Even Sawyer liked it, and he—” I stopped short and smiled sheepishly. “Sorry.”
“Don’t be,” she said. “Now that I know he’s a friend and not some sort of chef competition, I’m good.”
Charity was great, and we worked well side by side. It was an adjustment when the first orders came in. She initially took a few of them, but it became clear she didn’t have the knack for charming customers that Sawyer did from years of boat tours.
Instead of her handling all the orders and me handling all the food, we ended up taking it in turns. We stumbled over each other’s toes a few times. It was a small kitchen, and we didn’tknow each other’s rhythms, but toward the late afternoon we finally synced up.
When a boat motor came into earshot an hour after the lunch rush, Charity hopped up. “I’ll get this one.”
I was in the middle of scraping down the grill, so I nodded my thanks and carried on.
“Hey, welcome to Master Bites,” Charity said. “Have you all been to our food boat before?”
“I have,” Sawyer answered. “But these other folks are new to it.”
“Okay, well?—”
“Sawyer, hey!” I hip-checked Charity out of the way so quickly she flew two feet across the kitchen. Whoops. She was so tiny. “What brings you over this way?”
Sawyer waved to the tourists on the boat. “I got some hungry guests. They wanted to check it out.”
“I’m not that hungry,” a kid on the boat said.
