Page 213 of How to Kiss a Hawthorne Brother
It takes all my effort, but I manage to ignore Lennox’s taunting expressions while we move everything else upstairs. Twenty minutes after the four of us began, the trailer is empty, and my living room is a sea of boxes. I still have a lot to do, but the hardest part is done, and it would have taken me three times as long had I been doing it alone.
Brody offers to drop the U-Haul off at the rental place up the road on his way home, assuring me he knows the guy who works the counter, and he won’t care if I don’t bring it back myself. It’s more kindness than I expect, though I’m getting the sense this is just how the Hawthornes operate.
I watch as the three brothers work to unhitch the trailer from my SUV and hook it up to Brody’s truck. The three of them move with and around each other in a way that makes it seem as though they’ve done this countless times. Not unhitched a trailer, necessarily. It’s just clear they’re used to working together. Which makes sense. They grew up on a farm, probably doing all kinds of farm things. Mending fences. Driving tractors.Tending goats.
A mental image of Lennox, not in his chef’s whites but in a pair of ratty jeans and a faded T-shirt, dirty and sweaty from a day of manual labor, pushes into my mind’s eye. I swallow against the sudden dryness in my throat, and a tiny sheen of sweat breaks out across my forehead. I wipe it away with a grunt of frustration.
“Okay,” Perry says, clapping his hands together and snapping my attention back to the present. “You’ve got Olivia’s number if anything comes up. And Lennox is almost always around the restaurant. I’m sure he’d be happy to help you with anything youneed,” he says, shooting his brother a questioning look. “Won’t you, Lennox?”
“So happy,” Lennox repeats, his voice thick with sarcasm. “Enormouslyhappy.”
I frown. Lennox is having way too much fun tormenting me.
Perry looks from Lennox to me, then back again. “Right. Okay,” he says, his amused tone implying he has no idea what to make of us.
Well that makes two of us, Perry. I don’t have a clue either.
The thing is, even though it was a late-night, possibly wine-induced impulse that made me apply for the Stonebrook catering job, I can’t pretend knowing Lennox was here didn’t play into my decision. I’d just had a horrible argument with Dad, and the idea of working on the other side of the country sounded blissful. But I was also tired of feeling like everything in my life was so . . . I don’t know. Fake? Scripted? Like I was just some set piece Dad could move around at will.
Back in school, Lennox was the one person who didn’t seem to care that I had a famous father. He was never afraid to be honest, and right now, I’m craving honesty like it’s water, and I’m stranded in the desert without a canteen.
Perry heads up the hill toward the giant, white farmhouse looming in the distance—I assume this is where the main offices are—leaving me alone with Lennox.
“Thanks again for your help!” I call to Perry’s retreating figure, hoping again that I haven’t already done irreparable damage to my reputation in the eyes of my employer.
Lennox leaves too, heading toward the opposite side of the building and the front entrance of his restaurant. He turns and takes a few backward steps. “See you around, Elliott,” he calls.
Elliott?
I might as well be right back in the kitchen at the Southern Culinary Institute, watching him saunter off with his flavor ofthe week while I’m working harder and longer to get my flambé perfectly torched.
“Not if I see you first,Hawthorne,” I yell to his retreating form.
He turns around. “Hawthorne. Sounds familiar. Almost like it’s the name of averysuccessful restaurant.” He makes a show of looking at the wood and metal sign overhead, the nameHawthornegleaming in the late afternoon sun. “Oh wait. Is that the name ofthisrestaurant?” He grins wide. “Dinner’s on me if you want to come in tonight. I’ve heard the filet is delicious.”
He disappears into the restaurant, and I barely keep myself from shaking my fists with a frustrated harrumph.
The nerve of that man. The gumption. The stupid sexy arrogance.
“No,” I amend as I stomp toward the back door. “He’snotsexy. Definitely, definitely NOT sexy.”
Chapter Three
Tatum
I pace around theoversized pantry at the back of my kitchen and take slow, even breaths, a lame and completely ineffective way to calm my racing heart. Just outside, my staff is gathering, ready to meet me for the first time.
I was standinginthe kitchen until five minutes ago when a sudden bout of nerves had me darting into what I thought was my office to hide.
To be fair, my office door is only a few feet away from the pantry, so it was an honest mistake. But there are already so many people here, I can’t correct it now. My only option is to stay and hope everyone thinks I came in here on purpose.
Thereissomething soothing about the familiar, earthy smells filling the enormous room. I’ve never worked in a restaurant with a pantry storage this size, though this one makes sense since it serves two kitchens. Crates of fresh produce line one entire wall. Potatoes, onions, leeks, mushrooms. Brussels sprouts still on the stalk hang from a shelf nearby, and bunches of garlic adorn hooks near the door. There are nuts and grains of every kind. Oils and vinegars, and every spice you can imagine.
There’s something magical about the possibilities that fill this room. Maybe it isn’t such a bad place to hide after all.
I pick up a perfectly ripe tomato, sliding my thumb across the tender flesh. I haven’t toured the gardens yet, but Olivia gave me the impression during one of our many conversations that almost all of the produce used on the farm is grown on location, either in the expansive kitchen garden just behind the restaurant, the greenhouse on the other side of the farmhouse, or in one of the many commercial fields that feed the wholesale side of Stonebrook’s operations.
I suppose that’s the whole idea offarm-to-tabledining, though most restaurants who make the claim aren’t actually locatedONthe farm. That’s probably part of Hawthorne’s charm. That, and the restaurant’s incredibly annoying chef.
