Page 11 of Challenged By You
I want to take the time to have it out here and now, but the beeping of my phone reminds me I have less than ten minutes to get to the station. “Fine. You want a lesson in the reality I live? It starts now.” I don’t wait for him to respond before I turn my back and begin sprinting.
Curses follow me, but I have to make that train. I’ve already dipped into this month’s savings too much to afford to pay my mother more overtime watching my children. Barely winded, I duck inside the doors of the majestic Grand Central station. I ignore, as I do every night, the beauty built by Cornelius Vanderbilt as I head toward my track. Behind me, thundering footsteps even out as Jonas catches up. “Where are we going?” He barely sounds out of breath, much to my annoyance.
“We’re taking the 6 train.” I groan, realizing my smart-ass comments from the other day means I’ll have a companion for the ride home tonight. Despite not being entirely comfortable with Jonas Rice following me, I’ll have close to forty minutes on the train to explain why he’s going to have to find an Uber to head back to wherever he lives.
“Did we miss it?” he asks politely.
“No, but we will if you don’t have a MetroCard though.”
Raising a dark brow, he slides his hand into his pocket. Pulling out his phone, he flips it around, displaying the tap-and-go app. “Covered.”
I don’t bother with the million and one questions I have. I figure those can wait for the relative quiet of the ride out to Parkchester.
Slapping my card against the reader, I slide through the turnstile and wave to the night guard, letting out a sigh just as the train pulls up. Jonas steps up next to me silently, almost like a sentry guarding me.
The train is mostly empty at this time of night, and I scurry toward two seats facing one another so I can be looking at him when he provides his explanation. Somehow, I suspect I’m going to need every advantage with this man.
Jonas drops into the seat across from me. “After we talked, your words kept repeating on me.”
“Rather like sauce that was too acidic?” When a slow smile breaks out across his face, I almost wish it hadn’t. I really didn’t need to see what humor does to his all-too-serious good looks. “I’m sorry, I interrupted.”
Just then, the train pulls out of Grand Central. Our bodies lurch to one side before righting. “Please continue.” I pitch my voice a little louder against the rhythmic churning of the train on the tracks.
“I went back and reviewed some of my more…harsh critiques. And then I went to my editor with a proposition. I’d like to do a spotlight interview of you, Chef Paxton. This includes some of the struggles you mentioned about balancing your professional and personal life. For the next thirty days, I want to do a food investigation of the way you live in New York—from the neighborhoods you frequent, to your eating habits, to the types of groceries. I want to focus on the restaurants in the area you live in in my column. Perhaps you might be able to suggest one or two?”
My jaw falls open when Jonas goes on to admit, “I realized there’s a whole New York I had no idea about until you ever so eloquently reminded me of it the other day. There’s the New York I’ve been writing for and the New York most people live in.”
“That’s very…”
“Yes?” The night hides his features as we pass through a dark section of the subway, but I hear the tension in his voice.
“Kind.” Because it is. “You could have walked away from my snooty remarks and given no further thought about it, but because you did, a lot of people are going to benefit from it.”
“I hope so.”
There’s silence between us for a few moments while I absorb his words. Then I ask, “Why are you here tonight? I’m certain you have a home.”
Maybe it’s fate, but as we pull into the next stop, Jonas’s face is lit when he gives me an answer that both thrills and terrifies me. “You,” he answers, just before passengers shift on and off the train, interrupting our conversation for the moment.
Chapter 5
Jonas
“Me?” Trina repeats incredulously. “What do I have to do with this?”
How do I explain the way her words tormented me as they replayed in my head after she sauntered back into the kitchen, that they caused me to spend the night in self-reflection, not liking the conclusions I drew about myself?
Before I presented my idea to my uncle, I ran it by Julian. Something settled deep inside of me when he recalled, “Remember how Mom used to drop us off with Lucy and Karlson so she could work the late shift? Or she’d take us to the street fairs that were free on her days off?” The one-two punch of memories too long buried laid over top of what I witnessed behind the scenes at Seduction solidified what I needed to do—find that core of humanity I lost somewhere between Mom’s death and my last article.
Even as memories of Mom bundling me and Julian in jackets over our jammies with our favorite stuffed animals, then walking us down a few floors to my uncle’s apartment before she would scurry to her shift at the hospital play like a movie reel inside my head, I answer Trina’s question. “You made me remember things I forgot—a very different world I once loved.” Because part of me died the day I was told my mother was gone, quite possibly the best part.
Instead of probing me about what I mean, she focuses on the practicality of the situation. “What does this little experiment of yours entail?”
The rocking of the train back and forth, the shadows we’re cast in, the light that bounces off her long blonde hair cast an intimacy around us I’m certain she wouldn’t normally permit. “I’ve been granted a stipend for the duration.” I quickly name the amount I researched for executive chefs in New York City to make certain the figures were accurate.
Trina snickers. “Generous, aren’t they?”
I frown. “What do you mean?”
