Page 22 of Change My Mind
“You’re early,” he said.
“Yeah, I didn’t want to get stuck into anything and then forget about this completely. So, when I got back from my workout, I found myself with nothing to do. Figured I would come here and see if you needed a hand?”
My skin heated as my memory unhelpfully conjured up the image of her in three-legged dog, which was almost a standing split for her.
“You any good with baking?” Kayla asked. Addie turned on her heels to look at her.
She smiled. “Are you the pastry chef extraordinaire?”
“Kayla. Are you Adrienne or Clara?”
“Adrienne. But call me Addie. I’m much more likely to answer. As to whether I am any good at baking, it depends. What do you need, and are there instructions to follow?”
“I need chocolate fondants. Although, surprise, they ooze white chocolate.”
“That…sounds complicated,” Addie said, her eyebrows pinching together. Kayla looked down at the rolled pastry in front of her.
“Okay, could you make an apricot tart?”
“That sounds much more manageable.” Addie smiled, and Kayla sagged with relief. She told me she would be fine preparing everything on her own, but maybe she was finally realising just how big a mountain it was to climb without assistance.
“You might have just saved me more grey hair.”
“Between you and Eli over there, I’m thinking this professional kitchen life might be more stressful than being a lawyer. Are you sure you’re good to still work here, Dad?” Addie joked. Or at least I think she thought she was joking, but the tone was off. Her eyes lookedworried.
“I don’t know if you’ve noticed, macaroon, but I don’t have a grey hair anywhere in this head of hair,” Darren said, shaking his head of dark brown curls to illustrate his point.
I smiled at the term of endearment. I wanted to know the story behind that one.
“I noticed, Dad. I just assumed Mum hooked you up with a good hair stylist who was nailing the dye job.” That time, the joke landed. She pulled a black silk scrunchie down from her bicep, gathered her braids and tied them up. I averted my gaze from where the hem of her deep green dress was riding up to the top of her thighs. Although looking at her arms as they flexed to get her hair up was somehow worse.
“Let me go find the recipes and then show you where everything you need is,” Kayla said, bringing my focus back.
“I need more onions,” Darren said, putting his knife down quickly and disappearing, leaving me and Addie alone.
The back of my neck started heating up.
“Your sauce okay?” she asked, nodding her head at the saucepan.
“Oh.” I looked at the red wine reduction and quickly assessed the damage by dipping a knife in and tasting it. Almost perfect. “Yeah, it will do. Thanks for agreeing to help Kayla.”
“It’s nothing. I’m happy to help if I can. What was my dad saying wasn’t his story to tell?”
“Something about how the first time you did a menu tasting, it didn’t end well because none of you liked the chef?”
She snorted. An ugly sound that scrunched her nose up. “Oh, yeah, I heard about that. I wasn’t here because I had to go back to Montreal for school. But the original chef for this place was trash. We did like him. Then we didn’t. Not my story to tell.”
“That doesn’t bode well for me, then.”
It seemed neither of us were quite nailing the joking tonetoday. My nerves bled through, and I sounded depressingly serious, like I was clamouring for praise instead of being self-deprecating.
“No, it doesn’t. I’ve spent the last however many days bad-mouthing you to everyone who would listen,” Addie replied instantly. Her eyes were ruthless jade bullets staring at me.
My blood ran cold. I felt my shit attempt at a smile fall off my face. I thought we were in a good place. But no, I was so fucked. If this job fell apart, then I didn’t know what I was going to do. Finding chef jobs was a nightmare at the best of times. But for the last six weeks, I had been given a taste of a healthy working environment, and I didn’t know how I was going to let that go.
Addie’s eyes cooled, and concern softened her features.
“Oh, shit. No. Don’t do that. Don’t get dejected. I’m sorry. I was joking. Completely joking. I’ve actually been telling everyone that what you’re doing sounds really exciting. Because it does. And if I said otherwise, literally everyone I know would tell me I am full of shit and ignore me for…well, that doesn’t matter. It was a joke. I don’t even know why I said it. Now is clearly not the right time to try and make a joke.”
