Page 76 of Love Me Tender

Chapter 18

“Medium rare.” Winslow punched his finger at the order ticket. “That’s, like,burned, man. What’s the matter with you? Since when do you fuck up a steak order?”

Since Rory left.

“I’ll get another going.” Grant wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. “Tell the customer we’ll comp his dinner.”

Winslow looked as if he was about to say something else, but then he turned and walked back to the dining room.

Grant tossed a raw steak on the grill. Fire and steam flared up around the meat.

In the week since Rory’s departure, he couldn’t get his brain to work right. Couldn’t seem to focus.

All he wanted was a few minutes’ break so he could call and talk to her, but he couldn’t bug her during the day at her new job, and at night she sounded so tired that they spoke for ten minutes before he ended the call so she could get some sleep.

Despite his promise to visit her, he couldn’t even pin down a date when he’d have time to drive up to San Jose. His employees had taken up a lot of slack when his parents had been in town, and he didn’t want to ask them to do it again. Not to mention, several were due for vacations and time off. Much as he wanted to be with Rory, the tavern and his employees had to be his first responsibility.

But not being able to see her, much less talk to her nearly as much as he wanted…he was almost tempted to go out a buy a damned phone so they could exchange shorthand texts with no punctuation and stupid emojis. At least that would besomething.

He got through all the dinner orders without a disaster, and they closed everything down at eleven. Grant locked the door after the last employee left. He poured himself a whiskey and brought it back to his house.

Before he’d set the glass down, he called Rory on his landline. Her voicemail picked up.

He started to speak, then stopped and set the receiver down. She’d know it was him, and what could he say, anyway?

I miss you. I love you. Why does a hundred miles feel like a thousand?

He wanted to drive up this weekend, but a server and a chef were both out, and he’d be working from open to close both days. If he left right at midnight, he’d get a few hours with her before he’d have to be back in Bliss Cove by nine.

He’d do it, too, if he didn’t know that his showing up at her door at two in the morning would screw up Rory’s schedule. She’d probably be working, anyway. Not for anything would he interfere in her new job.

His phone rang, and he grabbed it like a man in a desert diving for a bottle of water. “Rory?”

“Hi. Sorry I missed your call. I was driving back.”

“From work?”

“Yes.”

“They’re making you work this late during your first week?”

“They’re notmakingme. I just am. We don’t have set hours, and I need to stay on top of things. So I come in early and leave late.”

Grant smothered the urge to warn her about burnout. “You’re not eating tube goo, are you?”

“Not yet.” A faint smile lit her voice.

“You like it there so far?”

“I think so. I love getting back into the work. I have to get accustomed to working with a team again, though. Oh, I meant to tell you your father and I have exchanged a few emails about the software for Mariposa Street. He’s sending a test version of a program to Hunter and the design team.”

“That’s great.”

“I thought it was good of him to follow through, especially given that he wasn’t all that thrilled about Bliss Cove in the first place.” She paused. “Have you talked to him at all?”

“No. We don’t have a lot to talk about.”

“You did okay when you were fishing, and when he came into the kitchen that one time.”

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