Page 48 of Kiss Me Again

Grabbing a pool towel, I dry off and look at my phone. It’s the last place I saw Lily’s face.

Sighing, I watch the kids make up rules for a new game and play it badly, while they have the time of their lives. I miss that. The time when things were easy and nothing mattered except for fun. That’s where adults screw things up. We have all sorts of inconvenient rules.

Like employers shouldn’t date employees.

Lily is a woman worth breaking every rule for.

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19

Lily

A home-cooked dinner on microscopic notice. Outstanding.

As I peruse Gifford’s Grocery aisles for supplies, I can’t help but notice the ambiance. Gifford’s has been around since I was a kid, and it’s always been the same, homey place. Warm hardwood floors, some items in old barrels, but in a chic way. The lighting makes everything glow, so it looks like it’s at the peak of freshness, and being at Gifford’s means it is. Somehow, the place always smells like cinnamon rolls when I first walk in. Part of me wants to know how they manage that, but I don’t want to ruin the magic.

Walking past a barrel of melons, my mind wanders. I’m not sure what to think of Cormac asking this huge favor. I mean, it’s not like I was doing anything else—just painting my toes and preparing for an early bedtime to catch up on some sleep. But still. It’s a little rude of him to assume I had nothing going on. I mean, really. How dare he?

I should have just said I was busy. Or simply told him, “No, that’s too far outside my job description and I don’t want to be held responsible, in case things go south with the business deal.”

For that matter, “No,” is a complete sentence. I have to remind myself of that.

I don’t owe him an explanation for things that are outside my current line of work. In a perfect world, this would have never been an issue because he never would have thought to ask for such a huge favor.

In a perfect world, I’d still have my restaurant.

I’m on the hill of employment now. Someone at the top of the hill makes a demand downhill, and the next person asks the person below them to make it happen. Which is one of the many reasons I wanted to be my own boss in the first place. I grumble at the selection of seafood, like the dead fish are to blame for my predicament.

Doesn’t matter now. I said yes.

And it’s not that I mind cooking for the family or guests or whoever. I really rather enjoy that part of things. Cooking for him and the kids helps me get out my cooking urges. But the assumption—

“Hi, can I help you?” The man at the butcher counter asks.

I smile, not wanting to waste time. There will be five people, so I’ll need, “Two whole chickens, please. With the giblets, if you have them. And the necks, too.”

His eyes widen and he smiles. “Coming right up.”

I imagine it’s not every day someone asks for what most people think of as spare parts. But giblets and necks make the best gravy and a roast chicken needs a proper gravy. Standing there, I run through the list of things I’d like to accompany the roast chicken, while I wonder about Cormac. It’s not like him to absentmindedly fall into the pool, so he must be quite concerned about the investor. Which means I need to knock this meal out of the park.

The butcher passes the packages to me. “Anything else?”

“That’s it, thank you.” Onto produce. Can’t have a home-cooked meal without good produce and a dessert, and I mean to make this perfect. It’d be easy to foul it up out of my annoyance on the short notice. After all, I’m a chef. I can blame the food itself for not being good—who is going to argue with me, if I tell them the produce was of poor quality or they should have given the chicken a different feed or anything else in my realm of expertise. But I don’t want to do that. As perturbed as I was when Cormac first called, I know he wouldn’t do it without a reason.

He is worried, and I can help. I shouldn’thaveto. But I am going to. Why does this sit so weirdly with me?

In produce, some gorgeous Yukon golds catch my eye, along with the berries. Ripe, plump little things just screaming to be dessert. I grab both, along with the requisite supplies for lemonade, a delicious green salad, and steamed green beans. Simple and classic for a reason—we’re going for home-cook, not chef-cook. And hell, I have made the same meal for my kitchen crew frequently. On my way to the dairy and freezer sections, I grab a bottle of pinot gris and a bottle of rosé.

Maybe the situation sits weirdly with me because I’m the employee, not the employer. I made a point of taking care of my kitchen crew. My restaurant would not be just another place where dishwashers, bussers, hostesses all got taken advantage of…and maybe I feel a little taken advantage of in this situation. After all, I doubt he would have asked any of his other nannies to do this.

None of his other nannies were chefs. Calm down. It’s not that deep.

I huff at myself for getting overwhelmed and annoyed, and find I’m in front of the freezer section. Gluten-free puff pastry acquired, I zip to the dairy for the last few items—butter, sour cream, heavy cream, cream cheese, all the creams. Simple foods pair well with dairy.

On the way out to Mom’s Honda, a new thought hits me. Cormac trusts me. Not just with his kids—although that’s huge. But he’s used to trusting people with his kids. He askedmeto cook for his investor. He didn’t order delivery and try to pass it off as his own cooking, or call a friend. Cormac calledmeto impress someone. And I think that says something about his opinion of me. Or, at least, of my food. He knows he can count on me.

It’s that thought that I hang onto as I drive over to his place. In his opinion, I am trustworthy. Or my food is. Either way, he’s counting on me. Of all people.

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