“And I think we can officially drop the mister, Leo.”
“Okay, Walker,” he said with a big smile.
I watched him walk out the door and down the hall, and I knew that everything I’d sacrificed for this life was worth it. Even if I was exhausted and running on fumes half the time.
If tonight’s celebration was for anything other than Ozzie’s restaurant, I’d have begged off and gone home, gotten into my pajamas, wrapped myself up in a blanket burrito, and putHeartstopperon the TV. But I wasn’t done being proud of the men in my life.
* * *
OZZIE
I was stressed to the max. Mopping sweat off my brow, I glanced at Shanna, the Jamaican chef responsible for all the delicious food we were about to eat. “So… we’re good?”
“For the fiftieth time, yes,” she said, her accent similar to my mother’s, lilting and bossy and calming all at the same time.
“Has he been like this all day?” Walker asked as he strolled into the kitchen.
“He’s been like this allmonth,” Shanna grumped.
“Is he getting in your hair?”
“A little bit,” she said, pointing to her prep station, which I was currently blocking.
“Sorry—I just want it all to be perfect. I want my mom to be proud.”
Shanna put down her knife. “Your mother is going to cry big fat tears when you show her the surprise, and then she gonna cry again when she tastes this good home cooking, right?”
I nodded. “She will. She will.”
“Then get out of my kitchen before I put you on the menu.”
Laughing, Walker tugged on my arm. “Come with me to the dining room. Let me buy you a glass of wine and get you out of the way of Shanna’s knife.”
“What? No, I don’t have time for that.”
“Ozzie,” he said, using his teacher voice. “You and Joel hired the right people, here and at the bar, and they adore you. But you are driving them to drink. Let them do their jobs. Tonight is about celebrating you, not stressing youandthem out.”
Atlas wound his way to the back. “Is this one in Shanna’s hair again?”
Atlas was one of my friends from college and had a degree in restaurant management. He was hilarious and flamboyant and the perfect person to manage the restaurant. He also didn’t pull any punches when it came to my nervous hovering.
“Ozzie, darlin’, if you don’t leave the kitchen right now, I’m going to kick your ass,” he said. That would have been a feat, given that he was wearing a sheer muumuu over a bodysuit with stiletto boots.
Walker dragged me out to the small bar area. “Ozzie, baby, come on. Enjoy a glass of wine with me before somebody murders you. I happen to love you a whole hell of a lot, and that would put a damper on our relationship.”
“Fine. But only because I’m being harangued within an inch of my life by you people.”
We made our way into the main dining room, and Joel grinned as he and Tristan moved around, lighting the candles in the pretty green glass holders on each table. “He being a pest in there?”
“Shanna and Atlas have already threatened bodily harm,” Walker said, perusing the wall of wines.
“So we’re right on schedule.”
He and Walker bumped fists. Then Walk chose my favorite red, and we wound our way to the long line of tables we’d pushed together for tonight’s special guests.
I uncorked the bottle and poured generously for both of us.
“How was school?” I asked before taking a long drink.
