“Let’s go grab some dinner,” he saidover his shoulder.
“Like a real date?”
He gave me his profile so I couldsee the smile and his beard and his gorgeous face. “Like a real date.”
ChapterTwenty-Six
I stepped inside Foodie and quicklyshut the door behind me. I wouldn’t need to open the windows to let cool air intoday. It was frigid outside.
Well, maybe not frigid, but theNovember breeze was biting as it chased the sunlight outside. I rubbed coldfingers together and wished for warmer days. I’d rather be sweaty andoverheated than frozen.
Or so I told myself now. Just waituntil the middle of summer. I might feel differently then.
I looked around the familiar spaceand brushed my fingers over the cool surfaces and smooth steel. It was going tobe one of the last times I got to stand inside her and not just because winterwas almost here.
I’d sold her.
I couldn’t believe it either.
But after much thought andconsideration and many, many business meetings, we’d decided that it was forthe best.
We were moving on from the foodtruck business and dipping our toes in the restaurant business. Or rather,plunging headfirst into the restaurant business.
Killian and me.
I smiled at my blurry reflection,unable to believe it even after all this time.
Killian and I were opening arestaurant together. Killian and I were moving in together. Killian and I were…together.
And I had never been happier.
Or more myself.
It turns out I wasn’t such a doormatafter all. I just needed the right relationship to push me. I needed the rightman to challenge me.
It was easy to stand up to Killian.Not because I didn’t care about his feelings or what he thought, but because Ihad confidence that he cared about me, that he wouldn’t leave me because of adumb fight or my unflinching opinion on how the dishwasher should be filled.
I fought back because he mattered tome. I wasn’t just surviving with him. I was living, really, truly living.
And because it weirdly turned himon.
The door opened and Vann steppedinside, closely followed by my dad. “Hey there, baby girl,” my dad greetedgently. “How are you?”
I eyed the bottle of wine in Vann’shand. “Better now that you’re here.”
Dad ran his fingers over thehammered wall. “It’s hard to believe you’re already sending her on her way.It’s like she just became part of the family. Now I have to say goodbye.”
Vann sighed. “Yeah, we’ll all missthose nights you worked us to the bone and didn’t pay us.”
I stared at my brother. “It’s reallyhard for you to sit at the window and make change? That was really difficult?”
He glared at me, but my dad steppedin and said, “Now, Vera, you know he’s more sensitive than you.”
I smothered a smile while my brothercontemplated falling on the wine bottle like a sword. My dad went on withoutnoticing.
“I should have bought her,” he said.“I could have tried my hand at this whole cooking thing. Taken her around thecountry. You know, lived out my retirement on the road.”
Vann and I shared a look. A relievedlook. It was nice to hear dad talk about the future again. He’d been throughhell with this cancer and paid the price with his health. He was practicallygaunt from how much weight he’d lost. He’d stopped looking like our dad andturned frail… old.
