She walkedto her station and started prepping her portion of tonight’s service.Thankfully, that ended her bothering me about Wyatt.
Argh.
Althoughnow that I was here, I remembered that I needed to find Wyatt and talk to himprivately.
Iabandoned my prep work and headed out to find him.
“Whereare you going?” Dillon called after me.
Withoutlooking back, I said, “Wouldn’t you like to know?”
“He’sin the cooler,” she said in a quieter voice.
“Howdo you know?”
Shenodded at the kitchen clock. “He’s doing inventory.”
Sureenough, it was the right time and day for him to be counting all the thingsthat needed to be refrigerated and order what we didn’t have or more of what requiredrestocking.
Iturned away from his office and headed the other direction to the giant walk incooler. “Better bite him more discreetly this time.”
Iheld up my middle finger and wished a rash to her underboobs. Take that, smartass.
Wyattwas squatting when I found him, reaching to the very back of a shelf. Ishivered, and not because of the cold. The air changed with him so close. Ittensed and sparked and amplified every nervous emotion rushing through me.
Heturned his head when the doors opened. He nodded to acknowledge my presence andwent back to fishing for missed leftovers.
“Hey,Wyatt. Can we talk for a minute?”
Heturned around to look directly at me, his eyes dark and ambiguous andunreadable in the poor light of the cooler. “We’ve needed to talk a lotlately.”
Hisobservation made me itchy. I didn’t know how to respond to that. Or even how tothink about it.
Wehad needed to talk a lot lately. That was normal between chefs and their souschefs.
ButWyatt and I weren’t normal, and none of our recent talks felt normal either. Itwas probably best if I fled this restaurant as quickly as possible. Especiallybecause I couldn’t even name what was going on between us. Only that it wasn’tnormal or appropriate or even in the realm of usual for either of us.
“Ican come back at a different time…?” I offered timidly.
Hestood up slowly, inch by slow inch, until he towered over me. “Now’s fine.”
Clearingmy throat, I had a second of panic that I still sounded like a man. My morningvoice had mostly disappeared after two cups of coffee and a Fiber One bar, butnow I was too nervous to use it. Not a common trait for me.
DamnDillon and Vera—getting inside my head. I was perfectly content to hate Wyattin the normal way before they ever said anything. And now I was second guessingall my loathing for him because of other people’s opinions. Dumb. It was dumb.And I wanted us to go back to normal.
Thatmeant ignoring my friends altogether and focusing on our usual relationshipstatus—enemies. Mortal, arch, ride or die enemies.
“What’sup?” He crossed his arms and faced me. Suddenly, I felt very nervous.
Ibit his finger and now I could never be his mortal enemy again. How stupid wasthat?
“Iwanted to make sure I could have Sunday evening off.”
Hisface scrunched up. “What day is it today?”
“Friday.”
“Andyou want Sunday off?”
