Dillonknew me well enough by now to know my apology was sincere. She stood and nudgedmy elbow with hers. “I’m sure Mr. Random Stranger has a friend if you’re forreal. No need to be jealy of my social life. You could have one of your veryown if you didn’t work yourself to the bone every single night.”
Myheart dropped to my stomach from the weight of disappointment, because thatwasn’t going to happen. But I didn’t want to turn down Dillon yet again. We’dbeen inseparable since she started working at Lilou with me eight months ago.Our friendship was new, but strong, in the way only those friendships you waityour whole life for are strong. We had obviously been destined to meet sincethe beginning of time.
Imight not have had luck meeting a guy, but I’d been lucky enough to find myfriend soulmate and that was good enough for me.
Dillonwas a rising star in the kitchen. Her brother, Ezra, was our boss. Like the topboss. He’d put her in his five-star, Michelin award-winning kitchen shortlyafter she’d graduated culinary school.
I’dimmediately wanted to hate her. I’d assumed she was everything I loathed in thefemale world. Ridiculously gorgeous. Unfairly tall. Impossibly skinny. She hadfamily money, family connections, and family that loved her and wanted the bestfor her.
Undoubtedly,she was everything I wasn’t. I had expected her to be spoiled rotten. But morethan that, I had wanted her to be dangerously green in the kitchen andcompletely untalented. I hadn’t wanted competition. And I really hadn’t wanteda friend. Somehow Dillon turned out to be both, in the very best way.
Onthe flipside of the coin there was me. I didn’t think I was ugly, but most ofmy days were spent with a bandana over my short-ishcurly hair. I wore zero makeup, and always dressed in greasy work pants. Iwasn’t tall. And therefore wasn’t model-thin. I was short and curvy, and aballbuster thanks to a lifetime of working my ass off to get my foot in thedoor of one of the toughest, most competitive industries, in one of the bestrestaurants in the city.
Nobodyhanded me this job out of charity or familial loyalty. I’d had to fight my waypast cocky assholes who thought they were better than me—men that would chew meup and spit me out if I gave them even a millimeter of room—and the constantstereotyping of a tiny, intelligent woman that could cook circles around anyonethat wanted to go toe to toe.
Sowhen Dillon walked through the door, practically glowing with nepotism andnatural beauty, it was no surprise I despised her immediately. That lastedapproximately five minutes.
She’dset her things down next to mine and said, “I think I’m going to puke.” When I’dturned to look at her to see if she was being serious or sarcastic, she’dripped open her chef coat and started fanning her armpits. “Look!” she’d saidwith bugged out eyes, her gray undershirt drenched with sweat at only ten inthe morning. “This job is going to kill me!”
“You’llbe fine,” I had tried to reassure her.
She’dstepped into me and winced. “I’m a total basket case. My one goal today is tonot slice my thumbs off.” She’d winced again. “I need my thumbs.”
Ihadn’t been able to stop myself from laughing. “Didn’t you just graduate fromCharlotte? And doesn’t your brother own this place? You’ll be fine.”
“Yeah,I just graduated. And I was perfectly excited about getting a job at Applebee’sand then my stupid big brother was all, you can’t work there! And I was like,watch me. And then he was like, I own a bunch of restaurants, dummy. And then Iwas like, I hate you. And then more stuff happened that I can’t totallyremember and here we are.”
Itwas her armpits that had endeared her to me. She wasn’t the plastic Barbie I’dpegged her as. She was sweating, nervous, and real. I had suffered the same waymy first day at Lilou.
Okay,to be honest, I had handled myself way better than Dillon, but I never had thatchoice. I was forced to suck it up and face the kill-or-be-killed environment,especially since I didn’t have a boss-brother to run to. Not that Dillon would.She was all about making a name for herself without relying too heavily onEzra.
Still,I couldn’t blame her. Lilou was an intimidating kitchen with competent,experienced chefs. Ezra probably thought he was doing her this big favor andshe knew better than anyone that she wasn’t ready for a kitchen of thiscaliber.
Luckily,she had me. I’d shown her the ropes and helped her get settled in. Now she wascatching up to the rest of us at lightspeed, a slightly terrifying thing towatch.
Shewas good at this. Hungry for it. One day she might even be better than me if Ididn’t continue to bust my ass. That was another quality I loved about her and thathelped cement our friendship. She pushed me to be better, to get better, to notever get comfortable with what I’d already accomplished. And she would never,ever let me settle for mediocrity.
Despitehow much Dillon and I loved and supported each other, we couldn’t have beenmore different. Other than our noticeable physical differences, Dillon was the bubblysocialite, and more importantly, a kind, generous human. I preferred to keep tomyself and sleep in my bed as opposed to some random stranger’s that I’d met ata club two hours earlier.
AndI was not kind. I mean, I wasn’t necessarily mean. But there was a reason otherchefs kept their distance. I could be… prickly. Like a porcupine. Except withmy very select few friends.
Funfact: Do you know what a group of porcupines is called? A prickle. My girlswere my prickle. And that was enough for me.
Mostof the time.
“Noworries,” Dillon assured with a casual shrug. “The only man waiting for metonight is my brother. Molly wanted me to come over to their place after workand hang for a while before they leave on their trip.”
Forsome reason my stress level dropped back to normal. I came off snarky andsarcastic, and obviously I had my own set of issues, but I really was worriedabout my friend. Dillon was the most trusting human I’d ever met. If I wantedto hook up, I had an entire checklist the other party needed to fill out. Includingan appointment at the local clinic to ensure I wasn’t going to catch somethinggross and permanent. I was basically one step away from a full-on backgroundcheck before second base made it to the table for discussion.
Dillonwas the opposite. And that scared me for her and her liberal choices of bedpartners.
“Ithought they were morning people.” The words came out with a clear tone ofdisgust that she matched with a nose wrinkle and eye roll. When you worked ourhours, morning was a curse word you didn’t use lightly. But Molly and Ezra keptnormal working hours. Er, Molly did. Ezra basically worked all the time. Theywent to bed at what some might call a decent time, to ensure they could wake upat the butt crack of dawn and get all those worms the early birds were alwaystalking about.
Ipreferred tequila worms after midnight myself. But hey, to each their own.
“Usually,”Dillon agreed. “But they’re taking four weeks off for vacation and they wantedto hang out before they left.”
“Fourweeks? Holy cow. Where are they going?”
