If Mom is looking out for me from up above, she must’ve been napping a few nights ago when I gave into Wilder again.
There are a thousand factors I could blame. Stress, nerves—hell, I think I could blame hormones a second time. There are so many of those fuckers, surely more than one or two combinations of them could’ve led me astray here.
But no matter how many times I’ve beat myself up for what happened between us, it hasn’t changed the fact that it happened.
Even worse, it hasn’t changed the fact that I feelunbalancedrather than satisfied afterward.
It’s twice now he’s brought me the best orgasms in recent memory, and it’s twice now I’ve walked away from that man, leaving him hard as the stainless steel counters in the back of the kitchen.
His low gravel still resonates in my ears all these days later.
You’re not getting my cock until you beg for it.
I feel the zing of his words through the rest of me too.
Yeah, sure, maybe when I reached for his cock it was out of an age-old habit of repaying the favor with my hookup of the evening. Tit for tat and all that.
But there was no tat.
Just tit.
And I have been oddly off-kilter since.
Being this out of whack over the person I can’t stand is making me crazier than usual, but not a chance in hell I amgoing to beg him for the chance to get him off, so I’m just going to have to live with this new state of equilibrium.
To add insult to injury, the soft opening today (friends and family only, so basically the entire town) was an absolute smashing success.
Not a single fire, not in the front of house or back of house.
Nothing I can get rid of him over, or even complain about.
With so many staff here today, we may have bumped into one another a few times (Tracy still forgets to saycornerevery time she’s rounding a corner), even the pessimist in Weston’s girl Amelia couldn’t say today has been anything other than killer.
As the manager, I’ll need to help out in the restaurant however it’s needed. If we’re packed, I’ll wait tables. If we’re backed up, I’ll run food out to waiting customers, which is apparently called expediting. Stupid fucking word for it, but whatever.
But usually, I’ll get to do what I did for most of today and both welcome guests and check them out in between my list of tasks Rory likes to callmanagerial duties.
It’s as I’m wrapping up the last of those duties for today’s shift when I make my way to the front of the restaurant.
Gracie, Ronnie, Rory, and Wyatt are at a four-top by the front windows, the last ones here, lingering over dessert.
“Twice in one day!” I say to my sister.
Our first customer of the day, and now our last. She winks at me, smiling.
“Compliments to the chef!” my best friend’s husband calls out, rubbing a hand on his stomach in the most cliché stock photo you’ve ever seen.
Married couple at a diner, enjoying their meal.
Good thing his best friend balances his cheese factor out.
“Yeah, Lex. Didn’t find a single hair in my food.” Wyatt’s scruff twitches, which means he’s probably trying to be funny.
“Oh, stop it,” Rory whispers to him, then turns back to me.
I can’t help but notice her cream silk blouse doesn’t have even a drop of salad dressing on it. If I hadn’t seen Mom bring her home from the hospital, I’d wonder if we were really related.
“You killed today, Alexis. My salad at lunch was phenomenal, and I don’t even mean by local standards.”
