“Has it been that bad?”
I jump at Lola’s question and force a smile as she comes back to my table. “It’s been fine. I don’t know if anyone here fits my clientele, but maybe I’ll get lucky. At least people have liked my food.”
“Of course they have!” She squeezes my elbow, and her expression softens. “You’re amazing, Savannah, and sooner or later the world is going to figure that out. Now.” She rubs her hands together, a bit of mischief entering her eyes. It’s such a familiar expression—so much like Logan—that my stomach twists into a knot. “Give me your best pitch, and I’ll let you know if and where you can improve it.”
Logan’s nowhere in sight, and a quick glance at my phone tells me he’s read my last text. What’s taking him so long?
Feeling slightly nauseous, I try to keep my focus on Lola as I stumble through what I’ve been telling people all night, telling her about my questionnaire and how I target the specific dietary needs of each client.
Lola purses her lips. “Well, your ideas are spot on. The goal is to make people realize they can’t live without you. Just like me.” She winks, pulling a little laugh out of me. “But nothing is going to do that better than confidence. Standing tall and letting the world know that you’ve earned your place in it.” Straightening her shoulders and lifting her chin, she demonstrates what she’s saying.
And reminds me so much of her son that I almost blurt out that he’s here and wants to talk to her.
“I’ll…” I choke on my words. Swallowing, I search the room one more time, but when I don’t see Logan, I do my best to follow Lola’s instructions and stand up straight. I’m not going to let him ruin this for me. “I’ll be sure to work on that for next time. If you can’t live without me, no one else can either.”
Grinning, Lola puts both her hands on my shoulders and gives me such a look of pride that I feel it down to my toes. “That’s the spirit! But there’s still time tonight. Who haven’t you talked to yet? Let’s go find you some clients.”
For the final few minutes of the night, I try to dazzle every person Lola introduces me to, including her partner at the firm. Only one or two of the people I talk to seem genuinely interested, but that doesn’t stop me from giving the best pitches of my life. My enthusiasm is as much to convince them to hire me as it is to keep my mind off the fact that Logan still hasn’t shown up.
He hasn’t texted again either.
I don’t know if I should be relieved that my relationship with Lola is intact, frustrated that I was nervous for nothing, or worried that he’s not here, which means I’m mostly just dizzy when I get back to my table.
“You were fantastic!” Lola tells me, her attention shifting to her phone. She sighs. “Looks like I need to go back upstairs to put out a fire. I can send my assistant down to help you with all this if you need.” Gesturing to my many boxes and containers, she frowns at the mess I get to deal with now that all the food has been eaten.
“I’ll be okay,” I tell her, hoping I won’t have to haul everything back to my car on my own. “Thank you so much for inviting me tonight, Mrs. Shafer.”
“Of course!” She takes a few steps but pauses, throwing a warm smile back at me. “And you can call me Lola, if you’d like. I think we can call ourselves friends now.”
As I watch her head through the doors, I have to grab the edge of the table to keep from swaying where I stand. I should be glad that she’s so comfortable with me, but her gesture of familiarity is only going to make things worse if she finds out about Logan. She’ll see my friendship with him as a betrayal of my friendship withher. I’ll cause her pain, which is so much worse than losing her business and connections.
A tingle of awareness runs up my spine, and I turn to the doors on the opposite end of the room. Logan leans against one of the frames with his hands in his pockets and his eyes on the place Lola disappeared. He would be the epitome of calm and casual if not for the panicked look in his eyes and the tight set of his jaw.
I still don’t know how to feel about his failure to return on time, so I try to ignore him, tossing trays and utensils into a bin with a lot less care than I usually give my supplies.
He comes to my table with his eyebrows furrowed and his shoulders tense. “How can I help?”
He’s not okay. I’ve seen Logan in a lot of different moods, but I’ve never seen him look so…small. There’s not a trace of his usual confidence, and I can’t help staring at him, wishing I could read his thoughts and understand what kept him away.
“What happened?” I ask, ignoring his question. “Why didn’t you come back inside sooner?”
“Got a phone call?”
I lift an eyebrow. “Was that a question?”
“More of a lie.” He ducks his head. “I couldn’t do it.”
His honesty catches me off guard, leaving me momentarily speechless. First he apologizes yesterday, now he’s being vulnerable and open. What’s he going to do next—start actively finding me new clients or find me a better kitchen to work in? I’m not sure I’d be able to hold a professional boundary if he did something like that.
Biting the inside of my lips, I search for a way to lighten the mood and say the first thing that comes to mind. “Are you telling me you chickened out?”
He looks up, a bit of a defiant glint sparking in his eyes. “Dogged it,” he corrects, which I’m assuming means the same thing. “I’m sorry. I know you risked a lot tonight.”
At least he recognizes that, though it doesn’t explain what held him back. “Isn’t talking to Lola the whole reason you came to California?”
“Maybe.” He actually looks sheepish as he shifts his weight, hunching his shoulders. “Yes. Call me gutless if you want. I took the coward’s way out, and I hate that I blew this chance to give my parents peace of mind.” He exhales slowly, uncertainty creeping into his expression now.
Seeing him so unsure of himself is doing something to my insides, crumbling the part of me that has tried to keep her distance from this man. He may have an ego big enough to need its own zip code, but underneath that cocky exterior is a manwho’s harboring a lot of emotion that I’m guessing he doesn’t know what to do with.
