“I know,” I said. “You told me.”
I didn’t believe her, but she had told me.
She tilted her head to the side, her brow furrowed. “Is there something else wrong?”
Yes.
My fingers curled over my bottom hand, and I struggled to hide my wince as my nails pressed into the skin there. “No,” I lied. “I’ve just been tired.”
She blew out a breath. “That car accident probably scared the daylights out of you, huh?”
I swallowed the lump in my throat. “Yes, it was scary.”
“Chef Kolby!” someone hollered on the other side of her door. “Weren’t the chickens supposed to be in the oven already?”
Marg’s face twisted before she looked up at the ceiling and prayed to her late husband. The door opened behind me, and I twisted in the chair to look, finding Felix’s eyes looking down at me.
“Chef, did you need something?” Marg asked, leaning back in her chair.
Felix answered her but kept his eyes on me. “I need to speak with Angel about the menu for next week.”
“Can it wait?” Marg asked, impatient.
His eyes flicked up to hers behind his glasses. “No. Dinner is in two hours. We have to prepare, and I’ll be unavailable tomorrow.”
Marg let out a tired sigh.
I turned back to face her, raising my brows in a silent question.
She waved me off. “We’ll talk after the dinner shift, dear.”
I gave her a flat smile and followed Felix into the walk-in fridge. This was the first time I’d been alone with him since the accident. He shut the door behind us, folded his arms across his chest, and gave it to me. “I did this to you.”
I jerked back. “What?”
He looked me up and down. “This is my fault.”
With a small shake of my head, I put my hands on my hips. “I’m sorry, Chef. I’m not following. What exactly is your fault?”
“You.”
“Me?”
“Yes, the way you’re acting.” He looked at the pile of apples on the shelf beside him. “I should’ve never sprung my shit on you like that, especially in the middle of a shift—”
I stepped forward and held up my hand. “First, what’s going on in my life isn’t because of you. Yes, your news definitely took me by surprise. I went home that night wondering what I was going to do. You gave me a choice, and I was ready to spend the weekend thinking on it.”
His lips pressed into a thin line.
“But you didn’t cause my tire to pop. You didn’t cause my car to go into a ditch. You weren’t the cause of my injury. None of that had anything to do with you.” I yanked off my hat and rolled my neck. “Margie is up my ass,” I grumbled.
“She’s worried about you,” he murmured. “We all are.”
“I just hit a bump in the road. No pun intended.” I stepped back to lean against the freezer door.
“Is your car fixed?”
I nodded. The day after Ash left, my car was returned to my driveway, fully detailed, with a new bumper, a new set of tires, an oil change, and a full tank of gas. He’d paid for everything. Upon finding this out, I demanded to know how much the costwas and wrote him a check. I asked Margo to give it to Hayes so he could give it to Ash when he got back. Margo texted the next day and said that Hayes put it on Ash’s desk. “Yeah, everything’s good,” I chirped.
