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“I only say ‘thanks’ when I believe the compliment is sincere.”
I placed my hand over my heart. “That hurts, Snookie. Is it hard for you to believe that I’ve had a hard time thinking straight since you stepped out of this elevator upstairs? Like seriously, were you trying to kill me up there? Had me and my brothers wanting to do anything you asked.”
She said quietly, “Except give me back my dream.”
I touched her heel with my shoe. “I used to be your dream.”
Spirit’s neck jerked so hard.
I quickly blocked my face. “Wait...wait...I have a point before you slap me again. I used to be your dream many moons ago. Since then, your dream has shifted to something better than who I was. That’s all I’m offering. A shift in your dreams. The restaurant is still yours, okay? We’ll work through everything step by step. If you don’t like something, we’ll discuss it and come to a compromise.”
“I need the name to stay.”
I nodded my head. “Fine. Café Kimble, ain’t it. Come up with something else using your family name.”
Her forehead wrinkled and then relaxed. “Embers by Kimble. It even rhymes.” She tapped my shoe. “Come on, you know it’s catchy.”
“Okay. Embers by Kimble.” I admitted grudgingly. “It is catchy.”
She finally unfolded her arms. “If I agree to this, will you bother the living shit out of me?”
“If you mean, will I be hands-on during the renovations, then yes. After the restaurant opens, I’m out of your braids.”
She giggled.
I jammed my hands in my pocket. “I was beginning to think I couldn’t make you smile anymore. I used to love to make you laugh when we were kids.”
Spirit shrugged and dropped her gaze to her heels. “I was a silly girl with stars in her eyes for the wrong boy, who couldn’t see what everyone else could see.”
“And what was that?” I knew what she would say but had to hear it from her.
“That you were just being nice to the smart, geeky girl next door.”
“The fact that sometimes I hated football practice because I couldn’t walk home with you or that when you finally started high school, suddenly my junior year felt brighter, does that seem like I was only being nice to the smart, geeky girl next door?”
She suddenly crossed the small space and pulled my head down to kiss the fuck out of me. Her tongue quickly found mine. She caressed the back of my neck as she kissed me. My arms crossed her back, and I hugged her to me, relishing her soft, strawberry-flavored gloss and how she boldly explored my mouth. I moaned loudly. My hand drifted to the edge of her dress, and I began raising the material.
Spirit broke the kiss, pushed me away, and hit the button to open the elevator doors. “I’ll sign the papers tonight, and the restaurant will close for renovations this weekend.” She stepped over the threshold and held the door. “I always wanted to kiss you like that. Now, I can truly let go of that foolish dream of you and move on. We can talk later about the details of the renovation. It’s getting late, and I have plans.”
She sauntered away, and I yelled, “It better not be with a man.”
Spirit only waved her hand in the air and never looked back.
As the elevator doors closed, I realized that this was the second time she walked out on me today. There would not be a third time.
Chapter 4
Spirit
February 17
For the past month, the renovations were moving slower than we wanted. I was anxious to get back to work. Catering jobs helped, but it didn’t feel the same as cooking for the customers who loved my restaurant. The more the contractor worked on another area, the more he found a new problem that cost money and added an extension to the time to complete. Yesterday, he said I needed a new roof because he found termites.
I wanted the restaurant to be fully renovated by the end of March so that we had most of April to re-orient staff to the new area and train new staff. I stayed away from the restaurant as much as possible whenever Jace was supposed to be there. We would chat briefly by phone or in passing as either he or I was leaving. Any conversation longer than that inevitably led to a disagreement. He was particular in his vision, which often countered mine. I wanted wooden tables. He wanted tables with different abstract patterns. We finally compromised to have both and will decide on the best way to place them once the tables were delivered. I won the battle of having dark purple leather on the bar seats when he wanted a drab brown when I pointed out that the purple would bring out the hints of purple from the abstract backsplash behind the bar.
I argued hotly about the addition of a coffee bar. We had a regular bar and served coffee and hot cocoa. That was more than enough. He insisted that serving a variety of coffees, especially with cannabis or CBD, would attract people on the way to work since people walk past the restaurant every day. He won that argument when the staff cheered once he introduced the idea since most of my staff were Starbuck enthusiasts anyway.
As a chef, I’d been at home trying new recipes and adding a dab of Delta-9 THC from vials that Jace brought me one day from a recent trip to Vegas. We had to be careful to follow the state regulations since marijuana wasn’t legal here. Cannabis had been considered a controlled substance and an arrestable offense until 2019 for all marijuana. Now, as long as we remained under a certain low dose of THC, we could use it. Today, since the kitchen at the café was completed yesterday, I planned to experiment in the restaurant kitchen and get someone to sample it besides my neighbor, John, who loved being my test taker.
