“Poppy, stop!” he bursts out.
The force of his words startles me. I press my lips together.
“We could still be together,” he says quietly. “We could be together in New York, or anywhere else.”
“But that isn’t what I want.” It’s killing me to drag the words out, but I have to. Hot tears slip down my cheeks. “I want to be with youhere, living our lives here. That’s the future I want.”
“I can’t.”
“Can’t, or won’t?”
“Sweetheart, please.” His breath drags. “Don’t ask me to do this.”
Frustration surges through me like a jolt of electricity. He’s being stubborn. Too damn stubborn. Hating himself for what happened years ago, rather than looking to the future. I resent him for coaxing out this side of me, supporting and cultivating it, then being willing to throw it away. For refusing to see how different things are now, and how much we can gain together.
“Then maybe Sal was right. You are a coward,” I say stiffly. I blink back the film of tears, teeth digging into my lip. “Go back to the restaurant, Jack. Although just so you know, your career isn’t all you have. Not by a long shot.”
Before I lose it completely, I head for the houseboat. I press my hand against my mouth to hold in everything else I want to say, everything else I want to scream.
I don’t hear his footsteps.
He doesn’t follow me.
Chapter 47
Scalding
Jack
I don’t remember how, but eventually, I’m back at my station in the kitchen. The next rush of diners has come in, and there’s hardly time to breathe, much less think.
It’s easier not to think, anyway.
I run expo and cook like my life depends on it. It’s a blur, all of it, each dish melding into the next. I cook on pure instinct. Sweat pours down my face. I blink away the film from my eyes. Later, when this hell is over—I’ll go to Poppy. I’ll explain. I’ll find a way to make her understand how I feel, how sorry I am, because losing her would be too fucking painful. Now that I know what it’s like to have her in my life, I can’t go back.
While I was gone, Hazel jumped into expediting, so we’re not too far behind. I meant what I said to Poppy; I do care about this place being a success. I want it to go out on a high note. My pride, tattered as it is, couldn’t take anything less. I push myself to work harder and faster, despite the sting of my eyes and pit of snakes in my stomach.
As much as I try to ignore it, I keep going back to the fact I’m in this kitchen, my very first kitchen, with my menu.
This is the place where I fell in love with food, and then fell in love with a woman who resists every category, definition, and expectation. There’s no one in the world like Poppy Winfield, andshe wanted me, and I set it all on fire just as neatly and completely as I did more than a decade ago, when I could’ve had a family and chose to run. When I told myself I needed to leave for the good of my career.
She’s right. Sal was right.
I’m a coward.
But if I end up back here, even if it’s with Poppy, won’t I have ruined things with Sal all those years ago for nothing? With no way to apologize, because he’s fucking gone?
I rattle out a new set of orders. Oil splatters onto my hands, but I hardly feel it. My chef’s jacket is ruined without the buttons; I tear it off, cooking in a T-shirt and apron instead. Fire licks around the bottoms of the pans as I run three, four, five at a time. I fuss over each plate, garnishing it to death, because something cracks in my chest every time I call for hands and send a new one to the dining room.
I’m running out of time. Soon, there won’t be anything left to cook.
This restaurant won’t be mine anymore. It’ll slip through my fingers, the same as everything else ever has.
“Jack.” That’s Chester, pulling on my arm. “Jack, what’s going on? Where’s Poppy?”
“Get out of my way.” I yank my arm out of his grip, running through the dupes, categorizing them and listing them off. “You should be behind the bar.”
“Bret saw what happened.”
