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The math was grim, but that was the restaurant business in New York for you. An uphill battle to find a good spot, hit on the right menu, and stay open long enough to attract a following. He’d gotten lucky with Sardo. Hell, maybe it hadn’t even been luck. Maybe it had been Sandy. He wasn’t sure he could pull it off a second time.
He spotted an empty space that he liked the look of. Big for the area, with a woodpaneled ceiling that jutted out toward the sidewalk and sheltered five picnic-style outdoor tables. Tile on the porch floor, glass doors that could be left open in nice weather or closed up on a cold day, high ceilings.
Spanish theme, his brain said. Paint the walls orange and pink and red, hire Alec to do the pastry, and you could sell gazpacho and sangria, shrimp and paella. Classy.
He felt moisture against the pad of his index finger and looked down to discover that he’d picked the skin next to his thumb until it bled.
Nervous habit. His doctor had cataloged half a dozen of them. You need to find another line of work, she’d told him.
Instead, he’d found another doctor.
But he had to admit, he didn’t feel ready for another restaurant. Less than a week at Figs, and he’d been getting the headaches again, the ringing in his ears. Connor had taken one look at him and insisted they grab a beer and spend some time relaxing. You look like shit, man.
He’d felt like shit. Just being in the kitchen this morning, with the dinner service still hours away and no pressure whatsoever …
Fucked. He was fucked.
So you take yourself apart, and you put yourself back together again. It’s a mechanical process. One step at a time, like Tiger Fucking Woods.
But he was such a long way from clicking into place. Miles from being ready to have another restaurant. Leagues. Furlongs.
Light years from deserving someone like May.
“Ooh, look, a leasing office!” she said. “Let’s see what it would cost you to get an apartment around here.” She dragged him toward the window and started reading him snippets from every listing that caught her eye. “What’s a railroad apartment?”
“All the rooms are lined up like in a railroad car, with a hallway connecting them.”
“Huh. Well, it’s twen
ty-five hundred a month. Probably too much?”
“Probably.”
“So what’s your budget?”
“I’m not sure.”
She turned to him again, a frown between her eyebrows. “You’re going to have to figure this stuff out, right? Like, really soon?”
Yeah, he was. But he didn’t feel like telling her the rent wasn’t really the issue.
The issue was that he had no idea when he’d be able to reclaim the life he’d lost. He knew who he’d been and who he wanted to be, but when he looked at what he had to do to get there, there was this … gap. How was he supposed to pick a neighborhood or an apartment when he didn’t know what he’d be doing with himself in six months?
At least he didn’t need to worry about rent. He could live a long time on Sandy’s money. All he’d had to give her was his restaurant, his cookbook, and his balls on a platter.
“Seventeen hundred a month,” he said, plucking the number out of thin air. “But no railroad apartments. They make me claustrophobic.” He reached over her shoulder and tapped on the glass above a photograph of a building much like the three-story walk-ups they’d just passed. “How much is that place?”
“Twenty-two.”
He whistled. “Maybe a little more than I need.” He stepped away from the window. “Come on. Let’s keep walking.”
She followed him down the block, back toward the train station, but he didn’t like the expression on her face, and he liked it even less when she said, “Hey, Ben?”
“Yeah.”
“This might be a nosy question.”
She paused.
