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The beach here is beautiful, the sand a clean white, and the midday tide is in, making it a thin strip of white that cleanly divides the great blue from the beige and gray of the city. Jake looks out over the water. “I’d love to start my own gym,” he says, quietly, smiling a little even though his tone seems sad. “But I have some pretty big shoes to fill and it’s my job to fill them.”
“Your dad, you mean?” I lean against the railing with my back to the ocean as he leans to face it.
“The one and only, the great and powerful Reginald Ferry,” Jake announces, as if his father personally brought in the tide. “He thinks the idea of a gym is childish and poorly thought out. Most small gyms never come close to making a profit. I wouldn’t even need it to, frankly, but… Reginald doesn’t appreciate most things that don’t turn a profit.”
I frown; he sounds like he’s talking more about a boss than a father. “You call your dad by his first name?”
Jake shrugs. “Names like ‘Dad’ and even ‘Father’ never really seemed to stick, and now they’re just… awkward, you know what I mean? Like it doesn’t fit.”
“I completely get that, actually.” I sigh, thinking about George and even about my actual father. It takes me a real effort to call him “Dad” and even then… it doesn’t quite roll off the tongue. “My stepfather is sort of the same. I’m not close with him, but my brothers are. They practically worship the ground he shits on.”
Jake laughs suddenly, surprised enough to snort, and there’s his handsome smile again. “They should have been born Ferrys. Reginald would love that. If he misses anything, and I’m not sure he does, he probably misses the person I was before I grew my own conscience.” He stares off across the ocean, remembering. “He seemed like a titan to me when I was younger. Like he had the answer to every question and he was this unstoppable force in the world. He never panicked, never even had to raise his voice very often. He just pointed, and things got done. I wanted to be just like him.”
“And now?” I ask. It’s an important question. There’s no way he’ll answer it honestly, and there’s no way I could believe him if he did—but I do want to know what he’ll say.
“Sometimes, now, I’m not sure I even have much of a choice.”
“That’s part of the whole reason I started Red Hall,” I say. “Not that I feel like I have to become my stepfather or anything but…” Jake looks at me, and for a moment I’m worried about opening up. It’s something I haven’t told anyone before. But he looks so benign at the moment, and so sympathetic that I go on. “I came from nothing. Broken family, narcissistic stepfather that I could never please and probably never will, and a real father that up and left when I was a kid. Red Hall, for me, is my way out of all of that. I can finally stand on my own two feet, and take care of my mother the way she needs me to because no one else is going to do it and… if I don’t succeed here, there’s just nothing for me. I do it because I have to. I love it, don’t get me wrong—it’s my pride and joy at this point in my life. It was desperation that got me where I am, though, and it still pushes me every day.”
“Desperation,” Jake says. “Yeah. That’s a word I understand.”
He’s still looking at me, like we’ve just been introduced. Like he did that first night, except with more honesty. When he leans in this time, I let him.
His lips are generous, and soft, and when they touch mine the heat of it tingles through my cheeks and down my spine. It’s a simple thing, just that little bit of contact, but it’s enough that my whole body relaxes into it and all I want is for him to wrap his arms around me and take me away and—
I pull back. “Um… I’d better…”
“Yeah,” Jake says hastily. “I can take you back. You’ve got a lot going on.”
“I do,” I say.
There’s a pause, and I know we both want to fill it with another kiss. Jake straightens, taking a step away from the railing. “I’m sorry about that, I just—”
“It’s okay,” I assure him. “Really it was… it’s been a long time for me. Good to be reminded it all still works.”
He chuckles, but he’s disappointed. Nothing I can do about that, though, other than hope that it doesn’t mean he won’t want to meet again. Do I really want to, though?
As we walk back to the restaurant and get into his car I realize that yes, yes I really do.
Fuck.
Back at the lounge, Lacey catches me when I arrive. “Where have you been? The samples are at the chef’s table.”
“Samples?”
She stares at me, aghast. “Yeah, the samples. The hot sauces, Janie, remember?”
Right. God, I’m a mess right now. Janie Hall, you need to get your priorities in order. “Right, of course. Sorry I’m late. Where’s Chester?”
“Back there already, come on.” Lacey tugs me toward the back of house. After weaving through a few patrons—dinner looks like it might actually pick up a bit tonight—and shaking a few hands she takes me to the chef’s table in the kitchen, where there are fifteen carafes with samples of hot sauces made from chilies we sourced from every corner of the globe. Even at a distance a few of them hit my nose.
Gloria wanders over from prep just as Chester is sitting down across from me, and begins to pull up a chair.
“Go man the bar, please,” I tell her.
She looks at me like I might have made a joke. When no one laughs, she sighs, and leaves the chair where it is to hop to it.
Chester at least waits until she’s gone to say anything. “She has been a nightmare all day. She won’t fucking shut up about you and Jake Ferry. Which, by the way, can I just say I can’t believe you went out with him?”
