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Kringle, a massive Norwegian Forest cat and extremely rare male tortoiseshell, pushed through the kitchen doors Hannah had just exited, chattering at Levi. He leapt onto Levi’s shoulders, wrapping himself like an extra scarf, and chirped again, as if in remonstrance.
“Yes,” Levi crooned to him, “I’m sorry I left you, baby. I’m here now.”
“That’s my cat,” Noelle snapped.
Because he was feeling especially raw—and because he loved to fuck with Noelle—he said, “Oh, no, he was always mine, but thank you for cat sitting.”
Noelle grimaced, disappointing him by refusing to take the bait and get into the fight he was spoiling for. She turned and left, presumably to follow Hannah.
He scanned the kitchen, which was a beautiful blue delft and in desperate need of upgraded appliances, and waited for the familiar itchy, trapped feeling to wash over him, but it didn’t come. As he hung his leather jacket on its old peg and self-consciously fixed his hair, he could feel his ghosts, but as angry as the Ghosts of Levi Past were, the ones in his present had calmed.
Mostly. They were, he had to admit, a little lonely.
In the four years he’d been gone, he’d cooked on cruise ships and yachts, and in street markets around the world, and, most recently, competed on a reality show calledAustralia’s Next Star Chef, which had just begun airing. It had been exactly the life he wanted, filled with food, adventure, friends, and success. Empty of Carrigan’s. He hadn’t missed this place, but he’d missed his parents and his girl. And though they’d kept in touch, he’d missed Miriam.
Miriam Blum was Levi’s oldest friend. She’d spent her childhood vacations at Carrigan’s, before leaving for ten years because of a rift with her parents. She was tiny, looked like a young Cher dressed as a Lost Boy, and had built a cult following for her prowess at upcycling antiques into weird art, like haunted doll heads covered in glitter glue or vanities decoupaged in women’s suffrage cartoons. She and Levi had texted, written, and video chatted, but with first her, then him staying far away from Carrigan’s, their friendship wasn’t the way it used to be.
Miriam threw her arms around him and squeezed tightly. He slid up onto one of the tall bar stools at the kitchen island and patted the one next to her before slumping onto his.
She hopped up. “C’mon, Blue, I want to hear every detail of your life of high adventure as the world’s Next Great Famous Chef.” She sounded more alive than she had for the past few years. Lighter, more playful.
He groaned, and his head fell back. No one had called him Blue in a long time, unless he counted Miri’s texts. It was a name that belonged here, even though he didn’t. To the three of them when they’d been a trio. When he, Hannah, and Miriam were kids who were going to love each other forever, no matter what. He’d run away from here to stop being that person, but it was a name that swamped him with memories and he didn’t want Miri to give up calling him that, to give up their shared past.
He reached over, pulling a piece of dried glitter glue out of her raucous dark brown curls. She always looked like a half-finished craft project. “I will tell you tales of derring-do, bad and good luck tales,” he said, “tales of the high seas! Tales of faraway lands! But first, I need coffee.”
She scooted off the high stool until her feet touched the floor and walked around the island to the coffee pot that he suspected, now that she lived here, was always on, and poured him a cup.
“Black?” she asked. “With three or four sugars?”
“I can’t help who I am,” he said.
She only shook her head at him. From under the counter, she pulled out a plate of dark chocolate–dipped macaroons his mom must have baked for tomorrow.
She set a cookie and the coffee in front of him, then planted her elbows on the counter and her head on her fists.
“Talk.”
He skipped all the pleasantries because that’s not what Miri was asking him. “What was Cass thinking?” he asked.
“I assume she was trying to get you to come home, since you didn’t seem inclined to ever do so without drastic intervention,” she said, bopping him on the nose with one finger.
“Hannah told me not to come back. I listened.”
“That’s a bullshit answer, but here you are,” Miriam told him.
“You sent Cole to find me. In Australia. It seemed the least I could do.”
Cole was Miriam’s other best friend, an amiable blond giant who had usurped Levi’s place in her affections. Cole looked like a surfer, dressed like a cast member onSouthern Charm, and did something maybe illegal with computers. He was incredibly annoying and a little scary, which was how people usually felt about Levi. Levi shook off the thought—he and Cole were nothing alike.
“But you wouldn’t have come back if you weren’t ready,” Miriam pointed out. “So what did he say that made you decide to come home? He never told me his plan.”
He cleared his throat, trying to get around the lump that was suddenly there. “He handed me a photo, of the three of us as kids, in snowsuits. Cass called us her heirs on the back of it. I needed to know why. And he said Hannah asked for me to come home.”
Miriam kept watching him, head cocked to the side.
“I couldn’t keep running from the specter of Carrigan’s forever,” he said caustically, chugging his coffee. “Besides, the cooking competition I was filming ended, and I didn’t have anywhere else I needed to be.”
His parents, his demons, and the love of his life were all on this farm. Hannah had sent for him, asked him to come home. And he finally had something to show for himself. So, here he was, sitting in the place he swore he’d never come back to, committed to winning her back. Because he’d seen every corner of the earth, and not a single mile of it was worth a damn without her.
