“I’ve been working hard,” I say, playfully. “So have you.”
“You work too much,” Cole says, his hands still squeezing my midriff against him, fingers gently clenching and unclenching against my skin until my whole body is humming.
Something turns in me at the comment, as if seeing a glint of light at the end of a tunnel. I smile and press a finger into the chest exposed above the second button of his shirt.
“Well…maybe I should quit,” I say, trying to keep the hope out of my eyes, trying to make it sound like nothing more than an innocent joke.
Cole laughs softly, and I feel the rumble of his ab muscles against me.
“As if I’d let you go anywhere,” he says, and I have to struggle to keep my smile. He kisses my forehead and then steps away to open the car door for me. “Come on.”
“Where are we going?” I say, getting in.
“Let’s call it a surprise,” Cole replies.
“Hmph. I’m getting used to those.”
It’s only when we park outside the Hollywood Bowl that I notice the picnic basket Cole pulls out from the back seat. He slams the door shut, takes my hand, and leads me through the lot until I can hear the sound of classical music.
“What’s that?” I ask him.
“The L.A. Phil. They rehearse here in the summer, and anyone can just come through and listen.”
“Oh,” I say, enjoying the sweeping strings for a second before turning to him. “So you’re cheaping out on me, huh? Am I not worth the real thing?”
Cole laughs and stops to look at me.
“I’d fly you first class to Tuscany in a heartbeat if you told me you liked the anchovies there.”
I smile as if I find it funny, but there’s no hint of a lie in his eyes. Just pure, devoted resolve. A restrained but wild passion for me that almost scares me with its power. But beneath the rush of love and desire I feel in that moment is a dark shadow, a lurking reminder that I’m going to betray him. I look away, hoping he interprets it as simple shyness.
We reach the box seats and settle down, Cole setting the basket between us and opening it to reveal still-warm bread, a spread of cold cuts, effervescent jams, and a number of dips and salads.
“Did you make all this?” I say, as Cole expertly cuts the bread with a serrated knife.
He chuckles warmly.
“Did I never mention that I like to cook?”
“Actually,” I say, taking a slice of bread from him and fishing around in the basket until I discover a salmon mousse, “I figured you were sick of it, and that’s why you went into the business side of things.”
“It wasn’t the cooking I got bored of—it was the people I cooked for,” Cole says, punctuating it by offering me a tub of mixed olives.
I grab one and chew slowly, if only to hold back the escalating nerves.
We eat and talk, until our bellies get full and the words start to run out, allowing the orchestra to take over the mood. Until the basket is closed and put away, and we’re sitting next to each other, his arm around me, my head on his shoulder, his fingers stroking my hair as we allow ourselves to be carried by the music, by the diminishing fire of the sunset in the hills beyond.
The realization comes slowly, as slow as the sweeping movements of the music, as the veiling of the night sky: I’m happy. Happier than I’ve been in a long time. Maybe ever. Here, against him, in a love so real and present I can smell it in his scent, feel it in the tenderness of his fingers in my hair, hear it in the soft thump of his heart and the deep swell of his breathing, and everything else seems irrelevant, pointless. My sister’s advice, Asha’s, it all starts to make sense. Why would I need anything more than this?
And why am I about to throw it all away?
I remember Asha’s advice to ‘follow your heart,’ but which way do you go when your heart is split in two?
17
Cole
She’s turned my world upside down, inside out. And the thing is, I love it. If you had told me before I met her that there would come a time when I would delete the numbers of the models in my phone, when I’d be carefully preparing a picnic and agonizing over each thing I put in the basket, then I’d have said you were crazy, and probably had security escort you off the premises. But here I am.
I’ve never run from a challenge, never stopped at an obstacle. It’s just that, until now, the challenges I’ve faced have been the ones best tackled with brute force, with determined strength, focused decisiveness. Challenges that have made my body ache, my emotions spike, my talents stretch to their limits. Problems solved with animal strength and stubbornness.
But Willow…she’s a different kind of goal, and now the challenge is different. Now I need to open up old wounds and finally let them heal, unfurl the barriers I’ve erected between me and the world, allow myself to trust, to express, to love. It might be the hardest thing I’ve done yet, but the payoff is incredible.
I’m in such a good mood that I almost forget I have a mentoring date scheduled with Chloe when I turn up at Knife early one morning. She’s standing out front with Maggie waiting for me, and after exchanging a few pleasantries with Chloe’s supervisor I lead the girl into the restaurant to spend some time in the kitchen.
It’s not exactly what I had in mind for today, but if anything Willow has had me losing my temper a lot less, and going with the flow a lot more. We make for the industrial fridge to see what we can play with and then spend almost an hour cutting fresh produce into fancy shapes and building colorful mason jar salads, all while I give Chloe a lengthy discourse on where vinegar, salt, and different varieties of olive oil come from.
Maybe I’m starting to warm to the kid, or maybe it’s just this new perspective, but the time flies, and I’m about to show Chloe how to make Knife’s secret recipe house pesto when Maggie arrives to pick her back up. We thumbtack the pesto idea for next time, and once they’re gone I clean up and perform checks across the whole restaurant.
Michelle arrives first, as always, and I grab her attention as she’s putting on her whites in the hallway and tell her to stop by the office for a chat.
She looks calm but a little surprised as she sits in front of the desk, still tightening her dark, unruly curls into a ponytail.
“What’s up?” she says anxiously.
I don’t blame her for feeling a little bemused; Michelle’s good enough that we barely need to say anything to each other anymore. As a head chef she’s basically a machine, efficient, unyielding, and if she were to cash in all the days off that she’s owed we wouldn’t see her for months. Over the years she’s worked with me she’s also learned exactly how I operate, and can pretty much pre-empt what I’m gonna do before I actually do it—so the surprise in her deep brown eyes isn’t entirely unwarranted.
“How are things?” I ask, leaning forward in my office chair.
Michelle laughs, a short and easy one, ever relaxed and resourceful.
“Is this a performance review or something?”