Now I laugh. “No, nothing like that. Just been a while since we touched base.”
Michelle eyes me keenly. “You know you can be direct with me, Cole.”
I nod and laugh again. “Right. Ok. Tell me, what do you think about Willow?”
“Willow?”
“Yeah.”
Michelle pauses a second before speaking.
“As a chef or…”
“As a chef,” I say, smiling. Michelle’s as observant out of the kitchen as she is in it.
“Well she’s pretty great, honestly. Works fast, good communication, stays calm. She’s been a little off her game the past few days, but we’ve been a bit busier than usual and I’m sure it’s nothing worth worrying about. All in all I can’t fault her.”
I nod. Figures she’d be slipping a little here and there since we got together—I’d be slipping too with the way my mind’s been flying.
“You think she’d make a good head chef?”
“For the Vegas place?” Michelle asks, pausing again to pout and think. “Yeah. Probably. I know she’s young but she’s no amateur—she’s definitely ‘got it.’ It’s hard to say for sure, but I could definitely see her as head of a kitchen—later if not sooner. She thinks fast on her feet, is always on top of what’s going on in the kitchen, and there’s nothing she can’t cook…she doesn’t take any shit, either, despite Leo doing his whole ‘hazing’ thing.”
“Good. That’s what I wanted to hear,” I say, leaning back a little at her confidence-affirming words. “It’s not for Las Vegas though—it’s for here.”
Michelle frowns, looks at me, then shakes her head. “I don’t understand. Are you letting me go?”
“Never. Nothing like that. But how about this: How would you feel about taking on the Vegas place?” I ask. “I’d rather have an experienced head like yours in charge of a new team than Willow.”
Michelle sits back as if winded by the news. “Hmm,” is all she says.
She stares stonily at some spot on the wall behind me, face blank, though I don’t need to be a mind reader to know she’s thinking at a million miles an hour.
“Of course, I’d do everything I can to support you out there. Find you a nice place—or put you up in a nice hotel suite until we find something you like. Relocation costs all covered in full, pay raise, and I’ll throw in a healthy bonus. New car. Whatever you want. I don’t want you thinking I’d put you out there ‘cause you’re not doing a good job here—if anything, you’re the only person who I know will have that place running like Knife inside a month. You’re the best I’ve got.”
“Yeah,” Michelle says, “I get it.”
She stares a little longer.
“Do you want to take some time to think about it?”
“No,” Michelle says, looking back at me finally with a smile. “I’ll do it.”
“You sure? I know it’s a big move, and you’ve been in L.A. half your life.”
“Yeah,” she says, with a little more conviction now, smile a little broader. “To be honest, I could do with a new challenge. I’ll miss the crew here, for sure. But this is just what I need right now. I’ve been feeling lately like, ‘what’s next?’ and I think this is it. The next step.”
“Congratulations. You’re gonna do a hell of a job.”
I offer my hand across the table and Michelle shakes it firmly.
“Little drink to celebrate?” I add, standing up and moving toward the wine crates.
“No thanks,” she says, standing up and tightening her ponytail again. “We’re low on béchamel and I’m expecting quite a few orders of the tuna mornay today.”
“Well don’t think you’re going to Las Vegas without having a drink on me first.”
Michelle laughs as she makes for the door, stopping once she has her hand on it to turn back. “Cole…”
“Yeah?”
“Did you speak to Willow already?”
“No. I was waiting for your answer first. I’m going to ask her today.”
Michelle nods.
“Well, she should be in for her shift soon. You want me to send her in?”
“That’s the idea.”
Michelle leaves and I take a moment to relax now that the hard part is done. I had no idea what she would say—Michelle’s life is a closed book—and if she’d said no to the Vegas job, I would have really had to rethink things.
Now, though, it’s just plain sailing. All I’ve gotta do is wait for my girl to walk through those doors, and then offer her the job of a lifetime. I take the flowers I picked up for her and the delicately-wrapped gift out from under the desk and place them in front of me. I select the perfect wine from the crate and pull it close, ready to open and celebrate.
I’m about to make both our dreams come true.
18
Willow
I dash into the rear entrance of Knife feeling like the forces of excitement and euphoria are carrying me, a hurricane of glee that pushes me onward. The windows I picked out are going into the new location today—Andre assures me that his guys are the best—and it’ll be done by the time I get off work if I want to see. It’s a small thing, but it sets a smile on my face that I haven’t been able to remove all morning, and though my body is going through the motions of putting on my whites and starting my shift, my consciousness is flying about thirty-thousand feet in the air.
“Hey Michelle. Hey Warren. Hey Carrie,” I say, chirpily. Then, even though—no, because— he hates it, “Hey Leo, how you doing?”
Before Leo can grunt and shake his head at me like an old man seeing a young couple kiss in public, Michelle comes over.
“Willow?” she says, and I look to see a rare kind of smile in those strong, dark features. “Cole’s in his office. He wanted to have a word with you.”
“Oh, sure,” I say, nodding, my heart racing now for different reasons.
I finish washing my hands and take my time drying them as slowly as possible on the journey to the back office. Once again it feels like things are moving way too fast for my Idaho-cultivated pace. I’ve signed the contract, the windows are going in, and Tony’s sending me interior decorating inspiration pictures throughout the day—it’s all really happening, and that means it’s really time for me to come clean with Cole. The longer I keep it a secret the worse it’s gonna be when he finds out, the deeper we’ll have embedded ourselves within each other, and the higher the chance of him discovering it himself, which would be a disaster (the location is only a few streets away, after all).
I need to tell him.