“What other plans?”
Vann stepped away, reminding us both he was still there. Covering his ears, he said, “I don’t want to know. For the love of God, wait until I’m gone.”
Turning to my brother, I said, “Thanks for everything, Vann.”
He grinned at me. “Looks like you finally hired some help, yeah?”
Killian squeezed my hand. “It’s about time.”
“I think I’ll make him work the window,” I told Vann, ignoring Killian’s smug satisfaction. “He might just be pretty enough to bring in some extra cash.”
“As long as I get to control the salt, I don’t care where you put me,” Killian countered.
I slapped his chest with the back of my hand, which he then caught and pressed against his heart. The message was there in that sweet, subtle gesture. I was in him, and he was in me. We were complete opposites, but we’d been made for each other.
We said goodbye to Vann and locked up Foodie. Then together we went to the closest police station. Filing a restraining order wasn’t as easy as I thought it would be. It took work and a lot of standing up for myself, which was hard since it was practically a new concept for me.
But I had Killian there with me, supporting me when I needed it and stepping in for me when I needed that too.
At the end of this journey, I so wanted to be the tough girl. I wanted to kick ass and take names every damn day. But some things, I was learning, were personality based. Conflict wasn’t my thing. Making people do exactly what I wanted them to do was hard for me. And if I never got myself into a Derrek situation again, I could be okay with that.
By the time we left the station, the sun had been down for a while. It was Saturday night, and we were both supposed to be working. This was the busiest night of the week. We had kitchens to run, food to cook, money to make.
Instead, we climbed onto Killian’s motorcycle and ignored everything but each other.
“Let’s go grab some dinner,” he said over his shoulder.
“Like a real date?”
He gave me his profile so I could see the smile and his beard and his gorgeous face. “Like a real date.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
I stepped inside Foodie and quickly shut the door behind me. I wouldn’t need to open the windows to let cool air in today. It was frigid outside.
Well, maybe not frigid, but the November breeze was biting as it chased the sunlight outside. I rubbed cold fingers together and wished for warmer days. I’d rather be sweaty and overheated than frozen.
Or so I told myself now. Just wait until the middle of summer. I might feel differently then.
I looked around the familiar space and brushed my fingers over the cool surfaces and smooth steel. It was going to be one of the last times I got to stand inside her and not just because winter was almost here.
I’d sold her.
I couldn’t believe it either.
But after much thought and consideration and many, many business meetings, we’d decided that it was for the best.
We were moving on from the food truck business and dipping our toes in the restaurant business. Or rather, plunging headfirst into the restaurant business.
Killian and me.
I smiled at my blurry reflection, unable to believe it even after all this time.
Killian and I were opening a restaurant together. Killian and I were moving in together. Killian and I were… together.
And I had never been happier.
Or more myself.
It turns out I wasn’t such a doormat after all. I just needed the right relationship to push me. I needed the right man to challenge me.
It was easy to stand up to Killian. Not because I didn’t care about his feelings or what he thought, but because I had confidence that he cared about me, that he wouldn’t leave me because of a dumb fight or my unflinching opinion on how the dishwasher should be filled.
I fought back because he mattered to me. I wasn’t just surviving with him. I was living, really, truly living.
And because it weirdly turned him on.
The door opened and Vann stepped inside, closely followed by my dad. “Hey there, baby girl,” my dad greeted gently. “How are you?”
I eyed the bottle of wine in Vann’s hand. “Better now that you’re here.”
Dad ran his fingers over the hammered wall. “It’s hard to believe you’re already sending her on her way. It’s like she just became part of the family. Now I have to say goodbye.”
Vann sighed. “Yeah, we’ll all miss those nights you worked us to the bone and didn’t pay us.”
I stared at my brother. “It’s really hard for you to sit at the window and make change? That was really difficult?”
He glared at me, but my dad stepped in and said, “Now, Vera, you know he’s more sensitive than you.”
I smothered a smile while my brother contemplated falling on the wine bottle like a sword. My dad went on without noticing.
“I should have bought her,” he said. “I could have tried my hand at this whole cooking thing. Taken her around the country. You know, lived out my retirement on the road.”
Vann and I shared a look. A relieved look. It was nice to hear dad talk about the future again. He’d been through hell with this cancer and paid the price with his health. He was practically gaunt from how much weight he’d lost. He’d stopped looking like our dad and turned frail… old.
It broke my heart to see him now, a shadow of his former self. But I also knew he was finally at the point where he could start to recover, put his weight back on. Thanks to surgery, he was cancer free! There had never been better news than that.
The door opened again, and Vann and Dad moved out of the way so Molly could step inside. She had a bottle of champagne in her hand.
“What’s that?” I asked her.
“To celebrate.” She held it up. “Aren’t you supposed to smash it on the front before you sell it?”
I stared at her for a second, trying to decide if she was for real. “I think that’s for ships. Before you sail them. Not sell them.”
She hugged the bottle. “Oops!”
The door opened again, and Wyatt stepped inside. Now it was so crowded that we all had to squish around the galley. I slid onto the counter with my feet dangling, hoping to make more room. “I didn’t realize this was going to be a party.”
Wyatt smiled and stepped over by Molly. “We all wanted to say goodbye. I’m going to miss this truck. Now where am I going to get my fourth meal from?”
“You’re head chef now, bucko. You’re not going to have time for fourth meal.”
He nodded solemnly. “Or third meal. Maybe not even second meal.”
My dad patted him on the shoulder. “Well, there’s always breakfast, son.” Wyatt looked up at him curiously, and Dad added, “Most important meal of the day, you know.”
While we laughed at my dad’s joke, the door opened, and Ezra Baptiste stepped inside. He blinked at the five of us huddled in the galley and glanced at the door as if he wanted to run away. “Hello.”
Wyatt was the quickest to recover. “Hey, boss.”