That night we had another cozy staff dinner around the table, made possible by the people who suggested that the guests go out to dinner. Bless them, wherever they are. It was a fun meal. Coop and I made the Christmas Casserole which, perforce, included anything interesting in the pantry. I did not think olives were interesting, but he overruled me. However, in the true spirit of compromise, and in response to my whining, in the end, he only added olives to half of it. Everyone pitched in, even Jed, who made really great garlic bread. Did I mention it was an Italian Christmas dinner? We all had a great time singing carols with Italian accentos.
Even Mason had a little party, because Farley had decided to leave Lola with us. I guess we were…dog sitters? Anyway, they were having a mutual lick-fest that really doesn’t bear describing.
Anyway, it was another great memory with people who had somehow become my friends. No. It was more than that. They were dear to me.
How on earth had that happened? How on earth had they wormed their ways into my stony heart? Living together did that, I supposed. Sped everything up a bit. Admit it, you either loved everyone you lived with, or hated them.
These guys were all the best, and I was starting to regret that all this…camaraderie would soon be over. Like tomorrow.
Where would Coop and I be? What would we be?
I decided we needed to have a conversation so, after dinner, I sent Olivia to cover the guest house because Wren had the night before, and grabbed Coop and towed him into our room.
And yeah, it was our room now.
How had that happened?
“What’s up?” he asked as I closed the door. I totally understood his curiosity. Dragging men into my private boudoir at random isn’t exactly my modus operandi. Generally speaking.
“We need to talk.”
He paled. “Talk?” He said the word like it tasted bad. The fact that I didn’t allow Mason into the room seemed to concern him even more.
“Wanna sit?”
He made a pained face, but did so. “What do you want to talk about, Vic?”
I sat next to him on the bed. “Dirk.”
His expression tightened. “Okay.”
“He came by today.”
Oh, this shocked him. His eyes went wide. A muscle in his cheek flexed. “Did he?”
“Yeah. And…I sent him away.”
He visibly relaxed. Even blew out a gust of a sigh. “Really?”
“Really.” I took his hand. “I realized I had no real feelings for him. I mean, he’s great and all that, but there’s no reason for us to keep…marking time together.”
“Isn’t there?” He couldn’t hold back his smile.
“I think you know why.”
“Are you saying you want to explore this thing with me?”
I drew in a deep, centering breath, because this next part was hard. “Yes.”
I meant to continue the conversation, to talk about what this meant and where we were and what we might do about this insistent attraction…but he kissed me and that was pretty much the end of the conversation. As far as words went.
But what happened between us in that itty bitty bed was, again, mind-blowing.
I could really get used to this, I thought to myself, and there wasn’t a lick of fear or panic in my heart.
Apparently, when the guests came home, they oohed and ahhed over the wedding decorations in the great room. And then, they decided they wanted a little something sweet. Olivia radioed me in a panic. Fortunately, I’d taken the radio with me into the bathroom—Coop and I had had our fun and were getting ready to turn in. So I might have been a little short when I said, “I swear to God, if you tell me the chef is on fire one more time—”
“No. No. But you better come.”
“All right. Where?” I came out of the bathroom and scowled at Coop. He flopped back and covered his face with a pillow.
“Noel’s room.”
“Okay. Be right there.” I hung up the phone and reached for my blouse. Thank God we hadn’t completely undressed. “Hey. I gotta go,” I said.
His response was muffled by the pillow.
I stepped over Mason—who was lolling on the floor, and, frankly, didn’t seem to care if I left or not—and headed out.
Noel was in his room, sitting on the chair. Kind of. Okay, parts of him were on the chair. Parts of him were also on the floor with the rest of him leaning that way.
“’Allo, Victoria!” he said, attempting to raise a bottle in my honor. It appeared to be far too heavy.
“Noel, are you drunk?”
“Drunk? Moi? Non. Non, ma chere.” I grabbed hold of his chin when he got too close and all kissy. Drunk Frenchman? Merci, mais non.
All righty then. First things first.
Rearrange the horny chef on his bed with a nice bowl within grabbing distance.
Next: “Did they say what kind of sweet they wanted?”
“No.”
“Awesome.” I’d seen some frozen desserts stocked in the freezer. It only took me a minute to find some microwavable frozen lava cakes and the caramel Noel marked as leftover from the wedding cake. And yeah. I made that. Put it on crystal plates with silver utensils and a cloth napkin and you had a thirty dollar dessert. Easy. I squirted a little whipped cream on the warm cakes and then shaved chocolate over them just to be sure they looked fancy.
Olivia helped me serve, while Wren poured coffee. They didn’t ask for it, but we made decaf because, clearly, these people needed their sleep.
And so, by the way, did we.
They loved the coffee and cakes and quickly succumbed to that lovely state I like to call satiation. They were simply happy. And so was I.
Until I remembered that my chef was blotto and there was a huge breakfast planned for tomorrow morning early. As in O-Dark-Thirty, as Dad used to say.
So, as soon as the gusts went upstairs, I corralled Olivia and Wren into the kitchen, grabbed my radio, and called for backup. It didn’t take long for everyone to appear in Noel’s room, which was the only staff room in the guest lodge. It was near the kitchen, but it wasn’t much larger than ours, so it was a tight fit.
Especially since Coop and his team had answered the call as well.
“We have a problem,” I said, gesturing to Noel drunk on brandy. Like, sloshed. And he was not a pretty drunk. He was crying and sniveling and cradling that empty bottle, there on the corner of his bed.
The cake was done, thank God—salted caramel so no one could taste his tears—but the chef was a mess. There was no way he was going to be able to pull together a five-star wedding breakfast in ten hours.
Jed shook his head. “Dude. I don’t understand why he can get shitfaced and I can’t smoke a little pot.”
Ye Gods! “Jed. Listen to me.” I took him by the shoulders. “Noel is not supposed to be shitfaced. And he will very probably be fired. Do you see? Do you see why we have that rule? Now, there’s no one to do his job. Get it?”
“So, what do we do?” Olivia asked.
I crossed my arms. “We make breakfast.” Personally, I was thinking about just throwing a couple boxes of Pop Tarts in the microwave or whatever. And yeah. We were way too close to the end of this Visit for too much creativity. These people had sucked it all out of me.
“What do we know about five-star breakfasts?” Coop asked, encouraging everyone to chime in, God love him.
“They like caviar,” Olivia offered.
“Yes,” I said. “Yes, they do.” Maybe not for breakfast but, great suggestion.
“And champagne!” Not surprisingly, this was Jed’s idea.
“Okay. Caviar and champagne. Good start.” Even I was impressed with them.
Wren raised her hand. “I make a pretty mean béarnaise. I could make Eggs Benedict—”
“Eggs Benedict takes Hollandaise,” I reminded her.
Her pierced eyebrow rose. “Hollandaise is boring.”
“Okay. Eggs Benedict with Béarnaise—”
“With caviar on top!” Olivia, again.
“Good. Good,” I said. “Keep the ideas coming.”
“How about, like, a bread pudding?”
“Or monkey bread.” Wren surprised me by actually looking enthused. “My sister makes an amazing monkey bread.”
Jed wrinkled his nose. “Is it made of monkeys? Man, these rich folks are weird.”
Wren gaped at him. “Of course, it’s not made of monkeys.”
“What’s in it?” I asked. Beggars couldn’t be choosers. But, whatever it was, we weren’t calling it Monkey Bread.
“You can use those frozen rolls Noel has in the freezer, put them in a baking pan, then dump a jar of butterscotch topping and toasted pecans on it. Let it come to room temperature, double in size, and bake. Easy.”
“Sounds good too.” Or I was hungry. “How can we elevate it? Make it fancier?” I added when I noticed Jed’s puzzled expression.
“Some kind of sauce?” Olivia suggested.
“Excellent.” I smiled at her. “How about Crème Fraiche? Does anyone know how to make Crème Fraiche?”
Crickets.
“Okay. I can tackle that one.”
Cooper’s mouth dropped. “You know how to make Crème Fraiche? You been holding out on me?”
I gusted a breath. “Of course I know how to make Crème Fraiche. I took some cooking classes in my hospitality training.” Mostly so I would know what I was serving. But I really loved the patisserie classes. Oh, and on that note, I turned to Olivia, “Let’s add some cinnamon and nutmeg to the monkey bread and we’ll call them Christmas Clouds with Crème Fraiche. So we have a savory dish and a sweet… It probably wouldn’t hurt to have a quiche on hand and maybe a fresh fruit salad. And of course, coffee and mimosas. OJ for the minors. How does that sound?”
I was surprised at their response. A huge cheer. I almost told them to be quiet because they might wake the guests, but I caught Coop’s expression, and his salute as he mouthed the words, “Good job.”
Something warm rose in my breast. “Okay, everyone. Great work. Let’s keep it up and push through to the finish. Thank you. Thank you all for your great work.” Yea! I could make a motivational speech! At least, they all seemed motivated as they set out on their various assigned tasks as we prepped for breakfast.
Jed, of course, was assigned to watch over Noel and clean things up if he, ah, urped again, but Jed preferred that over making a quiche anyway. We did as much prep as we could that night, but still knew we had to get up at the butt crack of dawn, so we all went to bed early.
It was, lovely cuddling with Coop. All night long.
Some things cannot be done in advance. Such as Crème Fraiche. I woke up early—again quietly disentangling myself with deepest regrets—and headed for Noel’s kitchen to make sure I had time to practice. Just in case I forgot something. Trouble was, I totally forgot that I’m not a morning person. Even navigating Google was a challenge for me. It was a fat finger morning.
Finally, I got Crème Fraiche typed in.
The response was that unending Circle of Doom.
“Dammit!” I glared at my phone. I didn’t have time to wait three seconds for this. I was a busy person. “Come on.”
I felt Coop’s laugh on my cheek. “Are you seriously yelling at the internet?”
God, why did he have to stand so close? I was trying to focus.
“Here. Let me.” He took my phone, making sure our hands brushed. I wasn’t sure whether to smack him or laugh at his blatant flirting.
“Stop that,” I hissed. “I have too much work to do for you to get me in a frazzle.”
“Oooh!” he bleated. “Are you in a frazzle?”
I snatched my phone back and leaned in. “I. Have. Work. To. Do.” He totally ruined my hard on for work when he kissed my nose.
Dammit.
I never could resist that.
He hovered, then moved in for a—
“Stop.”
At that word, at my tone, he took a step back and held up both hands.
Dammit.
I shot him an apologetic smile. “I really do have to get moving.”
He took another step back. “I know.”
“They could wake up at any moment. And I have to get this breakfast ready.”
“I know. I know. I’ll, um, go see if Ben needs any help.”
“Okay.”
“Okay.”
Dammit.
I hated watching him walk away.
I found the stupid recipe and made the stupid crème fraiche, and cooked the quiche and tossed the fruit salad and whatever else was on the list. And we served it to the guests and they loved it and breakfast was awesome.
The whole time, all I could think about was getting close to him again. Soon.
Then it hit me, hard and fast—a really difficult realization.
I wanted to spend time with him more than I wanted to work.
I’d never wanted to do anything more than my work. I loved it. Every minute.
But now…
When had my work become…an annoyance? Something that was in my way?
I was all about my job. All. About it. And happily so. Had been for years.
What was this now, rumbling near the region of my heart?
An ache?
A dream?
A long-buried hope?
I wanted to spend time with him more than I wanted to work.
No one had ever done that to me before.
Dear God, let it be curable.
But…could you imagine a Christmas like this, for us? The two of us, all cooped up in a cabin together? With fantastic smells wafting through the house, and the laughter of friends and family twining with Christmas carols from the radio? Because the cabin is in the middle of nowhere and doesn’t get cell service?
Can you imagine being utterly unplugged? I mean, going to the toilet without your radio?
Forget that. Can you imagine not working on Christmas?
What would that be like?
It had been unthinkable to me for years. In my line of work, it was a given. Everyone worked Christmas, and quit your whining. Even at my level, there were work parties and real parties and drop-bys galore. I’d always worked Christmas. I had convinced myself I didn’t care.
But, now? Now that shell was starting to crack. Did I really like working at Christmas?
No!
I would really rather be curled up before a fire with Coop in that magical lodge that didn’t have any internet but still managed to have electricity, hot water, and candles. A lot of candles. Yeah, and a claw footed tub.
“You know,” Carmella said in a loud whisper, jarring me from my fantasy. “I think this breakfast was even better than yesterday. Compliments to the chef!” Everyone around the table nodded and agreed. The various chefs around the room exchanged grins.
Whit meaningfully unbuckled his belt—apparently a very high compliment—judging from the waggling brows. “I didn’t think anything could have been better than yesterday. But then, y’all have been just awesome. You have knocked this trip out of the park.”
I’m sure I blushed. “Thank you so much. We appreciate that. But, as you know, it is our pleasure to be here with you and share this special time. We’re all very happy for you. Congratulations.” That’s it. Turn the praise right back on him.
It was his turn to blush, thank you very much, and when he walked away, he walked away from that table feeling like a king. Because that is what I do to men…when I want them to tip well. Or do the laundry. Or bring me a sandwich.
It is a craft I have well-honed over years of painstaking practice.