After lunch, Lucy takes me into town, to the storefront. The owner, Beatrice, has given her a spare set of keys, and we head inside. Our footsteps echo through the empty space, the hardwood floors and the pale walls with their white wainscoting. There’s a swinging door, and we push through into a kitchen with pass-through. There’s an oven, a gas stove with two burners, and a grill, and a deep fryer. The air is a bit heavy with old oil smell and a bit of mustiness. The oven is one of those ones you could use for pizza—it has a conveyor that runs through.
I’m nervous and excited all at once. Nervous to have to use these industrial-grade appliances, and excited to be able to cook in a real restaurant kitchen.
“I think we can do this.” I turn a slow circle, looking at everything. Lucy watches from the side. “I know we can,” I add. My stomach flip-flops. Being in here makes it so real.
“Of course we can,” Lucy says. “Come up and see the furniture, and we can make some decisions. I don’t want to spend too much on refurbishing, but we need to decide on our look.”
We go upstairs, through the dingy stairwell, and into the storage room. It’s packed, more than I’d expected, but at least we’ll have more than enough chairs and tables.
“Tablecloths,” I say immediately. “Maybe slipcovers for the chairs, but that could be pricey.”
“Too much, maybe,” Lucy agrees.
“But if we keep the interest on the tables, and on the food, the chairs won’t matter so much.” I can see it in my mind now, one of Lucy’s creatures on each of the tables, holding court. “What about your cats and mice? Every table, and we can name them all. Or get the customers to name them.”
Lucy nods slowly. “I can see it, but do I have enough of them is the question.” She does a quick count on her fingers. “I might just. But I might need to make one or two more.”
“Can you show me how?” I ask. There’s something about Lucy in her leather apron, her forehead damp with perspiration, that gives me an urge I hadn’t expected. I sidle up to her, hooking my fingers through her belt loops. Lucy rests her hands on my hips.
“Have you ever welded before?” she asks.
I shake my head.
“It might be better for us to leave that for later,” Lucy says. I lean in, my lips close to her ear.
“I just want to see you working in leather,” I murmur. Her fingers tighten on my hips.
“You do?”
“But if we can’t do that, what about right here?” Lucy grins, tugging me close, our hips colliding, the heat of her soaking through my jeans.
“I’m up for it,” she says. “But I’m pretty sure these chairs aren’t.”
I don’t care about the chairs, just Lucy. “There’s a wall.”
Lucy nudges me until my back hits the wall by the door. “You sure?” She’s undoing my jeans, and I feel a zing of desire knowing that she’s as into this as I am. There’s something about her, and I just can’t get enough of her. It’s like she’s the meal that never ends, the favorite dish, the craving for satisfaction I can’t ignore. Her hand slides into my panties, finds my sex, her finger swirling around my clit. I’m sure I drench her hand, even though I’m nowhere near orgasm yet.
“I love that you’re so ready,” Lucy murmurs, her lips brushing mine. “And now when we’re here, I’ll remember this moment.” I part my lips for her and lose myself in her kiss, in her touch. She tastes of ginger and truffles. Delicious. Then her fingers are inside me, stroking, thrusting. I want to make her feel the same, but I’ve only just grasped her shirt when she rubs my clit hard, and my orgasm rushes over me so fast that I feel like I’m seeing stars. I’m trembling, panting, my nerves pulsing and dancing, my knees weakening. She holds me up as my head rests on her shoulder, my fingers tangling in her cotton shirt.
“I love that I can do this to you,” Lucy murmurs. I nod, still not sure I can find my voice, find my words. I come back to myself as Lucy withdraws her hand, feeling an ache as she does, desire pushing for more. I move my hands to her belt, and she puts hers over mine.
“We should go back to the farm,” she says. “I have welding to do, and you need to cook. We need our menu set.”
I’m sure I look disappointed.
Lucy leans in and kisses me, this time gently. “Don’t worry, it’ll be my turn soon.”
“I promise it will,” I say. I don’t want to leave her wanting.
“We’ll have privacy in the shed.”
* * *
Lucy sets me up with a stool at the workbench, and I’ve grabbed one of my legal pads and a pen. I sketch out a diagram of the storefront, trying to figure out the best way to arrange the tables. “Is this crazy?” I ask her, looking up from my sketchpad.
“Which part?” Lucy asks as she putters around the shed.
“It just seems so fast.” I’m talking about the restaurant, but I don’t really want to admit that us seems a bit fast too. Not that it’s a bad thing, it’s just…fast.
Lucy sets a metal mouse by my pad. “We can do this,” she says. “We’ll take our time, do it right, no rushing.”
I look down at the pad, then up at her. Her dark eyes are warm, and somehow, I feel reassured.
“I’ve always called this one Bert,” she says, patting his little metal head. I’m not sure what he’s made out of. I draw a little mouse on top of one of the diagrammed tables. It’s horrible. Drawing is not my forte.
Lucy puts down another small creature, this one with wings. “It’s a bat,” she says, “but not my favorite. What do you think?”
I set down my pen and lift it up. “We could hang it near the door?”
“Or just leave it,” Lucy says. She bends and brings up another creature, this one slightly larger. It looks like a Pomeranian.
“That one looks like a Princess, or maybe Queenie.”
“Something a bit frou-frou,” Lucy agrees. She goes back to a pile of metal and extracts another creature. It’s bulkier, but recognizable.
“A cow suits,” I say.
“It’s a little chubby,” Lucy says. “Feels too awkward.”
“We could call her Moo,” I say.
Lucy shakes her head, but she’s smiling.
“That’s so predictable.”
“But funny,” I add.
“We need to think details now,” Lucy says, “like dishes. And paying for all this. I covered the costs of the permits, but we need to get the big things in order.”
“I’ll cover the costs,” I say immediately.
Lucy frowns. “We should make this equal.”
“I have a lot in savings.” I’m not trying to brag, but it’s true. That’s what happens when I have no time to spend what I make. “All work and no play.”
“Even still, we should do this up officially.”
“I can ask Cindy to draw up a basic contract,” I offer. “We can personalize it.”
“I like that.” Lucy sets the cow down and pulls out another little mouse. “All the expenses, and then any profit, equally split.”
I pull out my phone, check my schedule, and text Cindy. “I’ll figure out a time we can meet with an accountant, get everything set up.”
“Perfect.”
“When should we make this real?” I pull up my calendar.
“After the September long weekend,” Lucy says. “If we do it on the long weekend, we risk people being out of town. The weekend after that.”
“A month and a half, then,” I say, calculating the days. “I think we can do it.”
“The permits will be in by then, and we can get the space all set up.”
“Lucy, we’re really going to do this, aren’t we?”
She grins, pulls me toward her. “We really are.”