CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Good Enough to Eat
Chef, 33
Commandment(s) Broken:
5 - He shalt not skip date night
“Anti-wingman?” Emily frowned. “Good plan, except… Diana is awfully picky and you shouldn’t interfere if she does realize she made a mistake kicking some guy to the curb.” She smiled at me, all innocence. “Ryan’s next, right?”
Nick laughed. “Emily’s favorite is up next? What do you have planned for good old Ryan? And how are you going to pry him away from his restaurant for an entire weekend?”
“That’s the challenge I was talking about.” I consulted my notes, as if I needed to. “His restaurant is closed on Monday and Tuesday is a slow day, so that will be our weekend.”
Emily bounced up and down on the chair a little. “All yours for two whole days. Did that even happen when you dated?”
Of course not. The man had been married to his job, which did not fit in with my plans for a husband who shared my life, not dropped in from time to time when the restaurant business was slow.
I decided to pretend I didn’t know Emily was on Team Ryan. But how to distract her? “Do you want me to talk to Phil?”
She stopped bouncing immediately, and I felt awful. But… mission accomplished.
She frowned. “The man is impossible. He seems to think I’m a magician, able to take care of a child in ten minutes a day.” She shook her head. “I don’t want to raise a latch-key brat who doesn’t know me.” Her voice lowered. “Or who I don’t know at all.”
I thought of her mom, who didn’t have a clue who Emily was. And mine. Who had used to be much too much into my business, until the divorce. “You’re not going to let that happen, Em. You’re going to know your children just the right amount – not over involved like my mom, or distant like yours.” I moved over to the couch and gave her a quick hug. “Phil wants that too. He just doesn’t want you to lose yourself in child rearing like his mom did.”
Emily grimaced. “You give the man too much credit. He just wants the security of my paycheck so he doesn’t have to give up any of his toys and fun for the sake of fatherhood.”
Nick watched me carefully, as if he knew I’d wanted to divert the conversation away from Ryan and wasn’t sure how to take it. “Hey. Give the man some credit. The toys and fun will change, but Phil will embrace them. My dad was king of hockey coaches when I was in middle school.”
“Okay. Fine.” Emily sat up straight. “I’ll keep working on him. When I get him to agree that I only need to work ten hours a week, then maybe I’ll believe you two. Now, back to Ryan. What have you got planned?”
“Olivia said I can’t tell anyone. You have to read all about it,” I lied. Although Olivia would likely have told me that if she’d thought about it. “Have you considered waiting until the baby has arrived to have this conversation with Phil?” My mother’s advice wasn’t always right. But I did wonder if her advice to Emily had some merit. “Like Megan and Dan? They had all those fancy plans, and then along came Jacob and buh-bye went the fancy plans. They don’t seem to mind.”
Mission accomplished. Again. “Sounds great. Unless Phil does mind. And then I’m raising a kid on my own. No. I want it all settled between us before we start trying.”
Nick laughed. “Between the one who wants the Perfect 10 husband and the one who wants to be in perfect agreement about parenthood before she tries for a family, I’m wondering which of you will get what you want first.”
“Or not get it, you mean?” I challenged him. His grin was wicked and mocking, like he thought Emily and I were trying to build sandcastles that wouldn’t dissolve in the high tide. “What do you know. You don’t plan or worry about anything.” I looked pointedly at the empty fourth chair. “I don’t see you with anyone, either, perfect or not.”
He laughed. “And I like it that way. You two do enough planning and worrying for all of us. What happens, happens. You know how I roll.”
Emily crumpled up a napkin and threw it at him. “Cut it out, or we’ll start planning things for you. And then worrying about them incessantly. Aloud.”
“No thank you.”
“Well, Diana’s got her Mr. Right to worry about. So I guess that leaves me to worry about your Ms. Right.” Emily grinned. “Want to come to dinner with Phil and me Tuesday night? I have someone I want you to meet.”
He faked a sad look. “Can’t. I’m already working the camera, and the anti-wingman gig.”
<<>>
Tina came by my cubicle as soon as I got in. I could tell she was worried about something. I hoped it wasn’t Olivia complaining about my expense account. “Hey. That Nick is cute. Did you ever date him? Is going to be on the list?”
“No way. He not only can’t keep a job, he only wants to work enough to keep his apartment and eat pizza. He says a real photographer stalks life and doesn’t let life stalk him.”
She grinned. “Okay then. I don’t think that’s bothering Tandy.”
“What?”
“I heard her on the phone, chatting with him. She asked him to do a quick job for her. You may want to warn him away.”
“I have. But Nick does his own thing. Knowing Tandy, she’s trying to find out what I’m planning. She really wants to find a way to wrestle this article out of my hands and into hers.”
Tina raised her eyebrows. “I think she wants more than the byline of your article, I think she’s interested in co-opting your photographer as well. She asked him to work on that spa salon piece she’s doing. And she said if that worked out, she’d have more jobs for him.” Tina gave me a look that let me know her smile was not meant to soften her warning.
The thought of Nick working for my current nemesis was unsettling for a moment. But then I remembered Nick’s dislike for paying work. “He does a good job, but I don’t think he’s hungry enough for money. Don’t worry about it.”
Tina shrugged. “He’s your friend. But I think she’s got her eye on Nick as potential new meat.”
“My Nick?” I couldn’t believe the words came out of my mouth. I wished them back as soon as I said them.
She grinned. “Since when is he your Nick? I thought he was best friend material and nothing more.”
“You don’t let your best friend swim in piranha infested waters.” My cover up sounded weak. “My Nick?” was a declarative sentence of the most emphatic kind, question or no. One I had no intention of making and yet didn’t know how to take back.
She laughed. “Maybe you should put him in the series.”
“Not a chance—besides not wanting to visit that little ghost of boyfriends that could have been, I don’t want to lose my best friend. He’d never forgive me for spilling his life across the printed page. He’s a very private person, when it comes right down to it.”
“Well, I hope he’s a good enough friend to listen to you when you tell him the water’s teeming with piranha if he dates that one.”
“She hasn’t got a chance.” I hoped I was right. I didn’t relish the thought of bringing the enemy into our nice Sunday morning routine. Worse, I didn’t relish the thought of Nick being torn from my life because “she” had better things for him to do. Maybe I should do him the favor of playing anti-wingman for him, like he was doing for me. Only I might just play secret anti-wingman. Because I wouldn’t want to know if he objected to me saving him from Tandy.
<<>>
When it came time to report on the next stop on my personal Bad Romance tour of the past, I had to force my heart and breathing into a steady calm rhythm. Olivia had taken to calling on me first. I would just give her the bad news and then deal with the fall out. Like ripping off a bandaid.
When Olivia cleared her throat, I took a deep breath and pasted on a confident smile.
Not that my faux confidence fooled Tandy for a moment. Before Olivia could say a word, Tandy pounced. “Something wrong, Diana? You look upset.” She leaned in, as if to offer sympathy. Not that I was fooled.
“Nothing I can’t handle.” I brushed off the fleeting worry that wasn’t true at the same moment I dismissed the unwelcome image of Tandy working in close quarters with Nick. He wouldn’t have told her the problem, would he? No. He was my wingman. I could trust him.
“Is there a problem?” Olivia looked at me over her reading glasses.
Feeling a little like a kid whose dog really had eaten her homework, I confessed, “Ryan isn’t interested. I’d like permission to take him off the list.”
Olivia stared at me as if I had a whipped cream mustache and she was trying to decide whether to tell me and save me humiliation, or watch me walk around smilingly unaware while she laughed at me behind my back.
Tandy opened her mouth, no doubt to offer up a knife in my back.
I didn’t give her the chance. “It didn’t work between us because he is dedicated to his job 24/7. If he isn’t cooking, he’s trying out new recipes. And if he isn’t trying out new recipes, he’s teaching underprivileged kids to cook.” The problem with Ryan wasn’t that he wasn’t amazing. It was that he didn’t have time for a relationship because he was too busy being amazing. “I don’t think I can change his mind.”
Tandy opened her mouth again. I had to admire her never-give-up spirit. I just wished she wasn’t focused on taking over my job.
Olivia cut her off this time. “You’re too sweet, Diana. Of course you can’t change his mind. But can I?” She grinned her evil grin and I felt a thrill of dread for poor Ryan. “Give me your phone.”
I handed over my phone, half hoping Ryan would refuse her, and half hoping Olivia would succeed in her attempt to get his head out of the kitchen for once.
She scrolled through my contacts and placed the call as if the phone were her own. I wondered if she thought of it as her own, since the paper paid for it as part of my job. I decided to get another phone for personal calls, as soon as I found a new roommate.
Tandy and I both leaned forward as she put the phone on speaker and held it out in front of her. Three rings. Just when I thought he wouldn’t answer, the call went through.
“Chef Parker.” His voice was familiar, gruff and sexy all at once.
Her voice was overly bright when she said, “Hello? Chef Parker? This is Olivia Wallace from The Female Eye, I–”
“I told Diana no. I told Emily no. I told my mother no. If I tell you no, will that be it? I have a restaurant to run.”
Olivia frowned, briefly silent as she calculated how to deal with him. “I’m Executive Editor, so yes, if you tell me no, that will be it. I promise.”
“Then no.”
“Of course. I understand, but I can’t say I’m not sorry. I had hoped to feature your restaurant as part of our series.”
The hitch in Ryan’s breath was audible to everyone in the room.
Olivia smiled, and waited for him to take the bait.
I was in awe.
“Feature the restaurant? Diana didn’t say–”
Olivia had him hooked, so she reeled hard. “She didn’t? I can’t believe she left off such an influential consideration. She knows how important the restaurant is to you. Perhaps she was just nervous. The whole idea of revisiting exes, you know?”
“Of course.” Ryan was no pushover. He had a restaurant empire to build. “What kind of feature were you thinking? Two page color spread? Cover?”
Tandy clapped her hands over her mouth to keep herself quiet. If Ryan even had a hint that there was a room full of people listening, the deal would go south, fast.
Olivia nodded at the phone. “Exactly what I was thinking, except the cover must reflect the article slant, you understand?
“Date me, date my restaurant,” Ryan said in the understatement of the year.
The I’ve-got-him-where-I-want-him expression on Olivia’s face changed to one of mingled shock and admiration. “Definitely a two page color spread, and a cutout in the corner of the cover. I’ll have to see if Diana will be willing to give you the full cover.”
“She will.” Ryan said confidently. “She has a generous heart. That’s what I loved about her.”
Tandy sat back and gave me a dubious look.
Olivia looked at me and mouthed, “Spark?”
Of course. Ryan had been nearly perfect. He’d only broken one of my commandments. But that one he’d not only broken, but trampled, pulverized and turned to dust. I realized exactly what would be the perfect — and perfectly challenging — getaway for Ryan. If he thought I was a generous woman before, he was definitely going to know it by the end of our mid-week weekend. I was going to help him see past the kitchen. His next girlfriend would owe me big time.
Olivia nodded briskly. “It was a pleasure speaking with you. I’ll let Emily know that Tuesday is a go.”
She disconnected and handed me back my phone. “I can see why you two didn’t work out. You’re right. He’s completely committed to his work.” Her eyes lit with unholy glee. “I like that in a man.”