Page 20 of Dirty Chef
“He thinks Griffin’s hotter than me,” I said and shook my head. “Can you believe that shit?”
“Griffin is smoking hot.” Whoa, lady. What the hell? She only smirked at the evident outrage on my face. “But no.” She patted my arm and grabbed a full plate. “I can’t believe that.”
Well, okay. Now we were talking. That was better.
And I should respond to her text. This was fun, dammit. A man could pretend it was real.
After I’d prepared mozzarella sticks for the fryer, I retrieved my phone again and stepped a little closer to the proverbial line of what was appropriate and not.
I’ve been here once or twice. I come to check out this Italian chick. Know her?
I hoped that wasn’t too much.
* * *
We closed at eleven and spent the next hour cleaning and preparing for the next day. I made us some food at my workstation, the only one equipped to prepare everything in one place, and Tracy and Jon were the last to leave with their to-go boxes ten minutes past midnight.
I was exhausted but in high spirits, and I grabbed myself another beer from the fridge while Alessia cashed out from the register.
“We did well tonight.” She closed up and left the envelope for me to take to the bank tomorrow on the counter. “I think we’ll be able to afford our expansion this fall.”
That would be terrific. It irritated us to have this big space right above us and not use it. It helped that we owned the building, effectively minimizing the expenses, but we wouldn’t be able to reach the next level until we could seat more guests.
“This summer will help,” I said. In a couple months, we’d order furniture for our outdoor seating area.
The terrace was a small step. The big one would be finally adding that second floor to the restaurant. We already had the space right above us, but decorating it would cost us an arm and a leg. It would, however, also increase our profits by approximately thirty percent if we stayed this popular. Lastly, there was the two-story space walled off from the additional restaurant seating on the second floor and our home on the third. We’d left that area completely open. We hadn’t installed plumbing or any fixtures yet. Hopefully by next year, we’d host cooking classes there.. Which was what Tracy had in his sights.
“We should start thinking about staff for the summer.” Alessia accepted a takeout container and snatched up her notebook, and we sat down in the dining area. “We’ll need at least two more servers, and Jon needs help in the kitchen.”
I nodded and bit into my burger. “I talked to Will and Kelly the other day. Their boys are looking for something.”
“Brady and Matt?”
“Yeah.” Will, Kelly, my brothers, and I had all gone to high school together, and we were still close. We tried to meet up for guys’ night once a month.
Alessia took on a teasing expression. “So, you don’t want to hire the girl who came in last week looking for work?”
“Jesus Christ,” I muttered around a mouthful of food. “She was one vocal fry short of being a Kardashian. I think I’m good.”
Alessia laughed.
Fuck, she was gorgeous. It hit me hard sometimes. I had to take a slow breath and ease through the tightness in my chest.
When she opened her notebook, it was time for more shop talk. This was a routine we went through a few times a week, one I didn’t wanna be without.
“I think I’ve narrowed down the decorations for Valentine’s week,” she announced.
“No balloons,” I stated.
“Of course not. Are we running a freaking Burger King?”
I grinned.
“No,” she said and jotted something down, “I was thinking we make another trip to Seattle next week. I wanna get flowers from George and Magda. These—” she pointed to the little glass bowl on the table with two tealights in it “—will have rose petals in them. Peach and white.”
“Not red?”
She shook her head. “Too clichéd, and everyone jacks up the prices on red roses throughout February.”
Made sense. Smart thinking on Alessia’s part to go with something else. It would only be for one week, anyway.
“I’m also ordering new burger skewers,” she told me. “The ones we have now aren’t very lovey-dovey.”
There was nothing wrong with our skewers. “They’re black and have our logo. What, you wanna stick hearts on them?”
Her eyes flashed with wry amusement. “No. I was actually thinking they could have little messages. I’ve seen ones that are more like flags. So, for the breakfast dish, we do ‘Good morning, love.’ And for the lunch app, we’ll stick in one that says ‘Time for lunch, sweetie,’ or…”
“What you call me,” I said, immediately on board. I dug it. “‘Time for lunch, tesoro.’”
She smiled. “Okay. Then dinner…”
“‘Have dinner with me, darling.’”
