Page 21 of Dirty Chef
Have dinner with me, Alessia.
“Oh, I like that.” She wrote it down. “For the dessert, we should go with baby. It’s sexier. Any suggestions?”
Sure. They were all related to Alessia, though. “Hmm.” I stuck some fries into my mouth and thought about it. “It’s the last dish before they hopefully go home together.”
She nodded slowly, on the same page as me. “‘Before we leave, baby.’”
“Perfect.” I smirked faintly. “Now you know what you can text me, because I couldn’t help but notice you didn’t respond to my last one. But the answer is yes, I will go home with you. In fact,” I added, ignoring the amusement in her eyes, “I’ll be your valentine that whole week.”
I wanted to say the week leading up to it too. I wanted to tell her to take that fucking guy’s name off the calendar on our fridge upstairs. Garrett. She was having lunch with him this Friday. Something she hadn’t talked about. The name had just appeared on the fridge this week, and it fucking sucked.
“That’s very generous of you, tesoro.” She put emphasis on the term of endearment and had a glint in her eye.
“I’m a generous guy.” I shrugged and wiped my mouth on a napkin. “Will there be any other lovey-dovey decorations that’ll make our restaurant look like a bubble-gum factory?”
My mirth had faded, maybe because now I was thinking about that motherfucker Garrett.
Alessia went back to business. “Not much. There will be some roses on the bar, and I’ll do a Valentine’s greeting on the chalkboard.” She nodded at the board on the brick wall between the door to the kitchen and the door leading to the stairs. “I think we’re set otherwise. Tomorrow I will submit an ad to the Courier, and you will work on the Valentine’s dinner.” She paused. “I guess we’re sort of running out of time. Everything has to be finalized on Thursday so we can upload the reservation schedule to the website. People are already making their plans for the holiday.”
Thursday would be fun. It wasn’t often we did a taste testing in our condo.
Huh. When was the last time I was away from the restaurant two days in a row? Wait. Why was I not working on Friday? My name wasn’t on the schedule; Griffin’s was, but I didn’t know why.
“Did you give me Friday off?” I asked.
She weighed her answer as both yes and no. “I figured you’d work upstairs since we’re bringing the food for Grady Night on Saturday.”
Oh, right. I’d almost forgotten about Saturday. I needed to check in with Jack to see if they were coming or not. They had to.
Seven
Alessia Rossi
“Who’s the cutest girl in the world? You are. Yes, you are.” I picked up the little one as she became fussy, and I cradled her head to my shoulder. “Don’t worry, bella bambina. You’ll get breakfast very soon.”
Isla was on the couch in their living room, feeding the baby girl’s brother. They’d all come home from the hospital this morning, and I’d been the first to offer to bring over bagels and beverages.
“If you could just whisper your name to me, that would be great,” I whispered against the girl’s soft skin. And God, her smell. Babies smelled like my ovaries were about to burst.
Isla chuckled softly. Tiredly. Poor girl, she was so exhausted already. “You’ll know their names on Saturday.”
Yes, yes, but that wasn’t soon enough.
Jack came down the stairs, looking quite tired too. “Hey, hon.” He mustered a smile and pressed a kiss to his daughter’s head on his way to Isla. “I changed the sheets. You ready to get some sleep, sweetheart? Alessia and I will watch the babies.”
“Beyond ready,” Isla murmured, “but I have one more to feed first.”
“Okay. I can burp him.” Jack gently picked up their boy, and I walked over to place the girl in Isla’s arms. Then I grabbed a towel off the table and handed it to Jack. No need to beg to be thrown up on, right?
He grinned slightly and spread the towel over his shoulder. “Thank you.”
Mommy and Daddy focused on their little ones for a while, so I took some pictures of them. They were all so beautiful together. Comfy clothes, exhaustion written all over, and yet, so much love and intimacy in their eyes. When Jack and Isla glanced at each other, no one could doubt their devotion. It tightened my stomach with sadness—for selfish reasons.
There was no more wistfulness or longing. I was giving up. I’d bailed on Garrett twice already, so I was going to meet up with him early on Friday, explain myself because he deserved that, and then I was throwing in the towel.
I hoped I would change my mind; I was only thirty-one, after all, but right now, I couldn’t see it. Adam meant too much to me. He was the only one my heart gravitated toward. It was him or no one.
