Romance Impossible(32)

"Can I ask you something about him?" she asked, softly. He was too absorbed to hear, but I still kept my voice low.

"Shoot."

"You started to say something." She looked up at me. "When we talked about him - you said he couldn't just work anywhere."

I nodded, slowly. This was one of those things that stayed inside the family, but Jill...she was a special case. She deserved to know why he was here.

"He fell in with a bad crowd," I said. "Got into trouble with the law. Only did thirty days, out for good behavior. But it's still on his record. It makes things hard, out in the workforce."

Jill nodded, slowly, her mouth curved into a slight O. "That makes sense."

"If you ask me, he didn't even..." My frustration was starting to seep through, raising the volume of my voice. I tempered it. "My point is, he didn't hurt anyone. He didn't cause any harm. I won't pretend like he didn't know what he was doing, but it was pot. For Christ's sake. Enough for a trafficking charge, but if he didn't put it in his bag, somebody else would've smuggled it. What fucking difference does it make? Is it worth ruining a kid's life over?"

I still got angry when I thought about it. Angry at Aiden, angry at his supposed friends who dragged him into it - and angry at the system that felt the need to make an example of a stupid, confused kid who just wanted to seem like a badass.

"That's awful," Jill murmured, still watching him. "Good job, Aiden!" she called out, switching on a smile. "Let's run through it one more time."





***



I made the decision while she was running through the drill with him one more time, just before lunch service. Once the afternoon lull settled in, I called her into my office.

"Yes, Chef?" She was wiping her hands on her apron, standing in my doorway.

"Please," I said, gesturing at the chair. "Sit down." I made sure to keep smiling, lest she think this was something bad. Not that she seemed nervous to be talking to me. Not anymore.

"I'm sure you've noticed that I never got around to filling the sous chef position," I said. Her mouth twitched, hesitantly, not quite sure if she should be smiling yet. "I know you're more than qualified. It's just a question of whether you're interest, really. It means longer hours, more responsibility. But you're halfway there as it is. Your work with Aiden - and just in general, really, I'd be lucky to have you."

Her face broke into a grin.

"Of course," she enthused, jumping to her feet to shake my hand. "Thank you, Chef. Thank you."

She bounced out of the room, and I could hear her whistling in the kitchen for a while afterwards.

I'd done well with her.

No. You didn't. She did well with herself. You've got absolutely nothing to do with it.





***



We ran into each other at the wine shop again, which I supposed was inevitable. I expected her to tense up when she saw me, hugging her bottles of Moscato protectively, but she just smiled. It was her day off, and she was dressed in dark jeans and a deep purple sweater that clung to the shape of her upper body. The chef's coats that I typically saw her in left nearly everything to the imagination. But this - this was different. As she reached up to a high shelf, the sweater hitched upwards, revealing just a hint of the creamy skin of her lower back before she hopped back down.#p#分页标题#e#

"Hi, Chef," she said, tilting her head in the direction of the bottles I had tucked under my arm. "Business, or personal?"

"Personal," I said. "I'd buy this place out of business if I needed to supply the restaurant."

She nodded. "Of course. How stupid of me. Must be all that Moscato rotting my brain."

Taking my cue from her, I smiled. "You know you have a problem. Admitting it is the first step."

"A delicious problem," she agreed, looking down at the bottles she was holding. "Have you ever actually tried it, by the way? Or is it just beneath you?"

"Once," I said. "That was enough."

"Chef," she said, making a tsking noise. "You, of all people, should know better. Tasting just one label is never enough. Ask your brother, he'll agree with me."

"Of course he will," I replied. "Any excuse to take someone else's side against me."

"One of these days," she said, turning to the cashier. "One of these days, you're going to taste this, and you're going to love it. I promise you."

"I'm a bit frightened," I said. "I don't know if I want to be assimilated."

"It doesn't matter," she said. "See you tomorrow, Chef."

I couldn't wipe the smile off my face as I paid for my wine. Things were going so well between us.