Page 25 of Stirring Up Love
It was up to her, and her alone, under the blazing lights and the influence of one of the best barbecue sauces she’d ever tasted, to make sure her concept, her restaurant, her hometown flavor came out on top.
“Mr.Rimes says he’s new to the game. Fair enough. But the difference between a newbie and a veteran is dedication.”
Finn had reached the table and was placing a sample in front of each investor. She spoke quicker, because if they tasted those sauces without hearing the rest of her pitch, then everything she’d worked for since high school, all her hopes and dreams, the empire she planned to build—all of it would crumble to dust.
Not to mention, she could never show her face in Hawksburg if she lost to a city boy.
“He hasn’t approached stores, falls back on the excuse of inexperience. If he continues to justify his lack of initiative, he’ll be out of this business within a year. I don’t make excuses; I make goals. And then I meet them. I’m here to grow Honey and Hickory to a household name and make all of us a boatload of money in the process. Are you in?”
Keith opened his mouth, but not to reply. In went a sauce-dipped spoon, and out went Simone’s chances.
Constance took one tentative taste, then another. She wiped her mouth with a cloth napkin. “Ms.Blake, you’ve tasted this. Can you honestly say what you serve up at Honey and Hickory is better?”
The sauce? Maybe not. Barbecue was the heart of Honey and Hickory, but to Simone, the sense of community, the love within the restaurant’s walls, the feeling of homecoming every time she walked through the doors—those were the lifeblood.
She could open up about her ultimate vision. Share her plan to invest in Hawksburg. Appeal to the investors’ penchant for community-focused businesses and earn herself a better shot at victory.
Or set herself up to be the laughingstock of Hawksburg. Open herself up to criticism and disdain as the city girl who tried to worm her way back into the town’s good graces. If she couldn’t convince the investors to take a chance on Honey and Hickory, how could she expect to get locals on board with her grander plans?
“Honey and Hickory has more to offer than our sauce; you said so yourself. That’s the reason we’re continuing to grow, fifty years after my grandpa opened up shop. I may not have started Honey and Hickory, but I’m pushing the restaurant to new heights, building on a legacy.”
Uncertain of her standing back home, she made the split-second call to keep her biggest dreams tucked away inside herself. But the game wasn’t over. She’d been playing defense. Time to sink the buzzer-beating three-pointer.
“Meanwhile, Finn’s Secret Sauce is a floundering start-up with no roots, destined to fail.”
CHAPTER 10
FINN
No roots. Destined to fail.
Finn’s throat constricted like he’d been garroted with a wire. Constance Rivera and Keith Donovan were still questioning Simone, but their voices had turned into the static of a radio station gone out of range. Simone had exposed his deepest fears and secret worries, laid them bare in front of millions of viewers.
No family. No home. No roots. No future.
A failure.
Who was he, after all, to come here and expect validation? A chance he didn’t deserve? Still, tasting Simone’s barbecue sauce had him thinking he might have a shot. Her product was great, bordering on amazing, but no match for the variety of his full line of sauces.
Against all odds, he’d thought he might make it out of this room with a deal. A chance to prove his worth. To matter.
And then in one smooth, haughty speech, she’d torn down his particleboard hopes and tossed a match on the pile. He’d been in plenty of fights. Fights where his feet hadn’t been fast enough to escape. Fights where he’d been ambushed and outnumbered. Fights where he hadn’tseen the knockout punch coming until too late. But he’d walked into this arena with his eyes wide open.
Sure, he hadn’t expected to go toe to toe with Simone, but he’d wanted her to see his victory. No time to be squeamish. Flight wasn’t an option.
He was transported to the group home after lights-out, when Brian Warnke laid him out flat with a fist to the nose after discovering Finn had snatched a granola bar from his stash under the bunk. Hungry and seeing red, with trembling hands curled into fists at his chin, Finn had refused to back down. Now as then, the explosive pain of the unexpected blow flipped a switch in his brain from self-preservation to self-defense. He’d fight back; he had to, if he didn’t want to watch his dream die.
“‘My meal from Honey and Hickory came with a side of dysentery straight out ofOregon Trail.’” Finn now spat out the quote against the echo of Simone’s accusation, reciting from memory a review he’d found on a late-night, liquor-fueled deep dive into all things Honey and Hickory. “That’s a direct quote from a one-star review I found for Simone’shistoricfamily restaurant online.”
Simone strode forward and claimed center stage. “Written by a disgruntled cook who was fired for never showing up to work. It hardly classifies as empirical evidence.”
“Look,Ms.Blake,” he said, leaning heavy on the honorific like she had, gratified when her eyes narrowed. “Beyond Honey and Hickory’s subpar reviews, your generic flavors can’t match the nuance of Finn’s Secret Sauce. You’re a mom-and-pop barbecue joint with no soul, stuck in the past.” Directing his next words to the investors, he said, “Whereas I’m all heart, focused on the future of barbecue. Sustainable, organic, outside-the-box flavor blends.”
Simone clicked her tongue. “Organic? Wow, super cutting edge. If this was 1999.”
Hands on her hips, she angled away from him, toward the crowd. “Honey and Hickory was farm to table long before it was fashionable, and we cook with locally sourced meat and home-grown produce.”
“Like you had anything to do with that? Your grandfather probably set up those contacts while you were in diapers.” He turned his focus on the audience; two could play at that game.
