Page 38 of Unexpected Pickle
“That’s okay.” If I want to call, I can ask Max for his number.
No, I sense that what Hex would want is face time.
The other chefs are in the class. I can knock on all the doors until I find him.
But I don’t have my coat. Getting it would mean heading back to the kitchens. Moreau might spot me. People might ask where I’m going.
I’ll risk the cold.
I head out the back door, the chill instantly biting my face.
I take the first sidewalk. It’s perfectly clean, as expected, but I notice the heat doesn’t extend to the porch of the cabin. There’s a thin dusting of snow on it. No one has walked on it in hours. That one undoubtedly is empty or belongs to a chef who is still inside.
Now I know what to do.
I jog to keep warm, glad for my comfortable chef shoes. I go back up the sidewalk and down the next to another porch. Also clear.
Then the next.
Clear.
I’ll finish this side, then start the other. There’s only one more before mine.
And it has footprints. Big ones. Recent ones.
This is bound to be it.
I draw in a breath. I don’t know what I’ll say. Normally, I’d rehearse a moment like this for hours.
But I’ll take a page from Hex’s playbook. Be spontaneous. Don’t think too far ahead.
And I knock on his door.
13
HEX, FIRE TWO
I’ve just gotten off the phone with the woman who schedules my travel when my spine tingles, like there’s something I don’t quite know.
Probably it’s the snowfall, which was pretty at first, but has become unnerving. I peer out the curtains. The front of the cabin, facing the sidewalks to the lobby, has been managed. But on the back side, there are impressive snow drifts forming around the outbuildings in the woods.
And I can’t get a flight out today or tomorrow. Carly said that there have been a slew of canceled flights, so I better hang tight to the one I have on Friday after the retreat has ended. The airport is a mess, but the heavy snow should pass before then.
So apparently, I’m stuck here for four more days.
I’m not going back to the retreat. I’m messing up Jeannie’s opportunities. I’m a liability. A problem.
That tingly feeling comes over me again. What is it?
Then I hear the soft knock.
Was that on my door?
I’m not afraid of whoever might be there. I’m about to enter the heavyweight title circuit in mixed martial arts. Come at me.
But I take a step back when I throw it open.
“Jeannie?”
