Page 3 of Ours to Lose
Saw you have a fight coming up. Glad you’re back in the ring. Good luck.
Sunday, May 8 · 1:06 a.m.
Gabe
I miss her
Aubrey
I know. I do too
Chapter One
Aubrey
Two Years Later
My boss wasout of her fucking mind.
What else explained her marching backward up the stairs to the thirtieth-floor lobby of Matice Enterprises in a Hugo Boss dress and Louboutin stilettos while she cooed words of encouragement to the dozen burly men who trailed her, carrying what had to be over a thousand pounds of steel, glass, and wires?
“That’s it, gentlemen. Almost there. Easy. Easy. There you go. Very nice.”
Jillian crested the stairs to the landing and guided the movers to the center of the room, where they set down what looked like something between a disco and golf ball on steroids attached to a jumbo flagpole.
“Isn’t it marvelous?” she said as she joined me along the wall while the men got to work attaching wires and arranging pieces.
“Definitely,” I agreed. “What is it?” I didn’t need to know to see it was pretty.
“A replica of the Millennium Times Square ball complete with 504 crystal panels and over 600 halogen bulbs.”
“And it’s going to…?”
“Drop tomorrow at midnight to bring in the New Year.” She said it as if it was as simple as whipping together a cheese plate.
I glanced toward the sparkling globe again, where the workers seemed to be constructing some platform near the towering wall of windows. Through them, the glass skyscrapers of Philadelphia’s Center City gleamed. “You mean…inside the building?”
“That’s right. The drop will be shorter, naturally, so they’ll adjust the speed of descent, and the fireworks will remain outside, but with the confetti cannons and light show, the overall impact should be about the same.”
Filthy rich and out of her fucking mind. I hoped to be even half as delusional when I reached her age.
She turned her full attention to me, her auburn bangs swooping perfectly across her forehead. “How’s the kitchen looking? Do you have everything you need for the party?”
I snapped into work mode and handed her the printout. “Just need you to approve the timing for the courses.” It was all appetizers and desserts that would be served cocktail style, but I’d planned a progression for the dishes that would offer both the variety and excitement of a sit-down chef tasting. “The kitchen’s all set, and I’m finishing prep this afternoon.”
She nodded along as she read over the page, then handed it back. “Perfect. You’re going to shine.” Pride already gleamed in her eyes, and I could tell it was pride inmeas much as the catering division of her restaurant we were launching tomorrow night.
Arden Catering, offshoot of Ardena Restaurant. All mine to lead, run, and grow.
I wished I shared Jillian’s overflowing confidence it would be a hit. As it stood, my insides bubbled like caramel just thinking about it, and it was too soon to say if it would turn out silky and amber or a clump of charred rock.
It wasn’t that I doubted my skill. Shove me in a room full of strangers, and I might be the last to speak, but that was the beauty of being a chef—my food spoke for itself. It deserved Jillian’s pride. I wanted to soak it up and let it saturate the parts of me that hadn’t had a grandma to praise my homemade cookies in six years or a mother figure to brag to her friends about me in two.
But this other part kept getting in the way—the one that felt as if a loaded food pallet had been set on my shoulders and was slowly crushing me to the ground. I wasn’t sure when in the past few months it had arrived or what the problem was. Only that a heaviness I couldn’t shake kept the smile I returned from feeling all the way real.
It had to be nerves. After all, I had a mountain of prep work to tackle and a catering debut for three hundred people to pull off. That would put anyone on edge. Except for maybe Jillian.
Back in the kitchen, Evan hauled in the last box of food and set it on the stainless steel prep table. Between his fitted jacket, styled blond hair, and dimpled chin, he made it look more like a Gap photo shoot than manual labor.
