Just a Taste

Chapter 2-2

Days passed and Liam poured himself into work. Jonathan had been riding him harder than usual and Liam didn’t know why. Maybe another critic had stopped by. It would serve Jonathan right if it had happened on Liam’s night off. He didn’t need to see the receipts to know that service was down when Jonathan was at the helm. Liam had thought focusing on work would soothe him, but it hadn’t.

He’d gone to Gus’s funeral, suffered through it. He didn’t stay after the service. The family’s grief was palpable and Liam couldn’t stomach it. Carmen had looked unflappable, which he found more alarming than the women crying loudly.

Brief moments of sadness and grief stole across her face, but she’d covered it well. Now he stood in his kitchen staring at the Pyrex pan he’d borrowed the night of the wake. It had been sitting on the counter taunting him. He knew he had to return it, should return it, but he was afraid to face Carmen. He knew from experience that it was easy to hold it together for the funeral, but later, sometimes days or weeks later, the grief and sorrow would catch up.

Chances were good that she would never even notice the missing pan. But not returning it would eat at him.

He grabbed the pan and bundled up against the cold night air. Just over a month until Christmas. These weeks would be especially hard for Carmen. Then the start of a new year. His personal deadline to figure out what he wanted for his future.

As he drove across town, he didn’t think of Carmen, but of his own family. They’d questioned him plenty over every family dinner about whether he planned to open his own restaurant. They knew he’d been considering it. Jimmy pushed more than his siblings had, but that was Jimmy’s way. Part of him wanted his own place. Being able to make his own decisions. Hiring people he knew would work well as part of his team. Trying new menu items just because he had the idea to.

But along with all the fun came the responsibility, not only for himself and his success, but people would be counting on him for paychecks. Gus’s death was a reminder of the burden that came with being an owner. Even as a lowly dishwasher, he’d been aware of the lean months when Gus didn’t know if he’d be able to pay the utilities.

Liam parked on the street, noting that it was much emptier than it had been on his last trip. He stared up at Gus’s house. Yes, Gus had struggled, but then he’d found success. The restaurant had been thriving when Gus sold it because Inez had gotten sick. He hadn’t thought he could run the restaurant without her.

More like he didn’t want to.

Shoving morose thoughts from his mind, Liam stepped from the car and breathed a lungful of cold air. It felt like an early winter. Icy wind slapped at him and although no snow lay on the ground, everything was frozen.

No lights brightened the house, but he saw the blue glow of the TV, so he rang the bell. It wasn’t late, so he was sure Carmen would be awake. He waited patiently, but the tip of his nose quickly numbed.

She swung the door open with a look of surprise. “Hi.” Her smile was only a little forced.

“Hi. I came to return your pan.” He held it up as if that somehow made a difference.

“Thanks.” She paused, looked over her shoulder, and then added, “Come on in. It’s freezing out there.”

He followed her into the dark room and noticed the moving boxes. Was she moving out of her family’s home? She clicked on a table lamp and then he saw. Gus’s clothes were scattered around the furniture. She was clearing out her dad’s stuff.

“I’ll take that.” She reached for the pan and he handed it over. “Make yourself comfortable. Can I get you something to drink? I don’t have much here, but—”

“I’m good.” He sat on the couch, avoiding the armchair he knew had been Gus’s. When she returned empty-handed, he asked, “How are you doing?”

“I’m okay, I guess.”

“Why are you doing this by yourself?” He asked with a nod toward the boxes.

“I want to.” She sat slowly on the chair. “My cousin offered to help, but her solution would be to toss everything. My aunts would spend too much time crying.”

He stared at this young, incredibly strong woman and his heart went out to her. “How about you take a break? Let me take you out for a drink and we can catch up.”

Her eyebrows came together and she tilted her head as if he’d spoken a foreign language.

“I can see you’ve been at this for a while. It’s my night off. Let’s go out.”

She stood, but tugged on her sweatshirt. “I’m not really dressed to go out.”

“I wasn’t thinking about taking you clubbing, just a quiet bar to talk. I think you look great, but I’ll wait if you want to change.”

“You know it doesn’t say much for your social life if this is how you spend your night off.” Her smile was small, but cocky, the same one she used to toss at him when she sped through the kitchen hoping her mom wouldn’t catch her and put her to work.

“I don’t know. I think I got the better end of the deal here.”

Her smile broadened and she went from a grief-stricken daughter to a beautiful woman.

“Let me grab my jacket.” She ran into another room and reappeared a few minutes later with a jacket on and if he looked closely, it seemed like she might’ve applied some makeup. Whatever she’d done, she already looked lighter, happier. Yeah, a break might do them both some good.

Liam led the way to his car. “Any place you prefer to go?”

“I don’t have a preference. I don’t get out much.”

He pulled away from the curb and away from her house. Carmen immediately began chatting. “Where are you working now?”

“Porter’s downtown.”

“Swanky, huh?”

“It’s okay.”

“That’s not a resounding endorsement. Don’t you like it? It seems like just the kind of place you always talked about working at.”

He focused on the street and tried to remember when he had ever mentioned plans to Carmen.

She smacked his arm. “You don’t even remember, do you?”

He slid her a look but didn’t answer.

“One day when my mom caught me trying to sneak out the back door, she made me help you with the dishes. As if you needed help. You were like a machine.” She paused and he heard the smile in her voice. “You actually did all the work that day while I sat my butt on the counter.” She laughed quietly. “Getting you to talk was like…I don’t know. Except that day. I don’t know what happened, but you talked about your plans for after culinary school. I was really impressed.”

He suddenly remembered the conversation with her. He’d aced his courses at school and it had been the first time he knew being a chef wasn’t just a silly dream, but something he would excel at. He’d scrubbed pots and pans that day and allowed his mind to wander to the possibilities.

Then he had a cute girl want to talk to him and speaking those dreams aloud didn’t seem like a bad idea.

“Yeah, well, I felt sorry for you. Your mom forced you to hang out with me in the one place you seemed to hate.”

“I didn’t hate the restaurant. I just didn’t want to work in the kitchen.” Her voice faded and he knew they’d crossed into a topic she didn’t want to discuss.

She stared out the window for a minute before speaking again. “You still didn’t tell me why you don’t like your job.”

“I like it.” He paused, searching for the words to explain. “It doesn’t feel like it’s enough anymore. When my boss hired me, I was so excited to have my own kitchen. At least that’s what I thought I was getting. I didn’t bother to ask why the last chef left, or any of the others before me.”

“So your boss is a dick.”

Her assessment made him chuckle. “Yeah. That’s one way to put it.”

“What do you plan to do?”

“I don’t know.” He pulled into a parking lot of a neighborhood bar. He had no idea what the place was like since this wasn’t his neighborhood, but it looked like a sports bar, which should be safe enough.

The inside of the bar was warm with the press of bodies. He’d forgotten about football on Thursday nights. Most people were huddled around the bar and the two big TVs there, so he led Carmen farther back to a small table. A harried waitress came by quickly. He ordered a scotch for himself and looked at Carmen.

“A beer?”

“Are you not sure?”

“I told you I don’t get out much. Rosa always orders beer.”

“What brand?” the waitress asked.

Carmen shrugged.

“Why not try something new? A margarita? A martini?”

Something lit in Carmen’s eyes. “Yes.”

“Which one?”

“Let’s start with a margarita. I know I like that.” She slid her jacket off and hung it on the back of her chair.

Liam realized that she’d changed her shirt when she went to her room. Gone was the oversized sweatshirt. She wore a black top that wrapped in some crazy crisscross over her chest, emphasizing her breasts.

Whoa. He had never thought about Carmen as a woman. At least not one whose chest he’d ogle. She was only three years younger than him, but when he’d worked for Gus, she was still in high school, which made her off limits.

“I don’t think I’ve had a margarita since college, but I vaguely remember having a really good time while drinking them.”

He wanted to know about her time in college and what she’d been doing since, but he didn’t want to bring up a subject she didn’t want to discuss. Tonight was about her having a good time, a chance to escape the sadness for a little while.