“It doesn’t matter,” she says. “He may not take me very seriously, but he will. You should probably start taking me seriously, yourself.”

“How exactly am I supposed to do that?” I ask. “You were classier when you weren’t wearing pants.”

She smiles at me again, and I’m thinking seriously about smashing my glass over her stupid head.

“I think we’re getting off to the wrong foot here,” she says. “After all, I was rooting for you. I just don’t like that Dane thinks he just gets to up and abandon me in the process.”

“What did you expect?” I ask. “Did you think he’d just start seeing me and not bother breaking up with you?”

“Oh, we weren’t in a relationship,” she says. “Not really. It doesn’t matter. What we did have was the kind of thing a person only finds a few times in a lifetime if they’re lucky.”

“And what was that?” I ask.

“A sexual relationship that didn’t bore me after a couple of weeks,” she answers. “I get that you two are all googly-eyed or whatever, but that’s not what makes a relationship last.”

“Oh? And what, oh great love guru, does make a relationship last?” I mock.

“Fucking sexual compatibility,” she says. “Finding someone that knows exactly how to get you off—that’s what makes a relationship last. It’s not something that a person just has with everyone. It’s like emotional compatibility, only less full of the lies and nonsense and all the bullshit expectations. Sex is honest. Emotions are the fucking lies.”

“I’ll take that under consideration,” I tell her, “but for now, I’d appreciate it if you’d get the hell away from me.”

She holds up her hands, palms toward me.

“Calm down,” she says. “I’m not here to ruin your evening.”

“Bye.”

She finally stops trying to teach me what’s really important in life and walks away.

As for me, I’m fuming as I down the rest of my drink. I think about ordering another, but really can’t see the point. Knowing me, I’ll just end up doing something embarrassing and tomorrow I’ll be twice as upset about everything as I am now.

When Dane walks over, I try to be attentive, to seem interested, but that redheaded idiot has succeeded in ruining my mood.

He asks me what’s wrong, but I’d just as soon forget that beast ever walked in here. I just tell him that I’m not feeling so well and ask if we can do this another time.

I’m not mad at him, though, even though that would make my life a little easier in the extreme short-term. Wrigley made it pretty clear that the two of them are no longer seeing one another and that’s really all I need to know about it.

Still, I’m not about to forgive her for ruining what was supposed to be a fantastic evening.

He takes me home, and I tell him that I just need some sleep.

I don’t close my eyes longer than a blink all night.

Chapter Eighteen

Borders

Dane

So, last night was a bust.

I don’t know what happened, but I’m pretty confident it didn’t have anything to do with Leila suddenly becoming ill. For now, though, I’ll just let it slide.

She’s already off to work by the time I come out of my room—I should really ask her whether she thinks we really need to sleep in separate rooms. With as close as we’ve been over the last few days, it doesn’t make much sense to create that artificial barrier.

C’est la vie.

I shower and shave and perform the rest of my morning ablutions. I’ve been doing the purchasing, but today Wilks loses his training wheels.

I’ve done my best to get him good and nervous for haggling with suppliers, but in reality, so long as he can put on a smile and chat without making a total ass of himself, there’s really nothing to worry about. I’ve already put in a good word with some of my favored suppliers, so today should go pretty smoothly.

I give Wilks a quick call to make sure he’s up, moving, and ready to pee his pants when I tell him that he’ll be taking the lead negotiating prices today. It’s nothing personal; I just love fucking with the guy.

He’s suitably tense by the time I hang up the phone and I smile my way to the apartment door.

When I open it, a small envelope falls to the ground. Curious, I bend down and pick it up.

The front of the envelope has my first name on it, but no postage. I open it up and find a Polaroid inside with a very familiar redhead, legs-spread with the caption “Wish you were here” written on the bottom.

This might be funny or arousing if it weren’t so sad.

The idealist in me wants to figure out a way to help her realize there are other things in life worth exploring, but the pragmatist in me realizes that I’m not fucking Superman. She’s been a coitus aficionado long before I ever met her, and while I would love to think that I’m capable of bending women’s wills with my mind, I’m not stupid enough to believe it.

I didn’t ask for the picture, and I certainly didn’t take it myself, but I’m not about to just toss it on the kitchen counter for Leila to find either, so I put it in my pocket and lock the door as I leave.

Wilks is waiting outside his building when I come around the corner. He sees me from a distance but still doesn’t have the confidence to just walk up to me.

This has to be stopped.

While I am effectively useless at influencing women’s actions, I am a savant when it comes to molding people in a kitchen. Wilks is technically my boss now, although I have a feeling that particular fact might slip my mind while I’m trying to build the guy’s confidence.

I get within ten yards of Wilks and stop.

I know he sees me. After all, the guy’s waving.

Our destinations lie in the opposite direction, and this is the perfect time to impart lesson number one of having your own staff:

If you can’t approach

Someone, you can’t possibly

Utilize their gifts.

Yes, lesson one is a haiku.

Yes, all of the lessons are haikus.

When I got my first head chef job a few years back, I had to learn all of these lessons the hard way. The haikus just help me remember them and, I feel, give me the air of a guru whose every word must be followed.

Okay, that and I find the practice hilarious.

Wilks isn’t coming, so I turn around and start walking toward the first stop on our itinerary.

He catches up in a matter of seconds.

“Where are we going?” he asks.

“Lesson #2,” I tell him with no explanation whatsoever. “Questions whose answers you know are a complete waste of my fucking time.”

That one was particularly helpful in building staff resilience or, occasionally, weeding out people who can’t bear hearing one of my very favorite words on a frequent and often hostile basis. This was a must for my kitchen.

“Lesson number two?” he asks. “What are you talking about? What was lesson number one?”

“We’ll cover the lessons as the need arises,” I tell him. “Didn’t you write down our shopping list?”

“Yeah,” he says, pulling a notepad out of his breast pocket.

I tell him, “We’re going to start at the top and make our way down to the bottom: simple.”

“All right,” he says. “I just didn’t know if you had a particular order in which you liked to make your stops.”

“I do,” I tell him, laughing. “It’s the order I gave you. But hey, lesson number eight: It's your restaurant. Do things the way they work best for you. Screw the staff.”

He chuckles, and I know exactly what he’s thinking. Sadly, he’s still too anxious to ask the question.

This should be a fun morning.

As we’re walking, I remember the contraband in my pocket and I deposit it in the next trashcan we pass.

“What was that?” he asks.

I take a moment to count the syllables before I answer.

“New lesson: If it's coming out of my pocket, it's none of your damn business, Wilks.”