SATURDAY: Light, Full-Bodied & Screwed (Hookup Café Book 6) Read online

  I had never met a woman that made me lose focus nor had I ever had a woman be so forward with me that was sober. Back in the day when I was hanging out at bars and even before that going to parties, the only girls that came on strong were barely standing up and using me to hold them upright. Or they had a sufficient amount of liquid courage that they felt comfortable enough to come up to me. Most girls or women were sly or subtle when they were trying to capture my attention and I was the one to make the first move, if I was interested. Darla certainly had my attention and I definitely found her interesting in a very good way but it wasn’t cool while I was working—and she didn’t let up.

  “Hey, Mr. Wonderful… Chef Extraordinaire… you’re next course is up and I believe she just told the crowd that she couldn’t wait for you to explain what was next on the menu.” Evie, a server, came strolling in with a big grin on her face.

  It looked like I was going to be put back in the limelight, no escape for me it appeared. Darla had started something that I had no choice but to finish. So I strolled out to the patio accompanying the dishes being served and delivered my next set of descriptive words.

  “Here we have a delicate butter leaf lettuce topped with grilled prawns that have been dusted with a hint of cracked red pepper paste and then drizzled with a light avocado vinaigrette.”

  Again, I stepped back and gave Darla the floor.

  “I just love the way he describes his dishes. I could never make them sound so enticing. For your salad I have chosen a Riesling. Yes, another white, but it has a sweet body like our Chef Vin. Isn’t it fabulous that his name means wine?”

  Fuck! She officially had me feeling totally uncomfortable in my place of business, on my turf. Her flirting had attacked me both in my mind and my pants as they had gotten snugger when she decided to put her hands on me as well. It was obvious to me that she was interested and she never let up—I hoped that no one else noticed my discomfort before I departed once more to the kitchen.

  I knew that it was not going to end. If she had me explaining the appetizer and salad which were fairly simple dishes, I had to be prepared with words and body control to introduce the creamy lobster bisque topped with minced garlic, cilantro, a swirl of sherry, and a little stack of lobster meat. When Darla told the crowd about the wine to accompany my soup, “I encourage a lighter style of wine, a lovely dry rosé wine…” I swear she purred. The words seemed to roll right over her tongue before they were heard and it had me thinking about just how talented her mouth might be.

  Thankfully, there was nothing overly exciting about my main course even though it tasted fucking amazing. “Blackened yellowtail tuna topped with a cucumber, mango, mint and chili salsa, and alongside, lightly sautéed baby asparagus spears. You’ll note a hint of citrus. Enjoy.”

  “Thank you, Chef.” No little quip or suggestive comment, perhaps I had lost my sex appeal. “With this kind of fish you can easily pair it with a soft to neutral wine like a good rosé, Pinot Noir, Syrah, or even a medium-bodied Merlot—which we will be having.” Those were all the words I heard as I went to check on my sous chef and his line cook for the evening. I had done my part, surely the dessert course didn’t need to be presented by me, but oh, how wrong I was. Because the next thing I knew, the wine rep came strutting up to me while I was chatting away with Felipe in Spanish.

  “You can’t dessert me now.” Darla batted her eyelashes at me with her play on words; dessert instead of desert. I smiled at her while I listened to the comments being made behind me and I was happy that they were in a foreign language rather than English. Although Darla could’ve spoken Spanish, she didn’t respond to their words or mine back to them so it appeared that we were all in the clear commenting on her body with perfect curves, all in the right places.

  Pushing off the counter that I had been leaning against, I spoke as I went to my kitchen to prepare for the grand finale, “I am at your service, m’lady. See you in a few minutes.” She was following fairly close behind me.

  “Oh, if you were at my service we would be in far less clothing and in all kinds of positions,” I heard her murmur under her breath as she turned in the opposite direction, heading back to the patio. Holy fuck!

  With a grin on my face, knowing that I was right about the exquisite creature other known as Darla wanting me, I made my final speech of the evening.

  “For dessert, a medley of berries tossed in an aged balsamic vinegar with mint and basil, layered between pillows of mascarpone. I hope you have enjoyed your evening and your meal. Thank you.”

  “You definitely delighted and enchanted us. I look forward to working with you again… and again… and we have another red. A light Pinot Noir…” Darla continued on but I fled after wrapping up my portion of the evening.

  Excused for the rest of the night, I had the volunteer staff clean up and I returned to my own kitchen to assist them—instead of them helping me as usual. They had things under control, so I just hung back and worked on plate control before dishes went out. Watching the two cooking and arranging things, had me thinking that it was time to start looking for a restaurant of my own. I could create menus more like the ones I had done for the wine tasting and manage my staff, train them, teach them, and oversee the plating. I just needed to make sure that my sous chef would take over my task and stay with Pansie. Unfortunately, I hadn’t been able to keep my next-in-charge guys for long—someone was always poaching them.

  “What has you so deep in thought? Anything I can help with?” Darla’s sexy voice invaded my thoughts and I just looked at her perched on a stool in front of our open kitchen space. “I’m sorry. I need to apologize…” Her tone had changed. “…I’m coming on too strong, aren’t I? Not an excuse but I have sampled a few too many glasses of wine on an empty stomach minus the lovely scallop you fed me.”

  “Let me make you something and before you refuse, just stay silent.” She smiled and nodded as I began to move around my kitchen as my guys were in clean up mode, done for the night.

  Pulling out some mac and cheese that had been made earlier, I grated some extra Gruyere, white cheddar, and chopped up some lobster meat that I had used for the bisque. Blending it all together, I put the mixture into a small white soufflé dish and popped it in the oven to warm. Right before it was ready I added some sourdough bread crumbs to the top and broiled the top to a nice toasty brown. Happy with my creation, I placed it in front of one beautiful Darla along with a spoon. “Bon appétit!” I said, and then watched her dive in, complimenting me after every so many bites.

  “I think I might be falling madly in love with you!” She was not shy with her words.

  “You really should think before you speak. You never know when someone might hold you to your outbursts.” I smiled at her as I left her briefly to find a mini cake for her. Something told me that she would appreciate an orgasm—cake—and I couldn’t wait to see her face as she took her first bite. I would bet a million bucks that she would moan.

  Let me just say that had I made that bet, she wouldn’t have caused me to lose any money from my bank account and instead put me in the category of millionaire.

  Chapter Three…

  When Pansie had installed a bar for customers to sit on stools in front of the cook area I thought it was a great idea. That was until one beautiful wine rep entered the café and had my perfect life flipped and turned upside down. I had been thrown into the fire all thanks to that sweet thing with a low cut top that pushed her lovely breasts into my face as I was prepping plates to be served. Every wine Saturday before she pulled me into her event she insisted on arriving early and perching herself on her usual spot to torture me. She said it was so that she was certain that her selections were paired correctly. The only thing was, what I was doing in my kitchen area was for the general population and not for the select few that had signed up to be entertained by her.

  At first she had me off my game but then I found myself looking forward to her visits. She was very smart, as she had
talked Pansie into only using her for wine presentations and she also had Cafélicious only selling Temecula wines. Anyone that could do that had to be respected in my book… and feared a bit as well. She had certainly thrown me for a loop and the worst part was that she was well aware of her effect on me.

  Fortunately, I had a way around letting off a little steam when she came around. Speaking Spanish to my staff allowed me to talk about her without her knowing just how I felt about her, from her looks to the way she frustrated the hell out of me with her words. They told me that I should ask her out, but something felt wrong about dating someone associated with the café. I had been surrounded by beautiful women since I started working there and I remembered my mother saying, “You never shit where you eat.” So I applied that same rule to Darla, even though she was making it very difficult to deny my body—that fucking ached—the opportunity to take its frustrations out on her in the most enjoyable ways. But it just didn’t feel right to sample her when it was her wines that I needed to be tasting. Wine tasting was also something she offered whenever she stopped in, asking me to let her take me around to the different Temecula vineyards she represented.

  Remembering my first time visiting wineries, I was a little afraid of how much I could control myself if we were one on one. Deacon had talked me into accompanying him along with a few other couples. He had wanted to impress a member of the English royalty better known as Princess Lizzie who was a foreign exchange student at my college. Deacon was wowed by her accent the minute she opened her mouth and he did everything to get her attention, fermented grapes were one of the ways he attempted to win her over so I went along to support him.

  What I remember about the whole day was that I got so fucking drunk. I couldn’t tell you which winery had the best wine but, apparently, I was partial to some of them because I woke up to a few cases of wine along with almost two thousand dollars spent according to my credit card receipts. Another thing I realized, I had a subscription to a Wine and Food magazine because I had signed up for a wine-of-the-month club which I found out about when my first delivery arrived a month later.

  Looking back, I remembered some guy at one of the wineries telling me to spit and I looked at him like he was fucking crazy. Spit?! Hell no, it was tasty shit. I planned to swallow every drop. The next day, my head and stomach told me that I was a dumbfuck and should’ve listened; swirl in mouth and spit out! In fact, my whole body felt the pain of being thrown in the back of a pickup truck and driven back to school—no one wanted me to yack on them. Stupid me didn’t go wine tasting, I went wine drinking!

  Listening to Darla describe the fermentation of grape standing in front of me before I presented the first course had me recalling my trip and words that had been used to describe each stage of production up to the tasting part. I watched as she showed the difference between corked and screw topped bottles. The descriptive words to express the body of each wine; bold, bright, buttery, nutty, oaky, complex, had me thinking of more than wine. Complex seemed to stand out the most and it had me thinking about how I would label the fair skinned beauty next to me on Saturday wine nights if she was a wine; light, full bodied… and I was screwed where she was concerned! I laughed to myself, but loud enough that I caught her attention and felt my face turn beet red. I was happy when that evening came to an end. It was getting harder and harder to participate without some relief, one of those nights I was going to blow.

  What the fuck was wrong with me? I handled women and their issues and attitudes every fucking day. I had to figure out how to disassociate myself or let my staff handle the events without me. Maybe my café girls had the answers I needed and decided that the next time they came to me for help I was going to get my money’s worth too. It didn’t take long to have one of those moments.

  Plopping down in a seat at my kitchen bar, Vivienne, a hairdresser who owned Salon Luxe a few doors down from the café and best friend to Pansie, launched into telling me her problems. Another reason that I wanted to kill Pansie—not literally—for adding the gawk-at-the-chefs bar, I’d been turned into a fucking therapist. I thought that I had moved past that part of my life, giving up my bartending profession.

  “Scarlett is ready to kill me, she can’t keep up. She is hiring more and more people. Not sleeping and running out of space to be able to package and ship her organic products. She needs a warehouse and I need one of your special grilled cheese sandwiches stat!”

  “Who is Scarlett and why is it your fault she’s having space problems?” I knew that if I ever wanted her to give up her chair to other customers, I needed to help solve her situation—if I could.

  “Rhett Scarlett…” She looked at me as if I should recognize the name. “The la la shampoo and conditioner you use… you are using it, aren’t you?” Vivienne was always loading me up with hair products when I got my hair trimmed by her.

  “Sorry, Vivi, I don’t pay attention. I’m half asleep when I shower.”

  “Well, if you read Fashionista Forward you would see that she’s a big deal since I put her on the site.”

  “I subscribe to Saveur, Bon Appétit, Food & Wine, Eating Well… and a few others. If she’s not in those, you’re shit out of luck.”

  “Well, she could be. Her products are all natural, you could probably drink her shampoo… not that I’m advising it. But seriously, you should check out the site… they have Frank Fashion Friday and he has great looks for men… and he’s hilarious most of the time. I know I can’t get you to read gossip rags.”

  “So what is the problem? Scarlett should be thanking you and expanding.” I saw that as the simple solution as I walked around the kitchen bar and presented Vivienne with a tri-tip sandwich with edible flowers and a spicy aioli sauce on artisan bread. I knew with one look at it, she would dive in and forget all about what she was rambling on about, and then it would be my turn.

  Being a hairdresser… beauty engineer, Vivienne was used to hearing about problems. However, I had never divulged mine to her so maybe it was time, she sure told me hers often enough that I had stored up credit. But how much did I want to tell her? And what was really going on? Nothing.

  Darla came in every Saturday whether it was a wine night or not. She sat in the same exact spot at my counter and always looked like a fucking wet dream.

  A notebook always accompanied her.

  She always spoke about wine and food.

  She always made the two together sound like a sexual adventure we should explore.

  Surely, she didn’t speak that way to her other clients. I was special to her, I told myself. She wanted me as much as I wanted her… did I want her? Hell, yes! But, truthfully I didn’t know if she was simply flirting with me for the fun of it. I had done that with the girls at the gym and meant absolutely nothing by it and they seemed to realize it. I imagine they were used to winks and innuendos involving their hard bodies in workout clothes. And how many times had I heard customers playfully talk to our servers, calling them endearing or suggestive names. Was it all an act for Darla when she said things that had my body reacting like a teenage boy? Those were all of the issues I quietly posed to Vivienne as I watched and listened to her devour the lunch I had made just for her.

  Between bites, she gave me her opinion along with gossip she had overheard. I wasn’t sure if she was very helpful or not, but she did commit to returning on Saturday to attend a wine event. She insisted that she needed to see Darla in action, observe her body language. I probably should’ve discouraged her but once I had filled her in on all of the details, I seriously doubted that I could keep her from pulling up a chair for a bird’s eye view of what I had to endure at the hands of one smoking hot wine rep.

  Getting Vivienne on the guest list was no problem and, of course, she refused to just hang back and watch. No, she had to let herself be seen and heard—not that Vivienne was hard to miss with her pink hair. It was her line of questioning that had me cringing inside as I tried to provide my descriptions without giving her the
cut it sign to shut her up. You know, the one where you abruptly move your hand horizontally across your throat, palm down. She avoided my eye contact that was trying to convey the same thing.

  “So, Darla, when you want a certain wine, should you just go after it because you like it and want to give it a whirl? Or should you hang back and wait for it to present itself? What is your approach to your needs?” Vivienne wasn’t even making any fucking sense. How the hell were her inquiries going to help me? But it seemed that she was happy with all of Darla’s answers because she gave me a thumbs up as she strutted out of the event with a few bottles of white wine.

  Vivienne’s text to my phone later while I cleaned up with Darla perched on her usual stool going over her list of notes, made me wonder if we were all at the same wine dinner event:

  She is so into you. Make a move. She will float your boat full of wine.

  I didn’t bother responding to her, I just shook my head, and decided that I needed a guy’s view of my situation when I went to the gym—the women in my life didn’t speak my language, obviously. I just hoped that my buddies had better advice, although, I wasn’t so sure that they had their women figured out any more than I did. Deacon, for sure, seemed to be striking out with Saylor.

  Chapter Four…

  Enjoying a heavenly sleep in on a Sunday morning, I hit D’Gym around ten a.m., late for me who was usually up at the crack of dawn or earlier for deliveries, to shop, and then to prep for the day. But before all of that, my workout was essential. Working in a restaurant provided too many temptations and if I wanted to indulge from time to time, I had to work it off. I was pretty good at limiting my intake since I found myself forever tasting everything I made. I got to sample everything without consuming a large portion. I didn’t want to be the chef with the potbelly, I preferred lean and mean. Living by a set regimen, I followed a scheduled workout plan; Monday chest, Tuesday back, Wednesday legs, Thursday shoulders, Friday chest, Saturday back, Sunday light all around day. I decided to work on my chest first on that particular day.