And then I’m looking into those milk-chocolatey eyes as he bends to peek at me from under the giant range, a smile on his obscenely handsome face.
“How’s your first shift going, naekkeo?” he asks.
“Umm… good. And it’s Cece. Sorry, I uh… I was really nervous earlier, so you probably misunderstood me,” I tell him, unable to look away from his beautiful eyes.
“No, I heard you,” he replies, and then nothing else. He just watches me, making me feel all jumpy beneath my skin, uncomfortable in a not-unpleasant way.
“Oh… um… okay. Well. Table 16? The register… computer thing said it was ready? It’s my first table by myself, sooo… yeah.”
His smile widens and he stays stooped as he pushes the two plates toward me. “Here you go, naekkeo. You must be doing really good if Steph is assigning you your own table on your first night. I’m proud of you,” he says, and a flush steals over my entire body as if he just lit the cooktop next to us. My face feels like it’s probably tomato-red, and my belly feels suddenly warm and full, like I just ate a platter full of comfort food.
Such a weird reaction to this practical stranger telling me I’m doing a good job. Or was it that he’s proud of me?
When was the last time anyone told me either of those things?
Maybe my sister, when we brought Ruby home from the hospital. “So proud of you sis. Look how beautiful she is.”
Or maybe my mom, when I showed her one of the holiday wreaths I made for my front door. “Oh, good job, honey. So creative!”
A sense of pride washes over me, probably over the fact that Winston said Steph giving me my own table on my first night is a sign of me getting the hang of it quickly.
“Thank you,” I finally reply, picking up the plates with surprisingly steady hands, when before I’d been slightly trembling.
“You’re welcome,” he says, and with one last warm smile and a sexy wink that sends a wave of awareness to places that haven’t been awake in me in ages, he stands back up, taking away that hypnotic gaze and snapping me into action.
I pick up the tray, balancing it on my shoulder easily, and make my way out of the kitchen and back into the restaurant. I grab one of the tray stands with my free hand and whip it open next to table 16 and place the tray on top of it, smiling at the couple with more confidence flowing through my system than I’ve felt since Mike dropped that bomb on me.
Actually, probably longer than that. It’s like I’ve had a shot of adrenaline straight to my heart. I feel good about myself in a way I haven’t in forever, all because someone acknowledged my work ethic.
“Chicken parmesan for you,” I tell the woman, who is dancing in her seat and squeezing her hands together in front of her heart like a prayer, a giddy look on her face.
“My favorite! Winston makes the best chicken parm around,” she tells her companion.
“And the meatloaf cupcakes and mashed potatoes for you,” I say, placing the delicious-smelling plate of food in front of the man. I’ll definitely have to try both of these dishes and soon. They look incredible, along with everything I’ve seen Steph serve tonight. “Is there anything else you might need?” I ask, eyeing their drinks and seeing they’re still mostly full.
“I’ll take some ketchup, please,” the man requests, and I nod.
“Be right back.” I take the stand back to the end of the booths and the tray back behind the bar, grabbing a bottle of ketchup from the shelf, and after I take it back to the table, I find Steph to continue shadowing her.
By the end of the night, I’ve two more couples sat at my lone table, and I’ve interacted with my boss as many times. Both instances, he’s bent under the range to look me in the eye and ask how things are going, his sous chef, I assume, chuckling each time he did it. It led me to believe maybe Steph wasn’t just exaggerating when she said she’d never seen Winston act like that before, which gave me this funny feeling in my stomach.
Which I quickly urged myself to brush off.
The number one thing I definitely do not need to be entertaining are thoughts of another man, when I’m only a week separated from someone who is still my husband.
6
Winston
Nothing could’ve prepared me for the whirlwind of feelings that coursed through my entire body the moment I looked up from chopping bell peppers and saw an actual goddess walking toward me.
Sure, she was in disguise, dressed in a shirt with my name emblazoned across her perfect handful-sized breasts and a pair of jeans that fit her like a second skin, but she couldn’t fool me. The gods themselves had created her and placed her in my kitchen, and I couldn’t stop myself from touching her as quickly and for as long as I possibly could, even if it was just her hand. The longer I looked at her, with Winston’s in bold straight across her heart, the more I knew without a shadow of a doubt I wanted that to be true, and she’d barely said a word to me. Apparently as stunned, if not more, by our meeting as I was.