Addicted (The Addicted Series, #1)(105)

I saw the change in Shannon's face as soon as the first sentence left my lips. She was the executive chef of a Michelin starred restaurant, one of the few women to do so. She was brought up in the old school, where the executive chef was never, and I mean never referred to by their first name while at work. As for telling her to f*ck off? You can imagine how I'd crossed the line with that one. "No, you won't," she said, reaching over and snapping down the lever that controlled the gas to my grill. The flames went out, and the whole kitchen went momentarily silent. "You think your problems matter? No. Get out. You're fired."

I had a set of tongs in my hand, and I wanted to grab Shannon by her nose with the hot grease covered metal and twist. I wanted to scream at her I didn't need her job or her patronage to become a great chef. I wanted to cry. I wanted to run away. What I did, however, was set my tongs down, take my apron off, and set it in her hands. While I made my way towards the tiny changing area where our bags were kept, I worked at the buttons on my top, to the point that by the time I reached my locker, I was standing in just my pants and my white undershirt. I opened my locker and pulled on the light jacket I'd worn for covering up, and grabbed my bag. There was nothing else inside.

Turning around, I saw Horst looking at me, his face a blend of compassion and disappointment. "I'm sorry," he said, holding his hand out. "Chef wants me to get your top."

I handed it over silently, my eyes brimming with tightly held back tears. "I'm sorry too Horst."

"I shouldn't have put you on the meat station after seeing the way you were walking in. Do you want to talk about it?"

I shook my head, the first tear falling down my cheek. "What is there to talk about? Just, thank you. You were good to work with, and I'm sorry I let you down."

"You didn't. You didn't know, but your performance tonight was not the only reason Shannon fired you."

"Oh?" I asked hollowly. Like it really mattered.

"Since you came back to Chicago, and she saw you and your brother . . . Julian is it? Either way, since she saw that, she's become more critical of you. You were on an invisible tightrope, and you didn't know it."

I nodded, and looked up at him. "I guess it doesn't matter anyway. Now not only am I out of a job, but I lost him too." I looked up at the ceiling, and blinked, promising myself I wasn't going to cry in front of Horst. "And he isn't my brother."

The ride home on the bus felt longer than normal. Coming into the apartment, there were so many things that reminded me of Julian. There, on the sofa, was a t-shirt of his that I'd been wearing to bed the few weeks I'd acknowledged to myself that I was in love with him. In the kitchen I saw the five-pound tub of protein powder he'd bought, sitting bright red on the counter like a shining reminder of him.

I went into my bedroom and could see the shape of his head still on the pillow he'd used, and the noticeable fact that the last time the bed had been slept in, two people were using it. I looked at the rumpled sheets for a minute, and couldn't stomach the idea of sleeping there that night. Instead, I headed for the third bedroom of my place, the smallest room that I'd sworn over and over again I was going to convert into a home office or study, and never got around to doing. The original bed was still there, the mattress covered by a fitted sheet but nothing else. The empty white space was a good metaphor for how I felt, empty and bare. I collapsed onto the mattress, and let the tears I'd been holding back since Horst said he was sorry come out. They were bitter, and burned my cheeks as they soaked into the sheet beneath me.





Chapter 23


Julian




The waves crashed onto the sand before retreating, wiping away the footprints of the people who were walking below the wave line, leaving the sand smooth and pure within seconds. I wanted to join the waves, to join the sand and be washed away, to be numb and forgotten. Instead, I could feel every second of the past three days come crashing down on my mind, starting with talking with Yuki and ending with getting off the plane in Miami.

I hadn't planned on going to Miami. It was just the first plane that was flying out of Logan Airport when I got there. I'd already left the manor, my bag slung into the back of one of the gardener's trucks. The trucks belonged to the manor, so I wasn't technically stealing it, but my license was suspended. If a cop had pulled me over, I most likely would be spending the night in jail. As it was, I got all the way to the long term lot without incident, parked the truck and put the keys in my pocket. Yuki kept extras of all the vehicles, and she could pick it up. I sent her a text message about the truck in case she didn't know, along with the lot and space number, then paid for three days parking with the cash I had in my wallet. I might have been a bastard, but I wasn't going to cause any more problems that I had already done.

Getting off the flight in Miami, I wasn't too sure where to go. It was already late at night, and I didn't want to go through the hassle of finding a hotel room. Instead, I slung my bag over my shoulder and walked into the night, heading towards the beach. Something in the idea of the waves and the timelessness of the ocean was speaking to me.

As I walked through the warm Miami darkness, I thought of all the mess I'd caused. I deserved every bit of pain I got from f*cking Gina and not telling Krystal, even if I had done it before she and I fell in love. That I'd gotten Gina pregnant, and was now going to have a baby was beside the point. The baby was innocent, but I'd hurt Krystal, who was just as innocent. She didn't know about my original plan, how she'd started off as a pawn in a grand game of revenge against my father. She didn't know how something about her had stopped me, and had changed me into becoming a better man. She didn't know how I'd abandoned my plan after realizing I was falling in love with her, and how she'd become a role model for me, and how she'd given me the courage to confront the truth about my relationship with my father, and to repair a relationship that had been broken for almost twenty years.