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Dedicated to @sarcastictothelimit for her long comment last chapter. Thank you also to everyone who answered my questions. Because of that I now know what you guys will enjoy. Hopefully this will help your reading experience :)
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Sountrack:
Funny Little Feeling by Rock 'n' Roll Soldiers - The food fight
Broken by Seether - When Ava and Candi talk
The following night, I stood in Rive La Belle, scraping out the remnants of a chocolate sauce from a large saucepan as Will blasted his tunes and washed up across the kitchens.
Will and I had offered to take cleaning-up duty and let everyone else off the hook, since the restaurant had been absolutely filled, and they’d worked particularly hard tonight. It gave me a chance to spend time with Will, which was something I’d definitely never turn down. Even if it meant slaving over a large saucepan scraping out crusted bits of desserts.
I cursed as I spilled a splash of hot water onto my apron, and it seared my skin raw underneath.
“You okay, love?” Will called from the distance, and I saw through the gaps between work stations that he was drying his hands on a dishtowel and hurrying over towards me.
“Yeah,” I replied, smiling sheepishly at him as he rounded a metal bench and faced me. “Just a klutz, that’s all.”
He looked down at my wet apron in concern and reached out, untying it and tugging it over my head. Then he lifted up my shirt and surveyed the red area. I glanced down in embarrassment, and he walked over and grabbed a clean dishtowel and a few ice cubes from the icebox. It reminded me with startling clarity of the second time Chance and I had ever met, when he was working in a café near campus and spilled hot water on his hand when he made me a macchiato. I’d barged through the café and fixed it, and our relationship had blossomed from there.
I shook the memory off and fixed my stare on Will, watching the contours on his face as he frowned in concentration. He hurried over and pressed the cold compression to my stomach, and I smiled at him. “Thank you.”
He bent down and kissed me on the cheek gently, and my eyes involuntarily shut as I smiled at the familiar contact. “Are you all right?”
“Better now that you’re here,” I told him.
He leaned back and grinned, obviously noticing our closeness at the same time I did. He bent down and kissed me gently, his lips soft against mine. But it wasn’t enough, so I twined my arms around his neck and pulled him closer, kissing him harder. My back pressed into the metal bench as he pressed me against it, and we were pressed so close I could feel the body heat emanating off of him. I tiptoed my fingers up his neck and gently held his face, enjoying the feel of his lips on mine and the way one hand kept the iced tea towel on my heated stomach, and the other cupped my jaw. He tilted my head, and I felt his kiss from the tip of my head to my toes. Will had this way of kissing, where it seemed like the whole world melted away, and you could feel his love purely through his kiss. It made me dizzy.
I gasped against his lips as suddenly I was flicked with soapsuds from the closest pot, and backed away to find Will standing there grinning at me, wiggling his sudsy fingers towards me.
“Hey!” I complained, wiping a few water droplets from my wet cheek. “No fair! I wasn’t ready for that!”
He continued grinning triumphantly. “Sorry, Candi. I couldn’t resist.”
I looked at the bench beside me, and reached into a blue bag of flour, grabbing a handful of the soft white grains. His expression died, becoming terrified. “Candice, no. Candice!”
“Too late,” I sing-songed, before throwing the handful of flour towards him. His face disappeared in a cloud of smoky mist, and he coughed a few times. I burst into laughter as I noticed his face, which was covered in powder. His eyes opened, and his blue-green eyes flicked to me as he smirked.
“Oh, you’re gonna regret that, Sinclair,” he threatened, and I felt my heart clench as he picked up a few bits of leftover chocolate sauce that was still on a spatula and flicked it at me.
Chocolate sauce slapped me across the cheek, and I let out a surprised yelp as I reached up, swiped my finger across some of the chocolate and licked it off. “Mm. Delicious.”
His nose crinkled adorably as he watched me. “Now, that’s disgusting.”
I shrugged and simply threw an onslaught of strawberries from the bench at him, pelting him in the face relentlessly. He ducked behind a counter as I laughed, and tried throwing a grape at me. It hit me in the nose, and I giggled, catching it and throwing it back in his general direction.
He ran over to the large industrial sink and gathered up a large handful of water running towards me and throwing it so I stood there drenched, soapy droplets falling from the ends of my hair and dripping on the floor.
I gasped and wiped a few bubbles from around my eyes, watching him. I grabbed the saucepan of water—which was thankfully now only lukewarm—and ran over, dumping it on his head. He flicked his face from side to side, spraying me with water.
“What are you, a dog?” I asked, shaking off some of the residual water drops.
He just grinned at me and ran towards me with hands covered in a mixture of chocolate sauce, flour and soapy water, and I laughed and turned around, running through the kitchen in an effort to get away from him before I suffered his attack.
“No!” I cried, spinning around and searching the kitchen for him. I felt my stomach drop as I noticed he was gone; hiding somewhere. I squinted and ducked beneath the benches searching for him. It was completely silent, besides the slow drip of a tap somewhere and the hum of the refrigerator. I knew from experience that Will could be as silent and sneaky as a cat at times, and felt my heart beat harder in my chest. “Will?” I called. “Will!”
“Boo!”
I screamed and spun around, noticing him right behind me. I slowly backed up and away from him, keeping my eyes on his hands and feeling my stomach flop at the sight of the food-covered hands.
“Will, don’t,” I said. “Please.”
He grinned, throwing my words right back at me. “Too late.”
He lunged for me just as I scooped up another handful of flour and flung it at him in defense. He grabbed my wrists at the same time, and before I really knew what was happening, we were toppling backwards. I let out a squeak, knowing that in trying to make a grab for me, he’d slipped in a puddle of water we’d flung at each other, and now we were going down.
It was his back that hit the ground, and I lay on top of him, my whole body lined perfectly with his.
“Are you okay?” I asked, breathing heavily.
He grinned, but I could see he was slightly winded from the unexpected fall. “I think you broke my back, but I’ll survive.”
“It’s your own fault,” I told him, looking down to meet his eyes. My hair fell around my face in a curtain of disarray, and I could see flour and chocolate and even a small chunk of strawberry stuck in it. My fingers curled into the lapel of his chef shirt, and I could feel his heartbeat speed up beneath my fingertips at our close proximity.
I leaned down and pressed my lips against his. I could taste the fine dusting of powder on his lips, as well as the chocolate sauce. It was reasons like this that I knew marrying Will was the best decision of my life. Because I knew that, even well into our seventies and eighties, I’d still be laughing and having fun with him. And I had no doubt he’d still be kissing me with as much love as he was right now.
His hands tunneled through my hair, but I didn’t care about what kind of food remnants would still be stuck there, or how long it would now take us to clean up the kitchens. All I could feel were his hands in my hair and his mouth on my lips and the sounds of the music coming out of his speaker. I could still feel his heartbeat speeding up as my fingers traced his sculpted chest, my lips meeting his with the same passion he was kissing me with.
The door suddenly banged open, and I jumped at the unexpected interruption. Will frowned and then slowly stood up, careful not to slip in the puddle and bring us tumbling down again. We appeared from behind the bench just in time to see Ava, Chance and Jamie wander into the kitchen.
Ava spotted us and smirked, as if she knew exactly what we’d just been doing behind the bench. And maybe, judging by the mess on our bodies and in the kitchen, it wasn’t that hard to make an educated guess. “Well, well, well, what do we have here?” she asked, leaning against the nearest bench and crossing her arms over her chest.
I cleared my throat and ran a nervous hand through my hair, grimacing as my fingers met a bird’s nest of waves and a few unsavory sticky substances. “What are you guys doing here?” I asked, worrying at my bottom lip.
“We thought we’d come and surprise you,” Ava said. “We thought we’d keep you company in the kitchen while you were cleaning up. I’ve always wanted to see the kitchens of a restaurant. And at least now I know what happens behind the scenes,” she remarked with a raised eyebrow.
“We were just packing up,” Will told her with a smile, his hand reaching out as he entangled his fingers with mine and squeezed reassuringly.
“Maybe we could grab some dinner first and then help you pack up?” Ava bargained. “We haven’t eaten yet.”
“I guess we could serve you some leftovers,” Will replied. “We normally give them to the shelter down the road, but I think we can spare just a few plates.”
“Great. I’ll pack up the restaurant if you want,” Ava said. “Candi, wanna help?”
“Sure,” I said with a smile, leaning up and kissing Will on the cheek. “Set the guys to work while Ava and I clean the restaurant, and then we’ll all eat together. Is that okay?”
He pecked me gently on the lips, but I was hyper-aware of everyone else awkwardly standing around awaiting instructions. “Sounds great,” Will told me with a grin, before turning back. “What do you say, guys?”
As Will started preparing the food and Jamie and Chance grabbed mops and rags to clean the soiled floor, Ava and I took to the central restaurant.
“Living the dating dream, are we, Candi?” Ava asked as she picked up a chair and spun it over, placing it so it was upside down on the table.
I forced a chuckle, toying with the hem of my shirt nervously as we entered the empty restaurant. “What are you talking about? We weren’t doing anything.”
“Right,” Ava said disdainfully, giving my appearance a cursory glance. “So I guess the state of your hair is just a new fashion, right?”
I caught my reflection on the window separating the kitchen from the restaurant, and cringed at the state of my hair. It stuck out in haphazard curls as if I’d applied a very generous amount of gel, and there were bits and pieces of flour and food coating my hair. There was also a long smudge of chocolate on my cheek, and a dusting of confectioner’s sugar on my lips. I turned away with grim lips and began packing away the restaurant.
“We weren’t expecting company,” I replied, returning all unused cutlery to the drawers and trying to ignore the blush filtering onto my cheeks and the heaviness of my hair and her speculative stare.
“I could tell,” Ava said with a small laugh, seeming unperturbed at walking in on Will and I in the middle of a make-out session. “Though I should tell you Chance seemed more than a little upset.”
I sighed and shut the drawer, turning around to face her. “How is he?” I asked.
“Why don’t you ask him?” Ava replied, turning to glance at me with those large green eyes.
“I would,” I told her. “But I don’t think we’re exactly on speaking terms right now. We patched things up the other night, but after what happened yesterday at the ice-skating rink, I think something’s changed.”
“Of course something’s changed,” Ava replied, scoffing, but I could tell underneath the façade, she was truly hurt on Chance’s behalf. “He just watched another boy propose to the girl he’s hopelessly in love with.”
I shook my head. “Chance isn’t in love with me, Ave. And I know that we left things on bad terms in America, but it’s been eighteen months. I guess I thought…”
“You thought what?”
I sighed and swiped my hand across my forehead, trying to gather my thoughts. “I guess I always thought maybe he’d moved on like I did.”
“He did,” she supplied. “For a short time. Dated this artist girl named Clarissa.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Yeah? What happened?”
“Well, it was about three or four months after you left—right before he graduated. He met her at the café. She spilled her coffee all over him. He dated her, but I don’t think it was ever real. I think he just used Clarissa as a rebound—which is just as well, considering what happened next.”
I swallowed. “What happened?”
She leaned against one of tables. “She cheated on him. He walked into her apartment to find her on the couch with another guy.”
“Oh, my God.”
“Yeah,” Ava said, nodding. “He was finally starting to get over you. And then he got his heart ripped out by her. He was a mess after that. Got so drunk at one point he was admitted to the hospital for alcohol poisoning.”
I felt my stomach twist with nausea. All of this had been going on without me even knowing. I guessed I was selfish in never sparing a thought for Chance or what would happen after I left. But I’d just always imagined he would move on and live a happy life free of the drama of me. I’d never once thought something so bad would happen.
“Do you know what he said to me when they admitted him to the hospital?” Ava asked, tracing a finger across the granite bar.
“What?” I asked.
She sighed and looked away. “He just kept repeating the same thing to me over and over again, and I don’t think I’ll ever forget it. Even when he was turning green and fighting the urge to vomit—even as he was having his stomach pumped, all he could say was, ‘Why didn’t she love me’? But he wasn’t talking about Clarissa. He was talking about you, Candice.”
I looked away and swallowed, feeling tears prick my eyes. Things had been so much worse for him than I had ever thought. “I didn’t know.”
“I’m not blaming you,” Ava said quickly, obviously sensing the guilt I felt. “And I don’t think Chance is either. But he had his heart ripped out, and then stomped all over by Clarissa. So don’t expect him to be ready to bless your wedding just yet.”
She placed a comforting hand on my shoulder, and then walked back to the kitchen. Inside, I could hear Jamie tell a joke, which was met with laughter from Will and Chance. I braced my hand over my stomach and shut my eyes, breathing in a deep breath to keep myself from growing too upset over Chance. Whoever this Clarissa girl was had taken advantage of Chance, and had taken for granted what she had. But, then again, maybe I'd taken for granted what I had as well.
Just then Will peeked out his head, his hair still damp from his shower and his face looking tired from the long and late night. “Hey, babe,” he said, flashing me a killer smile that made my insides melt. “Hope you don’t mind reheated steak and potatoes for dinner. I figured we’d save the soups and stuff for the shelter.”
“That sounds great,” I told him, even though I no longer had an appetite for anything.
He hesitated in the doorway, his hand braced on the white skirting board as if he were unsure what to say. “You coming?”
I forced a smile and nodded my assent. “Yeah,” I whispered, my thoughts still caught on Chance and his admission in the hospital as I peeled off the table and followed Will into the kitchen. “Just let me get cleaned up and I’ll join you.”
I veered off into the bathrooms and stood in front of the marble basin, staring at myself in the reflection. I got a wet piece of paper towel and messily wiped my hair of food, leaving it dank and lifeless. Then I cleaned up my face, wiped whatever tears had leaked in the process of thinking about Chance, and then stared at myself in the mirror, hoping I at least passed as presentable.
Ava stuck her head in. “Hey, we’re setting up the food now. Are you coming?”
I nodded to myself in the mirror and wiped my eyes one last time, before turning to Ava with a plastered on smile that I hoped seemed at least semi-real.
“Yeah,” I whispered, swallowing thickly. “I’m coming.”
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