Page 40 of Sweet Rivals
“I’ll make it for you. Tomorrow. I’ll stop by the bakery. Hopefully, Jared has a real cooktop installed by then,” he said.
I had managed to make it five whole minutes without thinking of Jared. Now, I felt the inkling to defend him. “Do you think it’s a good idea for the two of you to be in the same space at the same time?” I asked. “So far you two don’t have a great track record.”
“It’s fine. We’ve been working together for years. It’s been a while since we cooked together, but I guess if you are the consultant, you can kick him out of the kitchen, right?”
“I don’t think it works that way.”
“You have to use a firm hand with Jared. You don’t want him taking advantage of you or steamrolling your ideas,” he said. “You have the menu ready?
“Getting there,” I said.
I realized with an icy chill that Joel didn’t know anything about the deal. He really thought I was just the consultant. Should I keep it a secret? How would he feel about Jared making me part owner if I were to win? Would he let it happen? With his daddy’s money as he so crassly put it? I didn’t have high hopes. For the first time, I wondered if Jared was right. That Joel and I weren’t really on the same side.
“I’d love to take a look when it’s ready. I trust your knowledge of the area, but I don’t trust Jared’s ability or willingness to create cohesion across the brand. Before he showed up here, we had no plans of expanding to Cape Shore, let alone opening a bakery,” he said.
“You don’t have much faith in him.”.
Joel sighed, crossing his arms over his chest. “My warning to you would be to keep as much distance from him as you can. Maybe you can even convince him to bail on the idea altogether before he gets in too deep.”
I snorted a laugh at that. If it was that easy, I already would have done it, although in truth, I hadn’t really tried all that hard yet.
The rest of dinner went smoothly with Joel making a point of managing the conversation. He told me about his recent visit to England and a terrible Shepherd’s Pie that he had at a local pub. He told me about his favorite spots on the East Coast and an interview he did recently with The Times.
He was easy to listen to, and unlike some of the other guys I had gone to dinner with in the past, his stories were interesting. Although, when I thought about it, he didn’t really ask much about me at all. Yet, his tales made me wonder if I should find a way to travel the globe. But then again, any money I spent traveling was money I didn’t have for my bakery.
Listening to his stories and imagining myself traveling, I realized how easily influenced I could be to adopt other people’s dreams. I didn’t really want to travel the world. Yet here I was, thinking that without it, I would be less of a person. I had to find a way to hold firm to myself, so I didn’t come apart at the edges. It was an interesting contrast between Joel and Jared. I wondered if either of them did it on purpose or if it was a personality thing, that one pushed his own agenda and the other seemed content to let me have my own. Not that I was finding positive things to say about Jared or anything.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
My dinner with Joel left me untethered much like everything the Wallace brothers did. At the end of the night, he had driven me home, walked me to the door, then kissed the top of my hand before asking if he could take me out again. I couldn’t tell if it was charming or obnoxious. Either way, I had spent the night tossing and turning, thinking about the three men in my life. How the hell had my social situation gotten so crowded so quickly?
My stomach twisted in knots as my feet walked their familiar path toward the bakery. I didn’t want to deal with Jared. I hadn’t even wanted to deal with PotatoBake888 when I saw he had messaged me that morning. Instead, I had gotten dressed, made my coffee, and set off.
When I walked back into the kitchen, it was spotless and the intoxicating smell of something baking in the oven met me at the door. I found Jared in the back, wearing a t-shirt, shorts, flip flops, and an apron tied around his waist. If my father saw him like that, he would have kicked him right out of the kitchen without a second glance no matter what his last name was. Music played from a Bluetooth speaker on the metal counter near the door, blasting out “California Girls,” by Katy Perry. It instantly transported me back to the summer of 2010 when Cat, Lacy, and I were a carefree threesome of giggling ten-year-olds who spent our entire summer unsupervised at the beach, collecting seashells that we imagined we would paint and sell. We never had the fortitude to see that business venture, or any other, through to fruition, but it was the thought that counted.
“Big Katy Perry fan?” I asked.
Jared looked up from chopping fruit and smiled. “It’s my summer playlist,” he said.
+8963I nodded as I pulled an apron off the hook and tied it around my waist. I wasn’t dressed for the kitchen either. I’m sure crop tops were against the dress code, but if he was cooking, I planned on doing the same. It had been my intention yesterday to try out some recipes. Of course, that had gone hopelessly awry. It wouldn’t be easy to cook in a mostly demolished kitchen with an outdated cooktop, a small oven, not enough counter space, and a woefully understocked pantry, but I was determined to start some experiments so I could nail down my menu.
“So,” I said as I started pulling ingredients out of our makeshift pantry. “Where did you spend your childhood summers?” Avoiding talk of what he had said yesterday to Joel or my dinner.
He eyed me suspiciously, and I almost laughed. “You doing some recon?”
“I don’t see how on earth knowing where you spent your summers would help me win this contest. But now that you mention it, you know where I spent my summers, so it’s only fair,” I said. Even as I was defending myself from his ridiculous accusation, I couldn’t help but think of my conversation with his brother. Could I talk him into leaving? Would I? Was getting to know him the first step toward that end?
“I grew up in Allentown,” he said.
“Like the Billy Joel song?”
He laughed. “You know that song? I thought everyone outside of Allentown had forgotten about it.”
Living in a small beach town frequented by a diverse set of ages had introduced me to music I wouldn’t usually have heard. Besides, my mom went through a big Billy Joel resurgence when one of his songs was in 13 going on 30. She played his albums on repeat when I was like four.
“Being a Billy Joel fan is a requirement of growing up in Allentown,” he said.
“Makes sense,” I said. “So was it everything the song promised?”