Page 33 of Cooking Up My Comeback

My pulse kicks up. She’s not saying yes, but she’s not saying no either. “What do you want to serve?”

“That’s not an answer.”

“It’s the only answer that matters. This is your kitchen, Amber. Your vision. I’m just providing the space and the business infrastructure.”

“You’re also risking a significant amount of money on someone you barely know.”

“I know enough.”

“Do you?” She tilts her head, studying me. “Because I get the feeling you don’t really know what you want out of this at all.”

The observation hits closer to home than I’d like. “Maybe I don’t. Problem with that?”

“Only if you expect me to make decisions based on your uncertainty.”

Fair point. And irritating as hell, because she’s right.

“What do you want to know?”

“I want to know why you’re really doing this. And I want to know what happens when you get bored and decide to move on to the next project.”

The words hit like a punch to the gut, probably because they cut straight to the heart of my usual pattern. Fix something. Move on. Never stick around long enough to see if it actually works.

“Who says I’m going to get bored?”

“Your entire track record, I’m guessing. You don’t strike me as the type who stays in one place very long.”

She’s not wrong. And the fact that she’s already figured me out should probably worry me more than it does.

“Things change,” I say, and there’s something bitter in my voice that makes her study my face more carefully. “I used to be good at planning ahead. Had everything mapped out once. But plans have a way of falling apart when you need them most.”

“Do they? Or do you just tell yourself they will until the next interesting project comes along?”

I want to argue with her, but I can’t. Because she’s calling me out on exactly what I’ve been doing for years, and we both know it.

“Look,” she says, her voice softer now, “if this is just about proving you can flip a restaurant instead of a house, that’s fine. But I need to know that before I bet my kids’ security on it.”

“It’s not about proving anything.”

“Then what is it about?”

I look around the gutted space, trying to find words for something I don’t fully understand myself. “I’ve been moving from project to project for years. Never staying long enough to see if anything I built actually mattered. And I’m tired of it.”

“Tired enough to stay?Actually stay?”

“I don’t know. Maybe.”

She laughs, but there’s no humor in it. “Maybe isn’t exactly inspiring confidence here.”

“You want certainty? Guarantees? Because life doesn’t work that way, Bennett. Sometimes you just have to take a leap and figure it out as you go.”

“Easy for you to say. You don’t have two kids depending on you to make smart choices.”

The words sting, probably because they’re true. I don’t have kids. I don’t have anyone depending on me for anything. Which has always been exactly how I liked it.

Until now.

“You’re right,” I admit. “I don’t. But I’m asking you to trust me anyway.”