Page 40 of Cooking Up My Comeback

“So what do we do?” he asks.

“We build our restaurant. We be honest with each other. And we figure the rest out as we go.”

“That’s not exactly a detailed plan.”

“Not everything needs a detailed plan, Brett. Sometimes you just have to trust that things will work out.”

He looks at me like I’ve suggested we navigate by reading tea leaves. “I don’t trust things to work out. I make them work out.”

“And I believe that most things work out the way they’re supposed to if you let them.”

We stare at each other, and I can see the exact moment he realizes how fundamentally different we are. How my faith in good outcomes must seem naive to someone who’s learned to control every variable.

“Opposites,” I say with a small smile.

“Complete opposites,” he agrees.

“Think we can make it work anyway?”

“I think,” he says slowly, “that we’re about to find out.”

And despite everything—the tension, the fear, the complete uncertainty of what we’re doing—I grin.

“Well then, partner, let’s build our dream.”

TEN

BRETT

Three weeks into our partnership, and I’m starting to think Amber Bennett might actually be trying to kill me. Watching her wield a power drill while wearing paint-splattered overalls and one of those tool belts that somehow makes her look like she stepped out of a hardware store commercial? That’s definitely taking years off my life.

She’s currently perched on a ladder, installing cabinet hardware with the kind of intense focus most people reserve for defusing bombs. Her tongue is sticking out slightly—a habit I’ve noticed she has when she’s concentrating—and there’s a streak of primer in her hair that she hasn’t noticed yet.

This is exactly the kind of distraction I can’t afford. We’re business partners. That’s it. No matter how manytimes I catch myself watching her move through the space like she owns it.

“Hand me that drill bit,” she calls down, not taking her eyes off the cabinet door.

“Which one?”

“The one that looks like it could actually get the job done instead of just making optimistic scratches in the wood.”

I sort through the collection of bits scattered across our makeshift work table. “You’re going to have to be more specific. They all look the same to me.”

“The quarter-inch. The one I showed you yesterday. The one you said looked exactly like all the other ones even though they’re clearly different sizes.”

She’s right. I can tell the difference now. But giving her grief about her teaching methods has become part of our routine, mostly because it’s safer than acknowledging how much I actually enjoy these lessons.

“Right. The quarter-inch that definitely doesn’t look like the eighth-inch or the three-sixteenths.”

She shoots me a look that could strip paint. “Are you mocking my technical expertise?”

“I wouldn’t dare. You’re the one who figured out why the kitchen sink was draining backward.”

“That wasn’t technical expertise. That was applied common sense and a willingness to stick my head under a cabinet that smelled like low tide and regret.”

I hand her the correct drill bit, steadying the ladderas she leans to reach the corner hardware. We make a surprisingly good team, which is both convenient and problematic. Convenient because the work gets done efficiently. Problematic because working this closely together is making it harder to maintain the professional distance I know we need.

“So,” she says, starting on the next cabinet door, “I’ve been thinking about the Fall Festival in October.”