Page 53 of Culinary Chaos (Hotel Bombshell #1)

Chapter

Forty-One

E verything felt off.

The house felt empty, and Hope was lost on how to fill it up again. She spent hours deep cleaning Eva’s room after taking her to and from her activities and tutoring now that they were home and re-establishing the routine they’d once had.

But it still didn’t feel right.

She stood at the sink as she cleaned dishes from the day and glanced at her phone. What was Angelica doing right now?

Working probably.

Hope smirked at that thought.

“Mom?”

“Yeah, baby?”

“Can I play on your phone?”

Hope hesitated but nodded. Maybe if the thing was farther from her then she wouldn’t have to question her sanity about calling Angelica. She shouldn’t. She knew that. She would talk to Angelica when they had something to talk about.

But something in that last night together had been magical, so peace-giving in their relationship. Hope wanted more of that. Perhaps she wouldn’t be considering quitting the show so much if they’d had more moments like that. Instead, she’d been stuck in the chaos of uncertainties.

“Hello?” Angelica’s voice echoed through Alexa.

Hope spun sharply and looked around. “What the…? Eva?”

“Yes, Mommy?”

Oh that tone didn’t bode well.

Hope dried her hands on the dish towel and walked into the living area, finding Eva hunkered down on the big fluffy chair with the phone pressed to her chest. “What are you doing?”

“Nothing?”

“Eva?” Angelica’s voice said again.

Hope held her breath and put her hand out, waiting for the phone. Eva frowned and then held it up so that Angelica could see her.

“Hope.” That was a statement, not a question. And the worry on Angelica’s face instantly eased. What had she been worried about?

“I wanted to see when Angelica could help with my math again.”

“Honey, you can’t just call people randomly in the middle of the workday.” Hope took the phone and immediately turned the Bluetooth off so at least Angelica’s voice couldn’t be heard throughout the entire house. “I’m so sorry.”

“It’s fine.” Angelica pursed her lips. “I’ll talk to her, if you don’t mind.”

“I…don’t. But if you’re busy, don’t feel obligated.”

“It’s fine, Hope.”

She hesitated another second before handing the phone back to Eva, who grinned broadly at Angelica’s face on the small screen. Of course her kid would FaceTime the one person that Hope wanted to talk to and didn’t want to talk to at the same time. Sometimes having a kid was such a curse.

“You said you’d help me with my math again.”

“I can do that, if you want and if you need it.” Angelica smiled at Eva, and this smile was so different from the ones she gave Hope. It was genuine, kind, and tender. “When do you have a test coming up?”

“Um…” Eva looked up at Hope. “Next week.”

Hope honestly didn’t know. She let the tutors figure out the schedule and her daughter keep track of it as much as possible, not the other way around. But she also wasn’t going to leave and let Angelica and Eva talk without supervision.

Sure, that’s the reason she wasn’t going back to dishes.

Hope sat on the arm of the chair and leaned over it so she could glance down and see Angelica’s face. This woman was completely different when a child entered the picture. Immediately soft and warm when she never would be otherwise.

“What’s six plus six?” Eva asked.

“Twelve…?” Angelica said it like a question, and when Hope glanced, she could tell that she was doing something else at the same time as entertaining her daughter.

“Um… twelve plus twelve?” Eva continued. Hope had played this game with her several times in the past few months, and she wasn’t exactly wanting to do it again.

“Twenty-four.” Angelica glanced at the camera and smiled at Eva. “You know that one. I don’t know why you’re asking me.”

“To test you!” Eva giggled in the way only a little child could. “What’s twenty-four plus twenty-four?”

“You should be asking what six times eight is.”

“What?” Eva was confused now.

Hope dropped her hand onto Eva’s shoulder. “She’s talking about multiplication. And you shouldn’t be bothering her. Can’t you tell she’s busy?”

Eva squinted at the camera. “Are you busy?”

“I’m trying to solve a problem.”

“Oh, what problem? I like to solve problems!” Eva grinned. “I can help you this time.”

“Maybe you can.” Angelica put down whatever she was working on and focused on the phone for a minute. “You know how your mom and I have this big party coming up? For everyone who worked on the show with us?”

“Yeah.” Eva frowned. “Mom said I can’t go.”

“Yeah, sorry, it’s for grown-ups only.” Angelica seemed genuinely sad about that.

Would she be more relaxed if Eva was there? Hope was about to suggest that when Angelica continued. “The person who was supposed to make all of the food can’t do it anymore.”

“What? Why?” Eva frowned, her big blue eyes looking so sad.

“There was a big problem that they can’t solve, which has made a big problem for me.”

Hope furrowed her brow at that. Angelica had just been deliberately cagey and not even in a way that would throw Eva off the trail. What the heck?

“Mom can cook for you. She likes to cook.”

Angelica’s eyes twinkled. “Are you going to be her sous chef? I tried it once, and I’m not sure that your mom would want me back in her kitchen.”

Hope would take Angelica in her kitchen any day, honestly. She’d enjoyed those few hours together more than she wanted to admit to anyone. They’d been tense about the task at hand, but relaxed with each other.

“Maybe when I get older. Right now I can only use the microwave.” Eva popped her lower lip out in a pout.

“Because you put your hand on the stove when you were four and burned it so severely we had to take you into the hospital.” Hope snagged the phone from Eva. “What happened with the caterer?”

Angelica’s face fell, and she rolled her eyes. “That’s a long, complicated story.”

“Tell me about it then.” Hope took the phone with her, glancing over her shoulder at a still pouting Eva. “Go watch Bluey!”

“Okay!” Eva turned toward the television.

Hope walked out of the room and down the hall to her office. She sat on the small love seat in there and crossed an ankle over a leg as she stared at Angelica. She didn’t look all that different now than she did before, her hair in gentle curls, her makeup not as pronounced as when Ansel did it.

“Are you still in LA?”

“I am, at least for this week.” Angelica stared directly at Hope. “I thought you had a problem in San Francisco that you needed to resolve.”

“I do,” Hope answered with a sigh. “I leave Friday when Rex has a bit more time to be at home with Eva.”

“Ah. Post and editing.”

“Yes.” Hope smiled, her eyes twinkling. “This isn’t getting you out of the story.”

“There isn’t a story,” Angelica murmured. “Hold on.” She stood up, taking the phone with her. Hope got a brief view of some of the paintings on Angelica’s wall in her office, and the door, which Angelica was shutting. “I don’t want someone to come in while I’m talking to you.”

“But you don’t mind when you’re talking with Eva? How rude!”

Angelica let out a small chuckle. “Her call was unexpected. I was planning on calling you this afternoon.”

“It is afternoon, Ange.”

Angelica frowned as she recognized the time. “So it is.” She sat back down in her chair and put the phone against something so that Hope could see her without moving around like the Blair Witch Project. “The caterer dropped us as a contract.”

“Why?”

“Because the manager I had to replace didn’t take care of the situation like she should have.” Angelica’s jaw clenched tightly.

“I thought you said she was good at her job.”

“She was until about six months ago.” Angelica sighed, her lips pressing into a thin line.

“Apparently the contract was cancelled three months ago, right about the time we started filming. I trusted her that she’d taken care of it, but with the transition between managers and filming, it slipped through the cracks. ”

“And finding a caterer for a large event on less than a week’s notice and a reasonable budget is next to impossible,” Hope supplied.

“Exactly.”

“So you came to your first best option, and the exact person you should have come to first.”

“I…” Angelica’s jaw dropped.

Satisfaction rolled through Hope. She’d managed to take Angelica by surprise again. Laughing, Hope shook her head. “Oh the look on your face. If you’d ask, you’d get an answer, you know.”

Angelica narrowed her gaze and took a long pause before speaking. “Hope, would you cater the crew wrap party?”

“Yes.”

“For a reasonable cost.”

Laughing again, Hope nodded. “Yeah, Ange. Just send me your budget, and I’ll figure it out.”

“Thank you.”

Hope breathed into that. She loved hearing those two words from Angelica. And it was the least she could do, it seemed, when they were going to be spinning in each other’s circles for a while longer.

“Anytime. You should know that by now.”

“That you want to save me from my own mistakes?” Angelica’s lips quirked slightly.

“Oh now there’s something you didn’t quite say.” Hope bit her lip, debating whether or not she wanted to actually push Angelica on this.

“What’s that?”

“How is the management issue your mistake?”

Angelica’s face fell. She went from the lightness of teasing to instant dread.

There was way more to this story than Hope was getting, and she wanted to know.

Not because she felt like she deserved it, but because she wanted to know more about who Angelica was behind the many different masks she wore every day.

“I’m sorry if that’s too much…” Hope said.

“It’s my fault because I didn’t follow up with it. I trusted when I shouldn’t have.”

“You should be able to trust the people who work for you.” Hope cradled the phone in her hand and glanced out the office door when she heard the theme song for Bluey start up.

“You’re right. I should. But I can’t, and I made the mistake of thinking I could with this one in particular.” Angelica seemed sad now.

“I didn’t mean to bring anything up that you didn’t want to talk about.” Hope went back to biting her lip. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. It’s my own fault.” Angelica breathed in deeply. “And as an offer for your help today, Hope, if you can’t figure out what’s wrong in San Francisco, let me know, and I’ll see if I can help you.”

“Oh like a trade?”

“It’s only fair, don’t you think?”

“Maybe.” Hope’s cheeks rushed with heat.

The more she got to know Angelica the more she actually liked her.

She really was soft underneath all the bravado armor she wore, and she had a feeling it was rare for anyone to be let in to see it.

“But I think just seeing you at the wrap party will be enough of a trade.”

Angelica laughed. “You can’t be missing me.”

But she was. Desperately. Spending three months in close quarters with someone and then not having that person in her life was a sharp change. And this time, Hope hadn’t been prepared for it at all. Hope didn’t want to say that out loud though. Something held her back.

“I miss being busy.” That wasn’t completely insincere.

Taking time off post-filming might not have been the best idea on the planet.

Hope needed to be doing something, and the stillness, while it had been beneficial for Eva to spend some one-on-one time with her, had been driving her mad.

Taking on the task of planning food and making it for the wrap party would give her exactly what she needed.

“Then it’s a good thing you have a new job to do. By Friday.”

“Yeah, by Friday.” Hope smiled. “Wait… you do have people to serve, right?”

“Yes, I do have that.”

“Good.” Hope’s stomach had dropped instantly at that thought. Finding enough people to keep the crew full and happy would have been difficult on such short notice.

“I have a call coming in, Hope.”

“Right. You have a busy life compared to mine.”

Angelica hummed. “Some days. I’ll have my assistant email you the budget.”

“Thanks. I guess I need to go shopping soon.”

“That you do.” Angelica smiled at her, gave a small little wave, and then hung up without saying anything.

Hope relaxed back into the loveseat, smiling to herself.

How was it that one simple and random conversation with Angelica could put her at such ease?

Because this feeling wasn’t like anything she’d had with Angelica before, but after not seeing her and having nothing to do, she’d needed this conversation.

In fact, she would have loved more of it.

What if she and Angelica could set up regular calls or meetups throughout the break so they could prepare for the next season?

They’d see each other a whole lot on the press tour, wouldn’t they?

Hope had gotten that schedule in her inbox yesterday, but she hadn’t had the heart to open it and figure out where she’d be headed yet.

“Mommy! Can I talk to Angelica again?” Eva skidded into the room in her socks.

“I’m sorry, baby. She had another phone call she had to take.”

Eva frowned. “But when will I see her again?”

“I don’t know. Soon. Okay? I’ll talk to her about when you two can get together again, all right?”

“Okay.” Eva grinned. “Come watch with me.”

“I’ll be out in a minute.” Hope watched as Eva skittered off again.

She breathed slowly and then snagged up her iPad so she could start on a catering plan.

She could always adjust later depending on the budget and make it work.

And she wanted to make sure that Angelica had plenty of options at the party.

She would make this a party that the crew would remember—one that Angelica would remember.