Page 1 of The Interception (Southern Sports Sweethearts #2)
Chapter One
Layne
When one has a pickle obsession, one must also practice the art of moderation or else end up hugging a vomit bowl for twelve solid hours wishing you’d read the expiration date on that jar of jalapeno-infused goodness.
If I’m honest with myself, I have to admit I might have considered eating them even if I had checked the date, but that’s beside the point.
Now that my stomach is no longer pretending to be a one-woman manned paddleboat in the North Sea, I can focus on other things.
Like the flyer my sweet sister-in-law, Lottie, left on my coffee table after checking on me for the second time today.
My empty pickle jar taunts me from its perch on my kitchen counter, reminding me to control my impulses.
As I read the bold lettering at the top of the flyer, I have to remind myself that joining the Thirtieth Annual Bay Bridge Cook-Off Competition is one of those impulses…
and out of my lane. I’m not trained in the art of tailgating and seafood.
I’m more of an Italian cuisine kind of girl, and there’s nothing I like more than adding my own twist to classic dishes.
Still, the twenty-thousand-dollar grand prize would be an amazing start toward opening my own restaurant.
I flip the flyer over, careful not to anger the kraken still growling in my gut. The schedule for the competition is detailed at the top, and at the bottom is a dazzling image of the six-time winner, Ender Langley.
A deep sigh reminds me that I need to brush my teeth.
Badly. I scrunch my nose and drop the flyer on the table.
Time to clean up and test the limits of my nausea.
Between job hunting and working toward planning my own business model, there is zero time for another sick day.
Making it to the bathroom with my innards intact is a vast improvement over only a few hours ago, so I chance showering.
Pickle poisoning. Leave it to me to give myself food poisoning with bad pickles the day before a major interview. Fortunately, the worst seems to have passed. I’m clean and fresh smelling, which is also a vast improvement from the deranged, drowned rat look I had going for half a day.
I check my phone and find that Lottie has called me, probably to make sure I’m still alive. It was questionable there for a minute. Okay, it wasn’t, but my abdominal muscles would beg to argue the reality of the situation.
With a few taps on my cracked phone screen, I return her call.
“Hey, how’s it going?” Lottie uses her teacher voice, but she can’t help it. She’s naturally sweet, sunshiny, and almost always concerned about other people. I also owe her a shirt, so there’s that.
“Better. I’m clean and now all I have to do is de-pickle the fridge.” Flopping on my sofa sends a breeze that swoops the competition flyer onto the floor, reminding me that I have no job, zero income, and if I can’t even tell my favorite food has gone bad, I should probably retire my palate.
“Don’t just de-pickle it. De-pickle everything. That was awful.” Lottie chuckles and I hear my brother in the background dropping his smart remarks about my predicament.
“Tell Andrew I won’t cook Nonnie’s meatballs for him anymore if he isn’t nice. And by the way, thanks for thinking of me, but there is no chance I can qualify for that Bay Bridge thing.”
Silence fills the line, which is so unlike Lottie, I have to check to make sure we didn’t get disconnected. I still hear her breathing, but I’m beginning to worry the silence means something bad.
“Here’s the thing: I might have already signed you up.” She squeaks the last few words and I know she’s sitting at her kitchen table with a cup of coffee, scrunching her nose, expecting me to come through the phone, yell at her in Italian, and swat her a few times.
But I’m too shocked.
I sit straight on my sofa and snatch the flyer from the floor.
“How? I’m looking at the qualifications.
I am not a member of any of the local societies, I don’t have season tickets to the Charleston Timberwolves, and I have never run a kitchen in my life.
I don’t meet even one of the things necessary to enter the competition. ”
She offers a noncommittal meh sound. “I got creative.”
Another long pause says she’s not going to elaborate unless I pry it from her. “Please tell me I didn’t also join some old ladies knitting society.”
“Not exactly, but when you get the membership card for the Charleston Cattery Conservation Society, don’t throw it away. You can use it for twenty percent off adoption fees at the local shelter.”
“Lottie!”
“What? Listen, once upon a time, someone signed me up for something I wanted no part of, and it got me a husband. I thought it might work for you, too.”
“I’m not looking for a husband, sis. I need a job.”
“Husband, job. It’s all the same. The point is, you are now a member of a society, and I have a friend who owns a summer villa on the beach.
She said you could use it for the duration of the competition.
As for the tickets, Andrew scored them for you.
And your work as his personal chef for a year is qualification enough for the kitchen experience. ”
“You brought my brother in on this? What about the rest of the family?” I blow my hair from my face as my forehead breaks into a sweat and my heart races.
“Nonnie sends her luck,” Lottie says.
“Of course she’s in on it. You forgot one thing in this grand plan of yours. My car is in the shop, and it’s probably going to need a new engine. I can’t afford to get one before the contest begins in…” I pause to check the date. “Lottie, it’s tomorrow!”
“Andrew will bring his truck for you to borrow. You can do this, Layne. I would have tried to convince you before now, but you were sick. The deadline to register was last night, so I went for it. I’m sorry if I was out of line, but I believe in you. I know you can do this.”
Again with the teacher voice. There is no way out of this, not unless I want to disappoint the sweetest person on the planet and that grumpy one she’s married to.
“Fine, fine. I do have that interview in a couple of hours, but if it crashes and burns, then I’ll do the competition.”
“Awesome. I’m praying you get the job, honest.” Even Lottie can’t fake that she’s not so sure I’ll nail the position, but a girl can try.
Savannah is filled to bursting with fine dining, but there isn’t much need for a chef with zero management experience.
And banks aren’t exactly chomping at the bit to loan me the money necessary for such a risky endeavor as opening my own place.
“I know you are. Keep praying because if I don’t get this one, there is every reason to believe I’ll have to move back in with my parents or live in my broken car.”
“Stop, you know we’ll give you a room if you need it.”
“You say that like moving into your house is better. Your dogs live in the guest room, and I’m pretty sure Goblin would eat my soul before letting me take it away. Anyway, I gotta go. It’s an hour drive, but I’ll let you know how it goes.”
Lottie and Andrew offer a few supportive words and I hang up with the tiniest thread of hope that I might actually get the job at one of Savannah’s most exclusive restaurants. With a can-do spirit, I head to brush my teeth, ready to take the world by the horns.
Vino Uptown is about as upscale as it gets, so scoring an interview alone is an achievement.
Inside, the heavenly aroma of beautiful Italian cuisine still hangs in the air from last night’s dinner service.
Right now, the restaurant is closed but will open for lunch soon, probably after my interview.
I can only hope I’m wearing an apron and getting to know everyone by then.
“Chef Aiello’s office is just this way,” a perky, well put-together woman says. She didn’t mention her name, but judging by her sharp dress suit and pinned hair, I’d say she’s the office manager. She knocks twice on a heavy wooden door and steps back, clasping her hands in front of her.
A grunt emanates from the other side.
“He’ll see you now.” She offers me a forced smile while I try to decode the grunt.
A sense of foreboding fills me head to toe as I turn the door handle. The woman skitters away in a hurry, almost as if she’d rather be anywhere but in the blast zone—and make no mistake, I have no doubt things are about to get very… explody.
A stream of expletives in Italian surge toward me the second I enter the office.
My grip on the handle tightens while my gaze takes in the room.
It’s decorated with dark, solid wood bookcases and a center desk, dark draperies, and a pricy rug.
Along the right wall is a plush leather sofa, a massive potted plant that nearly reaches the ceiling, and a coffee table boasting several copies of High Culture Cuisine, all bearing Chef Aiello’s image on the front cover.
Chef Aiello turns away from his window that overlooks the Savannah River and takes me in.
Every inch of me is scrutinized under his unwavering dark-eyed gaze. When he reaches my eyes, he chuckles.
“Uh…Chef Aiello, I’m—”
“I know who you are.” He waves me off and scoffs. “You are more ridiculous in person than in your application. Be gone.”
I blink for a moment before realizing I have been dismissed in the harshest, rudest way imaginable.
“I’m sorry, what do—”
A small hand grasps my wrist and yanks me out of the chef’s office. “Don’t question him, just go.” It’s the woman who brought me to the office, and her forced smile is now a frown that pulls her eyes and brow down until she looks like an angry pit bull.
“I don’t know what happened,” I admit, too dazed to do anything but follow her out. The office door slams closed, startling me.