Ruined By My Stepbrother novel · Chapter 2 of 32

Chapter 2: Terms

Barrett shows her the tip that sent him, she sets the terms of his summer, and the newlyweds leave; on Sunday he arrives with his knives while Dane waves from Brine's roof.

I took his phone out of his hand and walked straight out the back of the tent.

He followed me, because I had his phone.

The striped chair still had the dent of us in it.

I didn't look at it.

"Low Tide is the hottest table at the Shore. Go Friday the 5th. Ask for the scallops. D.C."

It came from an address at Brine.

"When did you see this?" I said.

"The day it came in. My editor forwards me tips."

"And you went on the fifth."

"I went on the fifth."

I gave him back the phone.

My hands wanted to throw it in the ocean.

"He knew my cooks were leaving that afternoon," I said. "He hired them. And he sent you to watch me drown."

Barrett didn't answer that.

"Okay," I said. "Here's how this goes."

He put his hands in his pockets.

"You cook my line. Every night, from tomorrow until Labor Day. Grill, sauté, whatever I put you on."

"For how much?"

"For nothing."

"Fair."

"You don't eat one bite of my food unless you cooked it yourself. You've already had my dad's chowder for free once."

His mouth twitched.

"And what do I get?"

"I don't tell anybody who you are."

He looked at me for a long moment.

"Why not?" he said. "You've got the best story in New Jersey. 'Cold Plate is Glenn Ivers's son, and he makes out with chefs behind tents.' You'd fill the place for a month."

"I'd fill it with people who want to look at you. I need people who want to eat."

"So you want a cook."

"I want a cook. Mine work across the street now."

"I haven't cooked on a line in nine years."

"Then you'd better remember fast. Dinner's at five."

He took a breath, and for a second I thought he'd laugh at me.

Instead he took his right hand out of his pocket and held it out.

"Every night," he said.

I shook it.

His hand was warm and rough at the base of the fingers.

It was not a writer's hand.

He held mine one second too long, and I took it back.

"There's one more term," I said.

"Go on."

"What happened in that chair never happened."

"Understood."

"I mean it, Barrett."

"I said understood."

He didn't look at the chair either.

Inside the tent, Glenn was waving both arms at us.

"There they are! My kids! Get in here, it's the dance!"

My mother and Glenn had their first dance to an old Etta James song.

Glenn danced terribly and held her.

She laughed into his white shirt the whole time.

I hadn't heard her laugh like that in nine years.

Halfway through, Glenn waved the floor open and pulled me in to dance with my mother.

"Hattie," she said, with her cheek against mine. "Your toast."

"Too much?"

"Putting Glenn's boy in your kitchen? It's the kindest thing you've ever done."

I looked over her shoulder.

Barrett was standing at the edge of the dance floor with a bottle of water, watching me.

"I'm a very kind person," I said.

"You read the review."

"I read it."

"Is it bad?"

"It's one review, Mom."

She pulled back to look at my face.

She was a children's librarian for thirty years, and she could always tell when someone had torn a page out.

"Go to Nova Scotia," I said. "Eat lobster. Don't check Facebook."

"I don't know how to check Facebook."

"Keep it that way."

At ten, the car came for them.

Glenn hugged me hard enough to lift me off the sand, and then he pressed something into my palm.

It was a brass key on a ring shaped like a football.

"Spare to the carriage house," he said. "Barrett's out back all summer, working on his food stuff. Keep an eye on him for me."

"Glenn, I really don't need..."

"He's a good kid. He just doesn't eat a real meal unless somebody makes him. You'll feed him, right?"

"I'll make sure he eats," I said.

"That's my girl!"

My mother kissed both my cheeks and then, after a second, kissed Barrett's too.

He went still for it.

Then the car rolled off the beach road, dragging cans, with Glenn's arm waving out the window.

Barrett and I stood in the sand with eighty guests going home around us.

"You don't have to keep an eye on me," he said.

"I'm not going to."

I put the football key in my clutch anyway.

The next day was Sunday.

I got to Low Tide at noon and counted.

Twenty-two cancellations had turned into thirty-one overnight.

Frankie came in the back with two coffees and a face.

"Who's on the line tonight? You and me and God?"

"I've got a cook."

"Since when?"

"Since my mother's wedding."

At two o'clock exactly, the back door opened.

Barrett came in wearing a black T-shirt and old jeans, with a canvas knife roll under his arm.

It was worn soft at the corners and tied with a cracked leather strap.

He set it on the steel and unrolled it.

Frankie looked at him, then at me, then at him again.

"Oh no," she said. "He's hot."

I didn't answer.

I was looking past him, through the pass and the front windows, across Jackson Street.

Up on Brine's rooftop bar, a man in a clean white chef's jacket leaned on the rail with a drink.

Dane.

He raised his glass to me and waved.

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