Love Simmers by Jules Deplume Page B

before
getting back to work. Since there was a lot of work to do before
the opening, we had to keep the mushy, motivational speeches to a
minimum. He was trying to run a business here after all.

Chapter Two
     
    “ Are you still
glad you came home like a good, dutiful sister?” My best friend,
Maddie, asked me over wine and pizza. To be honest, it was more
wine than pizza.
    “ I’ve spent the
entire day organizing the kitchen and bar supplies. When I offered
to help them open the restaurant I didn’t think they would have me
stacking shelves and doing heavy lifting. I thought I would be
sampling the menu for them,” I whined, my feet sore from spending
hour after hour standing. I didn’t even get a lunch break. I wasn’t
cut out for so much manual labor. As a celebrity chef I spent my
days filming my show and writing cookbook. Pilates twice a week and
a short daily run was the sum total of my physical exertion. Ollie
and Nate didn’t seem to realise my limitations. If they did, they
just didn’t care.
    “ That bad?” She
asked as she refilled my empty wineglass like a good
friend.
    “ I dropped a
glass. You would think I burnt down the restaurant the way that
Nate berated me. I ended up paying for the glass just to shut him
up.”
    “ He’s not
warming up to your presence yet?” She sympathised.
    Having gone to school with
Nate, as well, she knew his personality wasn’t always
endearing.
    “ I’m chilled
from being in his presence,” I said, shivering dramatically. My
melodrama amused her. We both broke into laughter.
    I took a deep breath, leaned
back into my chair, and let the atmosphere of my favourite pizza
bar comfort me. I loved coming home. Hanging out with my friends,
my family, this was the best vacation I could take. Believe it or
not, I enjoyed coming home more than I enjoyed my holiday to Bora
Bora last year. When life in the city was lonely and stressful I
often asked myself if my success was worth the price of living so
far from my family and friends. Ollie stayed in Chester and he was
one of the happiest guys you’d ever meet. When he wasn’t stressed
out of his mind over his new business venture of course.
    “ The unresolved
feelings between you and Nate are just priceless. I love it. It’s
the inspiration for my new romance novel,” she told me, taking
another bite out of her pizza slice. “The working title is ‘Can’t
Stand The Heat’.”
    I didn't ask about her new
novel. Mainly because I was sceptical over whether she would ever
finish one. I’d read the first chapter of nine books in the last
year alone. I’d finally had to tell her I wouldn't read another
first chapter until she had written a second one. It left me with
too many never to be answered questions about countless characters.
If her ability to write a first chapter was any indication, she
could be a great writer if she ever finished a piece of work. And
that was coming from someone who didn’t usually read romances.
    “ There are no
unresolved feelings on my part. I’m resolved in my current feelings
of irritation towards him. I remain resolved in my belief that Nate
and I will never get along again. That whatever truce or bond we’ve
had throughout our childhood has vanished,” I ranted, mostly for my
benefit more than Maddie’s.
    There had been one night in the
last five years where we hadn’t argued. But, then again, we hadn’t
spoken much that night. Ever since then we could barely be in the
same room together without one, or both of us, snapping. Nate had
never visited me in the city though I had never given him any
indication he’d be welcome. Our estrangement was mutual it
seemed.
    “ Has prom
crossed your mind at all lately?” Maddie smiled smugly, the fact
she knew only fuelled her delusional writer’s mind. “I can see it
now, once upon a time there were two teenagers on prom
night…”
    If only she could write the
ending for me. I already knew the cliché beginning.
    “ Sometimes