I Hate, I Bake, and I Don’t Date! by Alina Jacobs

45

Beck

Tess was waiting in the lobby for me when I arrived.

“I love your dress,” Annie said, running up to inspect Tess’s clothes.

Her dress was something. The black velvet hugged her curves. She looked soft and fuckable yet also edgy and sexy in it.

“You need the big hair,” Vera was saying, trying to undo Tess’s bun.

“Have fun at Liam’s,” I told my sisters, hugging them.

“Have fun on your date,” they chorused.

“If you see the chef,” Vera added, “tell him to call me. He shouldn’t feel threatened by older women.”

“I don’t even want to know what that’s about,” I muttered to Tess, walking her out of the lobby.

“Don’t drink too much! The HOA meeting is tomorrow,” Vera called after us.

Tess seemed fidgety in the car.

I wondered, had she regretted sending the photo? Maybe the restaurant was too much?

“I must admit,” I told Tess, “I didn’t realize it was a five-hour tasting menu. I just asked Greg’s assistant to pick a nice place to surprise you with. If you want something different, that can be arranged.”

“Are you kidding? I’ve wanted to eat at this restaurant since forever.” She pulled out her phone. “See? They have little pieces of salmon that you grill on a hot stone right at your table, and they have little mashed potato bubbles they serve with their beef.”

“You seem to know a lot about the restaurant.” I reached out to tuck one of her curls back into her bun.

“I have very small dreams,” she said. “Will I ever own my own home? Will I go on a fancy vacation? Nope and nope, but eating at a fancy restaurant seems much more doable.”

When we arrived at the restaurant, there were no windows, and there wasn’t a sign on the door.

“The chef wanted to make it feel like a secret,” Tess said as she knocked on the door. “I’ve watched so many YouTube videos about this place.”

The maître d’ let us in, checked our names off a list, then handed us each a small glass of wine.

“Cheers!” Tess tapped her glass to mine.

“So,” she said as we milled outside in the small interior courtyard with a burbling fountain, “is this where you take all your dates?”

“You’ve been my assistant for months,” I reminded her. “You know I don’t date.”

“That’s my line,” she quipped.

I cocked my head. “You don’t date?”

“Nope,” she said. “Never.”

“Why not?”

“Why don’t you?” she countered.

“Because.” I thought about it. “Because, well, it always seemed like a waste of time. You either have to go online and make a profile, or if you have disposable time, then you have to spend your free time out in bars or going to random events in hopes that you meet someone. Then what if they’re some sort of conspiracy nutjob? Then suddenly you have them in your life, and they’re moving into your house and stealing your stuff. It just seems like quite a lot of hassle.”

“Exactly!” Tess exclaimed. “See? You get it. All of my friends are like why don’t you date? And I’m like because it’s a terrible idea. It always ends badly. Look at Kaden.”

I shook my head. “My brothers are the same way, well some of them. My half brothers in Harrogate have all found the love of their life, most of whom just happened to fall in their laps. The rest of my brothers have terrible taste in women. What’s worse is they periodically try to set me up on dates. This one girl recently was terrible. I had to explain everything to her. I don’t know if she was trying to keep the conversation going, but it was like talking to a brick wall that just echoed back everything. Last time I let my brother set me up with someone.”

The maître d’ called us inside to take our seats. At each place setting was a small warm towelette on a black tray.

“You don’t eat that,” I said to Tess, grinning.

She stuck her tongue out at me and unfolded the towelette.

“For the first course,” the waiter assigned to our table announced, “we have a seafoam cream.” He set two plates down in front of us, each with a single spoonful of light-green foam.

Tess took a bite. “Tastes like the ocean,” she said in wonder. “It makes me want to go to the beach!”

I smiled at a memory.

“When my brothers and I escaped from the cult, we first moved to Harrogate and lived in a run-down, old factory building. My brother Remy took a job in the military, but one day when he came back from leave, he gathered us all up, put us in a van, and said he was going to show us something cool. He drove us a few hours away to the Atlantic Ocean. It was the first time I’d ever been to a beach. It was the middle of summer, but the water was still freezing cold. My brother threw us all in and laughed when we sputtered at the water. I had no idea it was going to be salty.”

“And now you own a private island,” Tess said, licking her spoon.

“I don’t own one, but Greg does.”

“Oh my god! I was just joking,” she said with a laugh. “We have to take the girls to the island. They need their first beach adventure.”

A family outing?

“My mother dated this guy who had a beach house once,” Tess said as the waiter came to collect our plates. “He owned a house off the Florida coast. It was pretty run-down, but my mom would drive us there pretty much every weekend for the few months they were dating. She was always trying to get me to consider her boyfriend du jour as my new father.” Tess scowled and took a sip of her wine.

“At least that one had a beach house,” I said.

Tess snorted. “Yeah, about that. Turns out he was breaking and entering some random person’s beach house. They came home one day when we were there, called the cops, and we were all arrested. My mom just acted like it was hilarious and liked to relay it as a fun bonding story.”

“The fact that you did a stint in prison makes everything about you much clearer,” I joked.

Tess stuck her tongue out. “It was only overnight. And of course, my mom didn’t learn her lesson. She always had some terrible guy she was dating. Obnoxious guys with no jobs. Once she dated a loser who called someone a pompous. Not ‘pompous ass’ or ‘acting pompous,’ but ‘a pompous.’ Another guy had this gross old ‘leather’ jacket that was flaking, and parts of it were just the fabric underneath. Whenever I was with him and my mom on one of her forced family outings, he would use any opportunity where he could see his reflection—a puddle of dirty water, a window, a random mirror of a car—and he would say, ‘Damn I look good today!’ while he smoothed down his mangy jacket, and then he would prod me until I agreed.”

“Your mom just let that happen?”

“Whenever she dated, she would essentially lose her sense of self and mold her personality into what she thought was the perfect girlfriend, agreeing to whatever the guy said and expecting me to go along with it.”

“Sounds like my mom,” I said darkly, picking up my wineglass.

“Did you talk to her after you escaped the cult?” Tess asked in concern.

I snorted. “No. She had left years before my dad kicked my brothers and me out of the compound because we were, in his words, competing against him for his new wives.”

“She wasn’t able to take you with her?”

“I’m sure she could have. After all, my dad had lost interest in his first sets of kids by then and had moved on to his new sister wives and their kids.” I scowled at the memory, the old hurts and betrayals flooding back. “No, she told us before she left that she was tired of raising children. She had given up her life for us, and she was finally going to be free.”

“Ouch. She really gave up the winning lottery ticket,” Tess said. “Guess her loss is my gain, especially since I don’t have to deal with a fake mother-in-law!”

“As soon as word started getting out about our business success, she came crawling back. Some of my brothers give her money. I did for a while; I felt bad for her. Then I found out she was giving the same sob story to all of my brothers and had been given enough money in eighteen months that had she saved and invested it, she would have lived quite comfortably for the rest of her life. Instead, she spent it on handbags, shoes, and hotels.”

Tess looked awkward as she speared one of the scallops that had come with the next course. “I mean, I’m not going to judge. I’m not the best with money. And I might have sort of bought some things that were not exactly real expenses on your credit card.”

I laughed. “You’re buying takeout and the occasional T-shirt. My mother burned through one million dollars on high fashion and hotels. And she wasn’t even taking care of any of my younger brothers. She was just spending it on herself. You’re being very helpful with my sisters,” I told her, taking her hand. “I honestly couldn’t do it without you.”

“You probably could have managed,” she said, slightly embarrassed.

“Maybe, but they probably wouldn’t be as happy,” I admitted.

I sat back in my chair as the server came by with yet another course. There were two bite-sized pieces of raw duck with about a dozen little dabs of sauces. Another server set a pile of rocks on the table with a large black one that radiated heat on top.

“One thing we recommend to all people on a date,” the server said, smiling sanguinely, “is to choose for your date which combination of the duck and the sauce they should try.”

“A date?” Tess wrinkled her nose after the waiter left. “I’ve had too much wine. I’m going to spiral into an existential crisis.”

“This is basically a not-date,” I said. “We didn’t meet online or get introduced by mutual friends. You’re living in my house. This is a friendly meal.”

“Yes, this is a friendly pre-hookup meal,” Tess said.

Pre-hookup? Fuck yeah.

She tasted a little of each sauce on her fork then cut each raw duck piece in half and placed them to sizzle on the rock.

“Don’t overcook it,” she said when I placed my pieces beside hers. “I like my meat raw.”

“I thought you liked it hard.”

“That too!”

It only took a minute for Tess to deem the duck done. She dabbed the pieces in the sauce. I did the same, and we exchanged plates.

“Mmmm,” Tess said, making that slow moaning sound that drove me freaking crazy.

“Gooseberry and juniper sauces. These are amazing. I need the recipe.”

“I don’t think you can just ask them for their recipe,” I said with a laugh. The first piece of duck Tess had chosen from me had a rich, spicy sauce that had a faint sweet note.

“I might need to just order a plate of duck for our next not-date,” Tess said.

The server came to remove the plate, and Tess checked the menu.

“Eighteen more courses to go.”

Jesus.

“As much as I like this not-date,” Tess whispered, “I think I’m ready to skip to the hookup.”