Breaking the Ice (19 page)

   Perfect.

Chapter Twenty-Two

   Thanksgiving was always spent with family at the restaurant. Since we always closed for holidays, it normally allowed for a nice, private tradition.

   But this year, Felix and Horatio were joining us. They weren’t able to get back home to visit as they usually did over Thanksgiving week, and had I known ahead of time, I would have bought the damn plane tickets myself.

   We knew it must’ve sucked for them living so far away from their family, so we invited them to come and join ours for the day.

   My mother kept shuffling them out of the kitchen, insisting that she didn’t need any help putting our holiday dinner together.

   Felix was none too pleased about the situation. “Your mother kick me out of my kitchen!”

   Wyatt clapped a sympathetic hand on his shoulder. “I know. Sorry, dude. She always wants complete control on Thanksgiving.”

   “She told me I need to get out or I won’ get any supper!”

   Finn piped up from behind the bar, “You’d better listen to her, Felix. She means it. That is
not
your kitchen today.”

   He waved his hand in dismissal, letting out with a grumpy, “Bah!”

   I had Finn grab him a beer and told him to enjoy the day off. I don’t think Felix knew what a ‘day off’ was.

   Horatio was certainly enjoying himself. He was lounged out on one of the three sofas that we’d hauled into the bar from the restaurant’s waiting lounge. We did that every year so we could pass out while we watched the football games.

   Bash started twirling the remote around his fingers. “Hey, Zac. You sure you want to watch football? There’s a Jeff Dunham special on instead.”

   I knew there was no way he’d turn off the game, but fuck him for even bringing it up. “Fuck you, Bash. Don’t even joke about it.”

   He had his finger poised over the button, threatening to change the channel. “Aww, you sure? I hear he’s got some new puppets.”

   “Bash… I’m this close to kicking your ass right now. Cut it out.”

   My dick of an older brother gave a chuckle and put down the remote.

   Okay. Let me explain.

   The thing is,
I do not like ventriloquist dummies
.

   When I was little, I had a Charlie McCarthy, and Bash convinced me that it came alive every night while I slept. I’d wake up every morning and find him in my chair at the breakfast table, or sitting on the toilet. It freaked me out, but I had to pretend like it didn’t bother me, otherwise Bash would use it against me my whole life. You know, kind of like how he was doing now. So, one night, I snuck up into the attic and hid Charlie in the rafters, figuring my days of torture were over.

   And then, a few days later, I woke up to find him
hanging from a noose
in my bedroom. I sat up in bed and screamed my head off.

   Bash had his bike taken away for a week, but the trauma for
me
lasted a lifetime.

   So, yeah. I don’t like ventriloquist dummies.

   I hadn’t had to confront my old childhood phobia until this new ass clown Dunham came on the scene with his stupid, fucking “comedy” show. Bash had found out about the guy when he caught a special on Comedy Central over the summer, and had been torturing me with its existence ever since.

   “Hey,” he called out, changing the subject. “Anyone up for a game of pool?”

   I immediately got to my feet and shot back, “Oh, you are so on, you tubby bastard.”

   Bash hauled himself off the couch. “Okay, yeah, I’ll kick your ass in a minute. Lemme just get another drink first.”

   He walked away as I stood there, taunting, “What the fuck? You don’t come into my dojo, drop a challenge, and leave, old man.”

   Wyatt just about spit his beer through his nose.

* * *

   Once the Christmas season rolled around, Avery came up with the idea to do a Giving Tree. We dragged the fake tree out of storage and set it up in the corner of the bar, decorating it with about twenty hanging tags of kids’ names she’d gotten from the nearby women’s shelter.

   I swear, my customers were the absolute best. The tree was stripped of names within a few days, forcing Avery to go back to the shelter and get more. It was my idea to get the other local businesses involved, and when they did… holy shit.

   We had stacks of donations piled up in the booths, and when they started spilling over onto the square bar, we decided to move everything into the pool room to get ourselves organized.
Sneaker Hut
had donated
fifty
boxes of shoes, so Avery paired them with the coats and sweaters from
Clothing Town
, giving every kid on our tree a winter wardrobe along with their new toys.

   In the end, each kid wound up with a
stack
of presents, which Avery wrapped and tied together with wide, red ribbons. The entire pool room looked like Santa’s fucking workshop. Tied to every stack of gifts was an envelope that contained numerous vouchers from all the local businesses. We had gift cards to everything from supermarkets and restaurants to book stores and hair salons. Thousands and thousands of dollars that the people of this town donated in the spirit of Christmas once they heard what we were doing.

   The local choir came to sing Christmas carols one evening, and the reception was so well received, I scheduled them to come during a Friday night happy hour. Denny made Hot Toddies and I made sure to stock up on the egg nog. Avery filled some red and green tin cups with candy canes and scattered them all over the bars.

   Scott kept a stock of white paper and scissors under the bar so my customers could cut out paper snowflakes—which was a huge hit—and Rachel and Farrah hung them on strings from the ceiling. Denny hung some lights, and Alice… planned her wedding. She was spending more time at the bar beyond her usual shifts, and thanks to a Christmas miracle in the form of a fiancé who kept her in good spirits, she was actually pretty pleasant to be around these days.

   Avery and she had become fast friends during the planning, and that only served to prove how skilled she was at her job. I mean, hell. She made
Alice
happy. It was magic.

  She made
everything
magic.

   On the Monday before Christmas, Avery took over the restaurant’s kitchen to bake cookies. She’d been signing up the local ladies to partake in a cookie exchange that evening, which I guess required her to turn into a Keebler elf.

   I popped into the kitchen to see how she was doing. She’d been in here for hours, and I wanted to check out her handiwork. Plus, my entire bar was filled with the most tempting smell; I had to check out the source.

   “Chocolate chocolate-chip mint. Want one?” she asked, pointing to the work island. “I guarantee it’ll be the greatest thing you ever put in your mouth.”

   I raised an eyebrow but bypassed the dirty remark. Too easy.

   Grabbing a cookie, I took a bite… and holy shit.

   “Holy shit! These are amazing!”

   I went to grab another but she slapped my hand away. “They’re for the cookie exchange!”  

   Scowling at her reprimand, I shot back, “Give me a break. You have about a million of them here.” I really needed another cookie. When you think about it, it was actually kind of mean of her to make me taste something so delicious when she wasn’t going to let me have any more.

   Jesus.
That
sounded way too familiar.

  “Zac. There are no less than thirty women coming to this thing. I need to bag a half-dozen for each and every one of them, plus plate a dozen for the party. You can have whatever’s left over.”

   “What if their cookies suck?” I pouted. “You’ll be giving away fifteen dozen perfectly good cookies just to get their crappy ones.”

   She rolled her eyes and tried to appease me. “I’ll make you your own batch, okay? It’ll be payment for letting me use your ovens.”

   “Fair enough,” I said, as I grinned and swiped another cookie on my way out to the bar.

* * *

   Once the ladies showed up, it was a regular hen house in my restaurant. I let Avery schedule the event for a Monday, knowing the restaurant would be closed, allowing for a private party that night. I had Felix whip up a bunch of little sandwiches for them and donated a couple cases of wine, so they all thought I was Superman.

   Their average age was probably somewhere close to a hundred, but that didn’t stop them from fawning all over me. I took their flirting in stride, told everyone how lovely they looked, and flashed each and every one of them a charming grin at every opportunity. All that special attention got me in good with the clubhouse biddies, and charmed the fucking girdles off the ladies from The Norman Society. At one point, Mrs. Grady actually gave a pat to my ass, and I looked over to see Avery practically choking at the sight.

   I made my escape and sat down on one of the couches with my fingers at my temple, watching the whole scene go down. It was a relief to finally remove myself from center stage, blend into the background, and just check everything out from afar.

   To check out Avery.

   She was totally in her element whenever an event was going down. I found it strange that a girl who had spent most of her life shying from parties was now the one planning them. And doing it well.

   My eyelids lowered into a lazy, half-lidded glare as I watched her, mentally transmitting all the dirty thoughts that were racing around my brain. The theme of the evening was “Ugly Holiday Sweaters,” and even in the stupid elf getup she was sporting, Avery managed to look irresistible.

   She was busy playing hostess, but she must have felt my stare, and raised her eyes my way. I didn’t bother to break my focus. I was envisioning getting her out of that stupid sweater, running my hands along every inch of her bare skin, devouring those perfect lips with my mouth.

   By the way Avery flushed and turned away, I knew she could tell exactly what I’d been thinking. She was visibly flustered, but I could still see her sneaking the occasional glance in my direction.

   I could also see she was fighting it.

* * *

   After the party, Avery and I found ourselves alone in the restaurant. I knew I should probably have checked in over at the bar side of things, but any minute I had her all to myself was too tempting a prospect to pass up.

   We took a seat at one of the candlelit tables near the glass wall to catch our breath and polish off the leftover food. In the warmer months, we opened all the doors for indoor/outdoor dining. On this side of my building, there was a large deck that jutted into the lake that offered ten extra tables for al fresco seating. I was excited to think that they’d be put to good use this spring.

   It was empty now, though, affording an unobstructed view of the lake outside. Even when it was dark, you could see the outline of its shape from the houses that bordered it, and when there was a full moon, the entire surface of the water was lit up like a mirror. It had frozen solid in the past days, and I knew it wouldn’t be long before the ice was swarming with people.

   I’d have to come up with a plan to serve free hot chocolates off the deck. It would be a cheap and easy way to keep all this goodwill going.

   Avery had helped to turn The Westlake into a staple of the community, and even though I told her all the time, I didn’t think there would ever be a way to properly thank her. Even more than that, she’d helped me to recognize how angry I’ve been these past years. Between my father’s death and the death of my career, I didn’t feel there was anything to look forward to other than frustration.

   She helped me to see there was more to life than that.

   Even when your dreams don’t pan out, even when you can’t rub two nickels together, even when it seems all hope is lost… There’s always something to look forward to.

   I leaned back in my seat, popped a mini sandwich in my mouth, and shot a smile at Avery as I chewed.

   “Well, I think tonight was a smashing success, don’t you?” she asked, twirling a spoon in her coffee.

   “Sure was. Although, I think I’d steer clear of Mrs. Grady’s almond crescents if I were you.”

   “Why’s that?”

   “They’re purple.”

   That had her sputtering out a laugh. “Hey,” she started in once she caught her breath. “I want to thank you for letting me take over your place tonight. I want to pay you back for whatever money you put out for this thing.”

   “Like that’s going to happen.”

   “No, really, Zac. I’m viewing this as a work thing. Let me pay you something.”