Tasteless (11 page)

“You said you were when I asked before!” Sam laughed.

“No I didn’t,” she shook her head, climbing down from his arms before promptly sitting down again at the top step.  “I want to go back to the party.”

“Well I’m not carrying you all the way back,” Sam replied.  “So if you think you can make it on your own, then by all means.”

“Hmph,” Rye muttered, knowing she was defeated.  She struggled to get back on her feet, only for Sam to grab her again.  He scooped her up and let her direct him to her bedroom at the end of the hall.  Sam brought her inside, laying her down on her bed as he sat beside her.  He looked around the pink-painted room with the bunk beds opposite of Rye’s bed.  A faded poster of Tyler Chase still hung on the back of the door.

“Were you a Tyler Chase fan?”

“No, that was Poppy,” Rye replied.  He turned to see her lying on her back, her eyes closed and her legs bent as she unsuccessfully tried to kick off her stockings.  The hem of her pink dress had slipped to her hips, revealing stockings that were fastened to a garter.

Sam swallowed, trying not to let the image get to him.  He reminded himself that he had just been a little sexually frustrated and the girl before him was
Rye
, his co-worker – annoying, surly, full-of-attitude Rye Somerville that was lying before him. Totally non-sexual Rye with her incredible legs.  Sam squeezed his eyes shut.  He made a note to call Markita as soon as he got back to the city.

“Where are you going?” she asked, peering out at him under her sleepy lashes.  She unclipped one of her garters, letting the stocking slip down her thigh as she stretched it out in front of her.

“I need to get back to the party,” he said, despite the fact that he stood there unmoving.  If he didn’t know better, he would think Rye was
trying
to be seduction.  But no, she was just drunk.  Much too drunk to be exacting any sort of seduction.  And besides, it was
Rye.
  She probably didn’t even know what seduction meant.

As if something from the heavens had granted Sam’s wish to be brought back to reality, Rye began to struggle with unsnapping her second garter – and the struggle wasn’t cute.  She kicked around like an animal caught in a bear trap before she lifted her leg, ripping into the snap desperately – not unlike the way Gavin ripped into a bag of potato chips.

Laughing, Sam sat back down on the bed to aid her, removing her hands from the garter before studying it himself.  He realized that Rye still held onto a certain amount of pride when it came to looking like a total idiot in front of him, and she had to be pretty damn drunk to allow it to happen.  Especially if it involved him helping her out of her intimate apparel.

Thanks to a good amount of experience undoing women’s clothing, Sam was able to get the snap off in less than a second.  Rye sighed, laying back on her bed as if she had been doing manual labor.

“I’m not meant to be a girl,” Rye frowned.  “I’m really bad with these things.”

She stretched her legs out onto his lap, lazily pushing down at the top of her stockings.  Sam slipped his fingers under the band, pulling it down for her.  He bit his lip, feeling the smoothness of her skin grazing his knuckles.  As soon as they were off, Rye was asleep again.  He threw the stockings aside and slipped out from under her legs, pulling a blanket from the foot of the bed to cover her.

Chapter 7

The Sunday following Zoe and Gavin’s wedding, Rye woke up relieved to be on her own.  Despite the nagging feelings of loneliness that she had been dealing with, there was nothing she wanted more than to be by herself that morning.  There were a number of reasons, all of which were lead by the big one – she needed some time to herself to get over her first hangover.

She sat in her kitchen with a cup of coffee and a plate of bacon, trying to piece together the night before.  She had vaguely remembered being suckered into taking shots with Gavin’s aunt and uncle, downing a flute and a half of champagne with the event planner, sharing a bottle with the kitchen staff, and drinking a whiskey sour that Zoe’s grandmother didn’t mean to order.  Throughout it all, she had an empty wine glass in her hand that the servers kept refilling.

What she did remember clearly was a strange dream she had about Sam.  She was pretty sure he was responsible for taking her home and tucking her in and most likely helping her remove her stupid stockings, but she didn’t think that that would be enough to prompt a dream in which they were doing things that made her blush to recall.  She chalked it up to her brain on alcohol.  Apparently her mind not only got a little fuzzy, but a little dirty, when she drank.

The rest of the day alternated between napping and eating before a slew of texts came in from various people.  Zoe had sent a text of gratitude from her and Gavin while her father had texted inquiring about how everything went.  And then there was the text from Sam.

how ya feelin,
it read, not bothering with a question mark.  She smirked, blushing again at the stupid dream she had about him.  If only he knew, he would never let it go.

Much better,
she replied. 
Thanks for getting me back last night.
  Before she even realized the text went through, he had responded.

I’ll be at the diner at 7am tomorrow, can you meet me then? There’s something I need to talk to you about.

Rye frowned, not knowing what he could say that would require her to go in an hour earlier to discuss.  She felt immediately uneasy, her thumbs hovering above her phones touch screen as she wondered what to say in reply.

Everything okay?
she asked, fearing the answer.  This time, he didn’t text back right away.  She sat on her bed cross-legged, staring at their conversation before another text finally popped up.

Let’s talk tomorrow.

That night, Rye could barely sleep.  She had even tried calling Sam in hopes of convincing him to say whatever he needed to say over the phone, but he didn’t pick up.  Not wanting to blow something potentially small out of proportion, she refrained from contacting him for the rest of the night, only to sacrifice the rest she was sure she needed to deal with the following day.

She wondered what it could be about, unable to help herself from wondering if she had perhaps said or done something embarrassing when he brought her home.  What if the image of her undoing Sam’s belt was not from her dream? What if it
actually
happened? Could it be that Sam was hoping to meet early so he could let her down easy and explain that he only saw her as a friend and had no sexual interest in her? Rye covered her face.  That would be totally fine, she reasoned.  She wasn’t so sure she had any
actual
sexual interest in him outside her dream.  But she would hate to think that he spent the weekend coming up with the words to tell her that he wasn’t interested.

It would set them back farther than she could imagine.  They had just gotten to a good place where they could get along and have fun working together.  The last thing they needed was something silly that she probably did while she was drunk making him feel uncomfortable about working with her.  Rye wasn’t sure she could think of anything more embarrassing than that.

Despite her tormented mind, she could feel her eyes fluttering shut around sunrise.  Figuring that an hour of sleep was better than none, she set an alarm and gave into her sleepiness.  But shortly after, she was startled awake by a loud crashing noise.  She sat up, drowsy and disoriented as she tried to piece together what that noise was and where it came from. 
Did I dream that too?

But then, the noise came again.  It sounded like a crane.  Or a wrecking ball.  Like nothing that she should be hearing so close to their property.  Rye grabbed a sweatshirt, throwing it over her romper as she ran down the stairs and looked out the door.  Through the sheer curtains, she could make out what did indeed look like a machine by the restaurant.  She wondered if the party made such a mess that it would take machinery to clean and if so, who had hired them to do it.

When she opened the door, it became clear that the machine sitting beside the diner was not there to clean it.  A large backhoe had begun digging into the roof of the restaurant, scraping at the shingles that lined it.

“No!” Rye shouted, running out her front door and across the field.  It felt like much too long of a distance as she ran towards the machine, screaming over and over again to get their attention.  “Stop!” The person manning the machine didn’t seem to notice her as she continued to run and wave.

She could feel the sting of hot tears as she watched pieces of the restaurant fall to the wayside.  There was already irreparable damage done to the outside.  She gasped for air as she finally made it to the side of the machine, waving desperately at the man inside it.

“Stop!” she repeated.  “What are you doing?” The construction worker pulled a lever to stop his machine in place, turning to look out the backhoe window.

“Hey, what are you doing here?” he yelled in return.  “This is a construction site.”

“What?” Rye asked, hanging on the edge of the door.  “What, no.  Do you know where you are right now? Are you at the wrong address?”

“I’m pretty sure we’re not,” the man huffed.

“Well
pretty
sure isn’t enough when you’re demolishing something!” Rye screamed at him.  “Get out of there!” she yelled, pulling at his arm.  “Give me the name of your supervisor because I’m going to sue your company for all this damage.”

“Good luck, little lady,” the man replied.  “But I’m taking orders from the guy who called me here.”

“What
guy
?” Rye asked.  The construction worker picked up his papers.

“This is the address, alright,” he said.  “Somerville Diner.  Contact: Sam Laurent.”  Rye grabbed the papers from him, stepping down from the door to read them.  It had been typed out exactly as he read it.”

“This can’t be right.”

“Are you confused because of the time change?” he asked, trying to be sympathetic as he noticed the tears streaming down her face.  “He called saying he wanted to move the demolition up from Friday to today so he could get the rest of the schedule rolling.”

“Sam ordered this?” she asked.

“If Sam’s a man, then yeah, I talked to him,” he said.  “Now if you’ll excuse me, this is going to take me a little while and I need all the time I have.”

“No!” she screamed, startling the man enough to stop him completely.  She looked at the nametag hanging around his neck –
Michael.
  “Michael,” she said, her voice wavering as she pleaded.  “Can you please, just wait one second while I call my father.”

“Fine,” he replied.  “But hurry up and straighten this out, I’m on a schedule here.”

“I’ll feel better if you stepped out of the vehicle,” Rye said.  Michael rolled his eyes but he did as she requested, walking a good twenty feet away from the machine before lifting his hands up to show that he had done what she asked.  Rye tried to steady her breathing as she walked to the front of the diner, dialing her father’s number.  It was 3:45am in Los Angeles, but if ever there was an emergency, it would be the unauthorized destruction of their family restaurant.

When he didn’t pick up, she tried again.  She felt as if she were choking on her own suppressed sobs as she tried again and again.  Finally, she collapsed on the front porch, crumpling forward as she left him a message.

“Dad,” she said into the machine.  “This guy named Michael is here and he said that someone authorized the demolition of the diner but I don’t know anything about it and Sam, he never mentioned anything.  I know you couldn’t have asked for this but why would anyone? Sam would have told me if he did this, but he couldn’t – he wouldn’t authorize this, would he? This has to be a mistake, please call me back.”

Rye hung up, her hands shaking as she struggled to do so.  She looked down at her phone, her eyes blurred from crying, hoping he would call her right back.

“Rye!”

She heard her name being called out in a distance.  Sam had gotten out of his cab and was making a run towards her.  Michael intercepted, stopping him just ten feet shy of where she sat.

“Hi, you must be Mr. Laurent,” he said.  “I think there’s some confusion with this young lady here who doesn’t seem to know about the demolition and the moved up date.  But I have it here that you authorized the change…”

“I didn’t,” Sam said, looking over at Rye.  “I didn’t authorize this.”

“You’re listed as the contact for this location,” Michael said, sounding irritated.  “And if
you
didn’t authorize it, then someone at this establishment did or else someone just played a very sick, very cruel,
very expensive
prank on you.”

“No, I mean,” Sam shook his head.  “It’s not a prank.  We did order this, but...”

“You, what?” Rye said, jumping to her feet.  “You ordered the demolition?”

“No!” Sam said, reaching out to grab her.  “No,
I
didn’t.”

“Well then who did?” Rye asked.  “I have a hard time believing my own dad would demolish the restaurant that his own father built.  One that he had done so with the intention of leaving as a legacy in this family.”

“Rye,” Sam said, moving his hands up from her hands to her shoulders as he pulled her closer.  He furrowed his brows, looking at the ground before speaking.  “Warner ordered the demolition because he said it made more financial sense to do that then to fix the existing infrastructure issues.”

“
What
infrastructure issues, I wasn’t aware of any,” Rye said.

“There were some, I don’t know… he said his accountant said that it was bleeding money, leaking electricity – I don’t know…”

“So you knew about this?” she asked.  He nodded, not looking up at her.

“I’m sorry,” he said.  “I was supposed to tell you a lot earlier than this.  But I had no idea he moved up the demolition date.  I had asked you to meet me early to talk about it.”

“How long have you known?”

“Since…” he sighed, rubbing the back of his neck.  “Awhile.”

Rye pulled away from his grasp before pushing him back.  Sam looked startled, making her even angrier.  How could he be surprised that this would upset her?

“I can’t tell you how sorry I am,” he repeated, his hazel eyes fiery as he pleaded with her.  “I didn’t know how to tell you.  I knew how much this place means to you and I just… couldn’t put it into words.”

“Shut up,” Rye spat.  “You knew about this for
awhile
and you kept it from me – why? Were you afraid I’d turn it around? Convince my dad that we didn’t need this and destroy your plans of that chic city restaurant you’re trying to make our diner into?”

“Whoa,” Sam said, his expression hardening.  “That is not what happened at
all.
  I had nothing to do with this.  I didn’t think it was necessary.”

“So what? You were trying to
protect
me?”

“Well, yes.”

“Oh, poor little naïve Rye and her idealistic thinking?” she hissed.

“No! No, not like that.”

Rye turned to see Michael walking away, clearly unable to handle being witness to the confrontation.  She marched over to him, grabbing the backhoe keys from his hands and flinging it into the forest.

“What the hell, lady?” he yelled.

“I’m not a
lady,
” Rye growled.  “And if you want me to show you how little of a lady I am, then go ahead and keep yelling in my face.  I can guarantee you a monster.”

“Jesus,” Michael muttered, jogging towards the woods.  “You’re fucking nuts, you
monster.
”  Rye turned away from him, marching towards the restaurant.  Sam stepped in front of her, trying to get a hold of her again.  But she had anger and adrenaline on her side, enough that pushing past him sent all six foot four of him to the ground.  She congratulated her little body as she continued to march past the men, past the torn up front patio, and into the diner where she began to latch every opening there was.

“Rye!” she could hear Sam yelling from outside.  “Stop, let me inside.”  She didn’t listen, pushing tables and chairs up against the doors.  He banged on the window, trying to get her attention.  There were remnants of flower petals and streamers on the ground that kicked up around her as she treaded through the large open space, securing everything she could.  Sam followed her from window to window, desperately and fruitlessly trying to get her to stop.