Betting on Bailey (Menage MfM Romance Novel) (Playing For Love Book 1) (5 page)

Y
ou have
plenty of room for improvement.
The words themselves weren’t cruel, but the tone was scathing. Clark, who looks exactly like the comic book Clark Kent, right down to the square black nerd glasses, didn’t bother to gentle his voice and listening to him, I had a bad flashback to Trevor’s cutting words.

As I stand in the alleyway behind the bar, I twist my turquoise ring round my little finger, trying hard to calm myself. Right now, I wish I were more like my friends. Gabby, whose temper erupts hot and fiery when she’s enraged, would have never let Clark speak to her the way he had just done to me. Wendy, who can turn icy when provoked, would have come up with a cutting response. Piper would have given him a contemptuous look and walked away. Me? I ran away and I’m fighting back tears behind the club.
Great job, Bailey,
I tell myself. I wish I’d grabbed my bag before fleeing. I don’t want to go back in there and feel the eyes of the entire team on me. A team that includes two of the hottest men I’ve ever met. Daniel and Sebastian.

The door opens, and as if thinking about them can actually conjure them from thin air, the two of them come out into the alleyway. And when I see them so close to me that I can reach out and touch them, all thought flees my brain, and I forget to breathe.

“
W
hat did
Clark say to you?” the big dark-haired man who had introduced himself as Sebastian growls. There’s a hint of stubble on his face and his ocean-blue eyes are clouded with concern. His fists are clenched, his arms are thickly muscled, and his biceps are tattooed, though his t-shirt sleeves obscure the images. For some strange reason, he looks vaguely familiar.

“Just that I need improvement,” I mutter. “No biggie.”

“He upset you,” Daniel, the leaner of the two says.

I shrug uncomfortably. These guys are perfect strangers - I’m not sure what I’m expected to say to them. Am I supposed to pour my heart out and tell them my insecurities? “It’s okay,” I say quietly. “He didn’t say anything that wasn’t true. I’m not sure I’m going to come back anyway.”

“Why not?” Sebastian comes closer, so close that I can see each hair on his chin glimmer under the outdoor light in the alley. A sudden yearning to reach out and touch his face fills me, and I back away until my shoulders hit the wall. “You played two games,” he says. “The woman on the other team kicked your butt, but you didn’t quit. I liked that.” His eyes hold mine captive. “Why quit now?”

Daniel is watching our interaction. His nostrils flare, and his breathing is ever so slightly quicker. Under his intent gaze, I feel very exposed, but I like it. I feel like I am tap-dancing at the knife edge of danger.

I drag my wandering mind back to our conversation. Back to the humiliating scene at the pool table. “Did you see me in there?” My voice rises with frustration. To my horror, I can hear the tears just under. One word will crack the fragile barrier and release them.

“Everyone starts somewhere.” Daniel’s voice is deliberately reassuring, as if he’s soothing a cornered animal. “Everyone’s a beginner once.”

“I’ve been trying to learn to play for eleven months.” Ever since I met Trevor. Almost a year, and what I have to show for it is less than nothing.

“Your teachers are not very good at their task,” he says. Sebastian’s the one watching me now, and he’s so close I can almost feel him. There’s a weird energy that’s humming between the three of us, some kind of undercurrent of attraction that zings under the surface of our conversation, peppering each word with a heated spice. “We’ll be better.”

“You?”

“Sebastian and I can teach you.” There’s a pause in the conversation. “If you want.”

They are way, way above my league, but I’m attracted to these men. I want them. I want to be sandwiched between them. I want to feel suffocated by their hard weight pressing against me. “You’ll teach me how to play pool?” I stammer, in an effort to calm my raging hormones.

They both look amused. “Yes Bailey,” Sebastian confirms. “We’ll teach you how to play.”

“Next Wednesday,” Daniel says. “Get here an hour early.” He fishes a business card from his wallet and hands it to me. “My address and personal phone number is on the back. Call me if something changes.”

My brain cannot seem to string together enough words to form a sentence. I’m so caught up in their spell. An observer of this scene must think that it must be laughably easy to earn a PhD.

A full-blown grin covers Sebastian’s face. “We’re going to enjoy coaching you, Bailey. Don’t be late.”

Unless I’m imagining things, there’s a gleam in Sebastian’s eyes, a subtle emphasis on the word
coaching.
They aren’t coming on to me, are they?

F
or every good
, there is a bad. I learned this the painful way. The day after I got my first Michelin star, my dog Buddy died. He’d been ailing for many months, and his death was only a matter of time, but I still can’t think back to that day without sorrow. Such is life.

So I’m not entirely unprepared when I’m sent an absolutely brutal Yelp review of
Seb II
Thursday morning.

Damn it
. If this were a one-time thing, I could ignore it. Sometimes, customers get disgruntled, but this is starting to feel like a pattern. I’ve seen many reviews in the last three months talk about slow service, snotty waiters and more. I need to head down to
Seb II
right away, and I’m long overdue a conversation with the staff there. I don’t like to go Gordon Ramsey on their asses, but after this review, it seems necessary.

“
W
hat the absolute fuck
?” I wave my phone, with the offending Yelp review visible on the screen, in the small office space in Seb II. Crammed in there are the sous-chef Ben and the restaurant manager Mina, who is in charge of the front.

Mina looks uncomfortable, but she doesn’t say anything. Ben starts to roll his eyes, then catches a sight of my face and thinks better of it. “Look, Sebastian,” he says. “I wouldn’t get too bent out of shape. They were just tourists.”

“They were just tourists.” My voice is dangerous and my blood pressure is rising. “That’s your response to this?
They were just tourists?
Do you know how much money tourists bring to
Seb II
? Do you think our business is all investment bankers and Wall Street analysts? Are you fucking kidding me with this shit?”

Ben quails, but I’m not done yelling. “Is this review fair?”

Mina finally speaks up. “Yes Chef,” she mumbles. “It’s true. They did send back their steak, and they did wait more than thirty minutes for a refire.” She shoots Ben an irritated look. “I was told the kitchen didn’t feel that tending to the steak was a priority.”

“Bitch, don’t you put this on me,” Ben snarls. “There was a large party of regulars in the room and we were dealing with their orders.”

I’ve been too lax with these guys. Ben’s casually uttered slur against Mina is a sign that the front and the back of the restaurant have become dangerously fractured. I’m not going to tolerate this kind of disrespect. There’s only one person in this room that’s allowed to curse, and that’s me.

“Ben.” My voice is quiet. “If that’s how you want to speak to my staff, you can leave.”

He realizes how close he is to the line. Fuck, I’m not sure he hasn’t
crossed
the line. He gulps audibly before he speaks. “Sorry, Mina,” he mutters. “Sorry, Chef.”

Mina nods curtly. She doesn’t seem surprised by either the swearing or the half-assed apology. “Mina, I’d like to speak to you alone,” I tell her. “Ben, can you excuse us? I’ll send for you.”

Ben looks unhappy, but leaves without protest. He’s smart enough to know that when you are knee-deep in shit, you need to stop digging. “Okay,” I tell Mina, when we are alone. “Tell me your side.”

“What makes you think I have something to say?”

“Because you are from Nebraska, and are the last person in the city to treat tourists badly. So, what gives?”

She looks at her nails. “Permission to speak frankly, Chef?” she asks finally.

“Go ahead.” I’m not sure why she feels the need to ask, and I don’t like it.
Seb II
has always been a bit of a problem child, but I sense that things are spiraling out of control.

“The waiter who was rude to the couple is a friend of Ben’s,” she says. “He’s snotty and arrogant.”

“Why is he still employed? We have no place for that here.”

She doesn’t meet my gaze. “I didn’t want to piss off the kitchen,” she replies. “We work on tips. Those guys don’t.”

Okay, this is bullshit. “Did Ben suggest that he’d slow down food service if you fired his friend?”

“No, Chef.”

“So you jumped to conclusions and did nothing about a problem employee?” I cannot believe Mina. I thought she was better than this.

She doesn’t say anything in her defense. But I can read it in her stance. She genuinely believes Ben would have retaliated, and more than anything, that gives me pause. Mina’s been a rock steady manager. She was my fifth hire. I’d prefer not to lose her to Ben’s dismissive misogyny.

“Okay, here’s what we are going to do,” I tell her. “Helen’s going to come in here for the next month and get the kitchen in shape.” I give her a steady look. “In the meanwhile, I want you to clean house. And Mina, I’m not thrilled that it needed to get to this. I expect you to raise a red flag if you are running into issues, not just wait for shit to blow up in our faces.”

She bites her lip. “Sorry, Chef.”

“Let’s get Ben in here and break the news to him.”

Ben is, as expected, thrilled that he’s moving to
Seb New York
, even if it’s just for a month. Coming right after a second Michelin star, it feels like a promotion to him. I don’t like it. I’m sure Ben’s responsible for as much of the bad behavior as Mina, maybe more.

When Mina’s gone and the two of us are alone, I turn to him. “You aren’t being rewarded,” I say through clenched teeth. “Helen’s going to get your crew ready, and I’m going to be riding your ass at
Seb New York
. I don’t like a sloppy team, Ben. If you aren’t prepared to put in the work, you don’t belong here.”

“I belong, Chef,” he insists. “You aren’t going to regret this.”

He’s wrong - I
already
regret this. I don’t have the time to babysit Ben, especially not if this franchise deal that Juliette’s pushing falls into place. I don’t want to give up my Wednesday evenings playing pool to make sure things at
Seb New York
are working smoothly. If my intuition about this stupid mess is correct, this is going to be a clusterfuck.