Hadley Beckett's Next Dish, page 27
I don’t know how he managed to keep such an earnest expression on his face, but I was completely done for. I grabbed a pillow and put it in front of my face, but there was no way to hide my bouncing shoulders.
Why, oh why, did Max and I have to be the subjects of Renowned’s first horrible attempt at being hip and modern?
Chef Simons carried on, oblivious. “And with that, it is now time to say goodbye. And not just until next season. Renowned has been a staple of culinary entertainment for nearly forty years, and I’ve savored every moment.”
I grabbed Max’s arm and dug my nails in. All the humor had vanished for both of us.
“Being invited into your homes, year after year, was an honor I will carry with me always. But all good things must come to an end. As for this season’s featured chefs, you know where to find them, of course. Continue to follow Chef Hadley Beckett on her hit Culinary Channel series, At Home with Hadley, and we’re just a matter of weeks away from the hotly anticipated return of Chef Maxwell Cavanagh on the highest-rated cooking program of all time, To the Max.”
Max cleared his throat. “Actually, Chef Simons, To the Max will not be returning.”
My head jerked around to face him. He looked at me and smiled nonchalantly, and then turned his attention back to Chef Simons.
Chef Simons, meanwhile, had just given up. He stood from his chair, muttered, “I’ll record a sign-off in postproduction,” and walked out the door without another word.
“Well, how do you like that?” Max mused as the crew began feverishly breaking down the set. “We killed Renowned.”
“Did we also kill To the Max?” I asked, pulling him aside. “I’m so sorry. What happened?”
He opened his mouth to speak, but instantly shut it again. We simultaneously offered sideways glances at the camera about three feet away from us.
“What are you doing?” Max asked.
The operator shrugged. “Lowell said to keep rolling.”
Max and I both groaned and, without a word, took off together toward my bathroom. Once we were locked behind two doors I repeated, “So what happened? Did I make you too boring when I rewrote the recipe of your life?”
He grinned. “Something like that.”
I hopped up on my vanity and continued to prod. “But seriously. What in the world happened? I thought you were heading off to the Great Barrier Reef next week.”
He returned to his position on the edge of my bathtub. “I was. Now I’m not.”
For the first time in probably twenty years, my stomach experienced the precise messed-up gravity sensation that used to occur when we’d hit the top of the Dulcimer Splash log-flume ride at the Opryland USA amusement park. He wasn’t going away. And the way those blue eyes were staring intensely at me, dancing with humor and challenge under cocked eyebrows, made me think maybe it had a little something to do with me.
“Why not?”
“I don’t want to. Not right now.” He took a deep breath. “Things are settling down. You have a new manager; I have a new manager. Not the same manager, thankfully. Your At Home with Hadley contracts are settled, you’re keeping the house, things are good with all the restaurants—yours and mine. Let’s see . . . did I forget anything? Oh yeah. Renowned is over. For good, apparently.”
He stared at me and I just stared right back. I had thought that when Renowned wrapped, life would go back to normal. But for the life of me, I couldn’t remember what normal looked like. Normal had been replaced by Max, and when I looked at him, looking at me, it seemed like he mattered more than anything else that I’d considered normal before.
“Okay, Max . . . say for just a second that you and I gave this a shot. Say we figured out how to keep from fighting—”
“We don’t fight much anymore,” he protested, rising from the tub.
I laughed. “We fought yesterday!”
“You overcooked the polenta!”
“Say we didn’t have to be rivals and we didn’t have to compete for the best time slots. Don’t you think, even if all of that was out of the way, you and I both carry around too much baggage to try and store all in one closet?”
“No. I don’t. I think we would just need to build a bigger closet. Or sort through all that baggage and see what we can get rid of. We could just store it all in your shower.” He looked behind him. “That thing is enormous.”
“I know. It’s like a whole room. But it would always be difficult for us. You know that as well as I do.”
“I don’t.”
“You do!” I laughed again and jumped down from the vanity. “We both have trust issues, we don’t agree on much, we live two very different lifestyles in very different places—”
“I like Nashville.” He shrugged. “It’s not that hard.”
I scoffed at his attempt to make it easy. It could never be easy. “It is hard. And even if we sorted that out, we will both always want to win—especially against each other, I think.”
“Nothing wrong with a little friendly competition.”
“But can you really see yourself dating someone who is as busy as you are? Maybe even as successful as you are, eventually?” I sighed. “I’ve tried to make it work in my head, Max. I have.”
He crossed his arms and shook his head. “No, you haven’t. It sounds to me like you’ve just worked out a lot of excuses. You’ve even worked quite a few out for me, and while I appreciate you trying to save me the trouble of thinking it through myself, I really think you should stop now.”
I swallowed hard and darted my eyes away from his. “I don’t want to lose you. As a friend, I mean.”
“Why would you?” he asked, taking a step toward me. I told my feet to step back in response, but I think they must have been too busy admiring Max’s folded arms—as I was trying not to—because they ignored the snot out of me.
“What happens when we date for a little while and then it all goes horribly wrong—as, let’s face it, it probably will? We had to get past a whole lot to become friends. Do we really want to add a breakup to that?”
“See, that’s the problem. Right there! You’ve already played it out in your mind. You’re so convinced there can’t be a happy ending that you don’t even want to keep reading to find out. But it hasn’t even occurred to you that we get to write this story, Hadley.”
“No, I do understand that. It’s just that—”
“Oh, good grief, woman,” he muttered as he looped one arm around my waist and pulled me against him before hooking his other arm around my neck. Then he bent me back and kissed me in a manner worthy of Rhett Butler. His lips were unrelenting until I finally threw my arms around him and started giving as good as I took. It was then that he brought me back to a self-supporting posture (though my knees took a little longer to catch up) and kissed me one more time, briefly and gently, before taking a couple steps back, leaving my lips numb and my arms missing him.
Well, fiddle-dee-dee.
“Would you please just listen? Just for a minute?” he asked, and since my brain was incapable of forming words anyway, I just nodded silently. “Okay. Thank you.” He took a deep breath and another small step back from me. “You think you don’t want any of this.”
“Any of what?” I asked quickly, before he could stop me.
His hands gestured back and forth wildly between the two of us. “This, Hadley. The pain and struggle and heartbreak that goes along with loving somebody. And I get that. All you’ve ever seen is the pain and struggle and the heartbreak, so of course you’re scared.” He ran his fingers across his chin and scratched his cheek. “And me? Well, I’ve never even seen the love. I’ve never even seen anything to make me believe that it can ever work. To make me think it’s ever worthwhile. That there’s any point to any of it.” He took a deep breath and his eyes locked with mine. “But in spite of that, in spite of having no idea what’s happening or what to do about it, I know you and I’ve got a pretty good shot at making this work. Because I get it now.”
“What?” I whispered. “What do you get?”
He smiled and took a step toward me. “I get that it’s not about having it all figured out. It’s just about knowing there isn’t anyone else on earth I want to be standing beside while we figure it out together. It’s about believing in something that . . . Hadley . . .” He bit his lip. “I believe you and I can be something so good. And I know that maybe I’m supposed to make all these promises to you. Promises to never let you down, and to be the man you need me to be. All of that. But the thing is, I don’t feel like I have any chance at all of not disappointing you if I make those promises. Because I’m going to let you down. And, sure, I’ll try to be the man you need me to be. Always. But I don’t think life together really works that way. I’m not even sure it’s supposed to. So, I can’t make those promises. But I can promise I’ll do all I can to protect you. And that I’ll always respect you. And I can promise I don’t want anyone but you. I can promise to be honest with you—whether that’s admitting when I make a mistake or saving your poor patrons from coronaries by making sure you know when you’ve used too much salt.”
I laughed with him and, as much as I didn’t want to stop looking at him as he said the most beautiful words I’d ever heard, I couldn’t resist the offer of his open arms. He pulled me against him—I never would have imagined we would fit together so well—and I rested against his chest. He kissed the top of my head and leaned his cheek against my hair.
“In sickness, poorer, and worse, right?” he said softly. Gently. “Just give me the chance to love you through all the worse that life can throw at us, Hadley. I can promise I’m not going to get scared off by any of that. Because I’m not willing to miss the better that I know is going to be there.”
I lifted my head from his chest and reached up to run my fingers through his hair, then I wrapped my arms around his neck and tilted my chin toward him.
His finger slowly traced the outline of my mouth. “So what do you say?”
I sighed as nonchalantly as I could as my hands made their way to the back of his head and began to pull his lips toward mine. “I guess we can give it a try.”
Max’s eyes sparkled as he seemed to take in everything about the moment—everything about me—and he was finally close enough for his lips to brush against mine. Briefly. Perfectly. Frustratingly.
“I love you, Chef Beckett,” he whispered.
I pulled out my tried and true method of listing things found in the kitchen to help me remain calm and focused—Max. Max. Max.—but it just wasn’t getting me very far.
“I love you too, Chef Cavanagh.”
I expected a smile, but the emotion that danced across his face wasn’t playful in the least. It was raw and intense, and carried with it the promise of a love I never thought I wanted.
“Well . . .” he said, and then the smile appeared—and it was everything. “Just remember who said it first.”
He pulled me to him, in a style that was perfectly all his own, and I realized that if this was what losing to Max Cavanagh looked like, I had no desire to ever win again.
Epilogue
HADLEY
Six Years Later
“I don’t at all understand the concept of this show,” Stuart said as he looked around the new house.
I took his jacket from him and hung it on the coatrack by the door. “It’s not that hard, Stu! It’s just life, you know?”
“See, that’s a reality show. Not a cooking show.”
We walked into the bustling kitchen, and I gestured with my arms like Vanna White. “And that’s where you’re wrong. It is a cooking show. And maybe also a reality show—but only in regard to food. Cooking, meals, travel, adventure—”
“Ah.” He nodded. “Okay. I get it now. It’s At Home with Hadley . . . To the Max!” He laughed. “Why didn’t you just say so?”
I shook my finger in his face. “Nope. That’s not it. Not at all—though, believe you me, the network executives would have peed themselves if we’d gone with that as the name. But it’s really not that. It’s so different. It’s more about the role that food plays in people’s lives.” We walked further into the kitchen, and Stuart shook hands with various members of the crew—most of whom we’d both worked with repeatedly through the years. “Sometimes it might be like something you would have seen on To the Max, back in the day—”
“Like figuring out ways to use every part of the goat for a celebratory dinner with Bedouin nomads in the Negev?”
I laughed. “Exactly. But then we also got the opportunity to spend the day cooking with a Make-a-Wish child and her family. Because that was her wish, Stu! To learn to prepare Thanksgiving dinner for the less fortunate people in her community. I mean, can you believe that? And it’s because food matters. Food brings people together.” I shook my finger at him again. “There is power in food, my friend.” We stepped behind the island and I pulled my apron out from a drawer. “And how about you? How’s LA?”
He nodded. “Good, actually. Just before I flew out here, I got a pretty exciting call. Steven Spielberg hired me as second AD for his next film.”
I squealed as I jumped into his arms—which he’d instinctively known to throw open for me. “Stu! That’s amazing! I’m so proud of you!”
“What’s going on here?” Max asked as he stepped into the kitchen and caught sight of Stuart twirling me around. “Should I be concerned?”
“I’m stealing your wife,” Stuart replied with a smile as he set me down.
Max shrugged. “I knew it would come to this eventually.” He put his hand out, and Stuart shook it. “It’s good to see you.”
“You too, man.”
“Stuart’s directing a Spielberg movie!” I exclaimed proudly.
Stuart laughed. “Well, not exactly. Spielberg actually tends to direct Spielberg movies.” He turned to Max and humbly clarified. “Second assistant director.”
“Wow!” Max replied, genuinely impressed. “Okay, then I take it back.” He wrapped his arms around me from behind and quickly kissed me on the neck. “You can’t have everything.” He released me and playfully whacked me on the bottom with one hand and grabbed an apple from a bowl with the other. I faced him with mock horror just in time to catch him waggling his eyebrows at me mischievously as he took a bite out of the apple.
Stuart grinned at me and I chuckled as I repositioned the remaining fruit in the bowl. “Seems like you guys are pretty happy.”
“We are.”
He leaned in to speak discreetly. “And Max is doing okay with this life?”
I sighed dramatically. “Well, times are tough, but somehow he gets by . . .”
He chuckled. “You know what I mean. You traveled so much for the first couple years . . . I just know you were kind of worried about how he’d be with settling down. The great adventurer Maxwell Cavanagh—ensconced in the suburbs of Nashville, Tennessee, of all places. I mean, let’s face it. He’s a great guy, but you don’t exactly look at him and think, ‘Now there’s a guy who loves to spend his Saturdays tailgating and playing cornhole.’”
I guffawed at the thought. “No, I suppose you don’t.”
A soft, disgruntled cry began to emanate from the baby monitor on the counter but quickly grew in volume and intensity.
“On it,” Max called out as he reappeared in the kitchen, to cross through to the stairs.
“Hey!” I grabbed him from behind, by the waist of his jeans, as he passed, and he walked in place for a moment—as if he wasn’t strong enough to escape me. Then he grabbed my chin and planted a kiss on my lips as the doorbell rang. “Actually,” I muttered against him, “I’ll take care of Jules.” He shook his head and laughed as he began pulling away. “I’ll even make sure Harper and Elijah are dressed!”
“Already done, baby.” Max continued to laugh as he unlatched the baby gate and began up the stairs. “Dad of the year!”
I ran over to the stairs and looked up at him. “For a month! I’ll take care of getting the twins dressed for a full month!”
“You lose, Hadley!” his distant voice rang out. “Go answer the door!”
The doorbell chimed again, and I looked back over to Stuart, who was leaning against the counter, a bemused and knowing expression on his face. “You ready for this, people?” I called out to the crew, who all laughed in response. I took a deep breath and walked to the door. And then one more deep breath before I opened it.
“Hi, Meemaw. Come on in.”
It wasn’t that I didn’t love seeing her. I did. It was just that, well . . . we saw her a lot. And the older she got, the more comfortable in her own skin she got. And that was great. But, well . . . who knew she could get even more comfortable than she had already been?
“I don’t know how you live in this neighborhood,” she began as soon as she walked in.
“What’s wrong with Forest Hills?”
“No, not Forest Hills. Forest Hills is fine. I just mean this part of Forest Hills. There are kids everywhere. On bikes, in yards . . . do you ever get any peace and quiet?”
No. No, I did not. But that was just inside the house.
“Hey, look who’s here, Meemaw!” I directed her toward the kitchen and held in my laughter as Stuart shot me an expression of betrayal. “You remember my old friend Stuart, don’t you?”
She offered him a wave and sat down at the dining room table with the magazine she apparently had stashed in her handbag.
“Good to see you too, Twyla!” he called out, causing me to giggle and resulting in no reaction whatsoever from my grandmother. Then he looked around the place and threw his arms up in the air. “Had, how in the world are you possibly going to be able to film a show with all of this chaos?”
I grabbed his face in my hands and said, “The chaos is the show, Stu.” Then I patted him on the cheek and added, “Now you’d better get off my set unless you want to make an appearance.” Never having had any desire to be in front of the camera, he was standing with the crew within seconds.
“You ready, Hadley?” Jerry, who was now my director, asked.
I offered one emphatic nod and straightened out my shirt. “Ready.”
