Just One Taste Read online

  Just One Taste

  Synopsis

  Frustrated with small town life, Hayley moves to the city only to get fired and lose her apartment all in the same day. Desperate, she takes a job as a short order cook in a quaint diner. Now she just has to find a place to live and learn how to cook.

  Lauren manages Greta’s Diner the same way she manages everything in her life, with calm and order. All that changes the moment Hayley walks through the door. She’s loud, opinionated, wild, and completely alluring. When Lauren finds out that Hayley’s been sleeping in the diner, she makes a decision that will change both their lives forever.

  Just One Taste

  Brought to you by

  eBooks from Bold Strokes Books, Inc.

  http://www.boldstrokesbooks.com

  eBooks are not transferable. They cannot be sold, shared or given away as it is an infringement on the copyright of this work.

  Please respect the rights of the author and do not file share.

  Just One Taste

  © 2020 By CJ Birch. All Rights Reserved.

  ISBN 13: 978-1-63555-773-2

  This Electronic Original Is Published By

  Bold Strokes Books, Inc.

  P.O. Box 249

  Valley Falls, NY 12185

  First Edition: September 2020

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.

  Credits

  Editor: Shelley Thrasher

  Production Design: Stacia Seaman

  Cover Design by W. E. Percival

  eBook Design by Toni Whitaker

  By the Author

  An Intimate Deception

  Just One Taste

  New Horizons Series:

  Unknown Horizons

  Savage Horizons

  False Horizons

  Acknowledgments

  A great big thanks to Bold Strokes for all their amazing support, especially Shelley Thrasher, my editor, for keeping me on point.

  This is the first book I’ve written that takes place in my home city, which made researching a lot easier. My Google Maps street view got a bit of a rest. Except for the diner, I’ve tried to keep to real landmarks if possible. There really is a pink painted building called the Palace Arms (soon to be high-rise condos). Trinity Bellwoods does have white squirrels. I’m not sure if they can be called magical, but this is the only place in the city you can find them. And there really is a skating rink underneath the Gardiner Expressway.

  I’d like to thank Geoff Dennis for giving me insight into the mind of a chef. Any mistakes or inconsistencies are my own.

  And as always, I’d like to thank my readers for giving these stories life in your imaginations.

  For Maire

  proof you can find love in the city

  Chapter One

  Hayley shoved herself between an obese woman wearing a floral print dress and a businessman in a tight, shiny suit as the doors to the subway slipped shut an inch from her nose. She grinned at her reflection in the scratched Plexiglas. This was now her morning routine.

  She’d woken at six in her crowded, tiny bedroom in a house she shared with three other people, waited her turn for the shower, praying there was still hot water left—there wasn’t—dressed, and scrambled out of the house in time to walk the two blocks to the subway and catch line one uptown. She’d memorized her route the day before because she didn’t want to seem like she didn’t know where she was going, like she didn’t belong.

  Jason, her new roommate, had given her the heads-up about line one. He told her to leave a little extra time in the mornings because it was always crammed to capacity. She’d followed his advice, but this was insane. Hayley was glad she’d decided to get coffee at the end of her commute because it was so packed she couldn’t even lift her arm.

  The car bumped along the track curving to the right. Hayley slammed into the businessman. He righted her, gave her an indignant glare, and went back to his game of Candy Crush.

  “Sorry,” she said, admiring his balance. He wasn’t even holding on to anything, just riding the car like a surfboard, shifting his weight from left to right, depending on which way the train jerked. In fact, most people were doing the same. With so many people and so few handholds, this was a skill Hayley felt she’d have to learn.

  After a minute or two, Hayley discovered she could lean against the door and use it to anchor herself. God, she hoped it didn’t open. They were flying through the tunnel now. It would be death for sure.

  At the next stop more people squeezed in, pushing Hayley farther into the car, away from the comfort of the door. Now she was stranded in the middle of the aisle. A woman in a purple tank top, with tattoo sleeves of pandas and bamboo, reached up and pulled a handle from the ceiling. Hayley breathed in relief as she grabbed one for herself. At five feet six inchest, Hayley had to stand on her tiptoes to reach. It wasn’t comfortable, but it saved her the embarrassment of falling on her ass.

  This wasn’t Hayley’s first time on the subway. She’d been to Toronto lots of times with her family over the years. Her dad was a huge hockey fan, and they’d seen the Leafs play at the ACC a couple of times. She’d been to the ROM on school trips and gone with some friends to Kensington Market to search the vintage shops. And there was the time she came up to visit her sister Hannah at school, and they’d gone to Lee’s Palace to see a Talking Heads cover band.

  But this was the first time she’d been on the subway by herself at rush hour. Every other time the aisles were clear, and she could usually snag a seat. Rush hour was a whole different beast.

  It wasn’t that Hayley didn’t blend well. As her sister liked to say, Hayley was always too city for Casper Falls, their tiny town two hours north of the city. With her ever-changing colour of hair, which her mom had hoped was a phase she’d outgrow in high school, the string of her white ear buds snaking into her back pocket, and eighties vintage chic, Hayley fit right in with the medley currently crowding her on the subway. But Hayley knew you needed the swagger to go with the look. Everyone around her appeared bored and tired, still waking up. Hayley tried to match that disdain. It was hard. She was frothing over with barely contained excitement. She’d been working her whole life toward this day. It had taken twenty-eight years, but she’d finally managed to escape Casper Falls and the boredom of running her parents’ grocery store.

  She was now the newest second assistant to the CFO at a tech firm. Not her dream job. Or even a remotely appealing job. She’d be doing grunt work for a man who didn’t appear to know that ties weren’t designed to be tucked into pants, or that it was polite to look at people when you spoke to them, but it did two important things. It paid her rent and got her out of Casper Falls.

  The farther north they went, the emptier the car became, until finally, two stops before hers, she was able to score a seat. Another piece of advice from Jason. Always look before you sit. You never know what could be there. He told her the story of once sitting in gum. Ruined a brand-new pair of jeans. Kalini, another roommate, told her about the time she’d sat in someone’s urine. So Hayley made sure to double-check.

  Now she could really people-watch. “Electric Barbarella” by the Polka Dot Bikinis came on; eighties cover bands were her favourite. She loved anything eighties, but if it was rehashed in an ironic way by someone who hadn’t even been born in the eighties, all the better. She cranked it up and surveyed her fellow commuters.

  There was an older gentleman who’d either come off the night shift or h
ad trouble getting up in the mornings. He dozed against the Plexiglas partition, his mouth hanging open, his cheek squished against the glass, a blue satchel on the ground between his dirty work boots.

  Farther down the train a child screamed and tossed a bottle out of his stroller. The faint, exasperated voice of his mother drifted down the car. “If you don’t want it, just say so.” The train screeched into a station, and the bottle rolled toward Hayley, picking up speed as it went.

  Hayley reached down and grabbed the bottle before it had a chance to get too far. The doors to the train opened, and the old man jerked awake and stumbled off just as the bell dinged and the doors swished shut again.

  Hayley handed the bottle to the mother, who thanked her and moved farther down the train. “And now you won’t have any juice until we get to Sharon’s. Your bottle’s covered in subway floor. Isn’t that nice?” The kid blew a raspberry at Hayley as they passed.

  Hayley stood ready to exit the train at the next stop. She knew her excitement would fade as the day went on, especially as she got into the busy work of being someone’s coffee bitch, but for this moment, for this instant, her world was full of possibilities.

  * * *

  Hayley stared up at the twenty-story building. It was made of glass and metal and reflected the morning sun coming from the east. Caustics danced on the surrounding skyscrapers.

  With a strong black coffee in one hand and her satchel in the other, she climbed the two flights of stairs to the lobby still ten minutes early. She’d left herself loads of time to get to work, an embarrassing window of time. She’d rather be an hour early than two minutes late. It sent the wrong impression. And the last thing she wanted to do was give her new employers the wrong idea about her work ethic.

  As she rode the empty elevator, she checked herself out in the reflective door. She was wearing black skinny pants, a blue formfitting blazer, and a grey scoop top Kalini had lent her. Her wardrobe consisted mostly of ironic T-shirts and skinny jeans, so if she didn’t want to be stuck borrowing her roommate’s clothes forever, she’d have to invest in more business attire.

  Hayley took a sip of her coffee, the hum of excitement inside helped by the caffeine coursing through her system. She couldn’t believe her luck. She’d had four interviews at two different companies over the last month. That was the result of over fifty resumes and how many online applications? Most jobs that paid above minimum wage were hard to get, but jobs that anyone with a brain could do? Even harder. She needed to prove herself invaluable today because this was the kind of company that hired within. If she could move up, then maybe one day she’d get her own assistant.

  Right before she’d boarded the Greyhound her mother had handed her an envelope with two hundred dollars in it.

  “Don’t tell your dad. He’ll think I’m being paranoid.” She straightened the collar of Hayley’s jean jacket. Her mom was always straightening things. She couldn’t sit still. Some project, some item always needed fixing or cleaning. She seemed afraid if she stopped moving it would feel too good and she’d never get up again. Hayley leaned out of reach, hiding the move by stashing the envelope in her carry-on. You’d think she was eighteen leaving home for the first time instead of the twenty-eight-year-old, absolute, one-hundred-percent-independent adult that she was.

  “Save it for emergencies.” Her mom raised her hands, stopping any protests. “Not plural. Sorry. I didn’t mean it like that. I know you’ll do great.” She sighed, the sound heavy in the morning air. “You’ve always been so good at taking care of yourself.” She gave Hayley a huge hug before turning back toward the car. Her dad kissed her on top of her head, and she waved and then turned, never looking back. She couldn’t wait to get the hell out of Casper Falls.

  The doors opened on the fifth floor to rows of open-concept desks and what should’ve been a bustling hive of activity. It was empty and silent. No one was at their desks, and the clunk of the elevator doors shutting echoed in the huge room.

  Panic filled Hayley. Had she gotten the day wrong? Was it Sunday? She pulled her phone out of her back pocket and checked the date. The reminder of her first day of work was still up on her home screen, glaring at her with four exclamation marks.

  “What the…?”

  Hayley had been here only once before, the last interview before she was hired. On that day there’d been a hum of almost chaotic productivity, every desk filled with people hard at work.

  She walked down the hall toward Jeff’s office. “Hello?” she called.

  A confused voice responded from an office off to her right.

  Hayley popped her head in to see a young man in his late twenties, balding, sitting at a desk covered in file boxes and stacked folders.

  Hayley waved from the doorway. “Hi. I’m Hayley Cavello. I’m supposed to start today?”

  He blew out an exasperated breath and stood. He was wearing worn jeans and a Pac-Man T-shirt. Hayley approved. “Shit.” He came around the desk, and Hayley held out her hand to shake his. He looked down at hers, hesitating, then grabbed it limply and pumped it once before dropping it.

  Hayley was starting to freak out. “What’s going on? Where is everyone?”

  “Shit,” he said again. Hayley expected him to say more, but he didn’t. Instead a pained expression crossed his face.

  “Are you one of the managers? Are you—”

  “The company went out of business over the weekend.”

  Hayley’s mouth opened, closed, opened again. “What?”

  “God, Jeff’s such an asshole. There was an email, but I guess because you’re new, you didn’t have one set up yet. The company went under.”

  She’d seen this movie before. Michael J. Fox spent a lot of time in his boxers and got a private jet and Helen Slater at the end. She doubted her story would end with her in a limo making out with Helen Slater.

  “Jeff should have emailed you.” He shrugged, his way of apologizing. As if a shrug of the shoulders was enough to say, That’s life, it sucks, but what’re you going to do?

  Hayley was asking herself the same thing. What the hell was she supposed to do now? The guy in the Pac-Man shirt turned back to his desk and began packing up his files again.

  “That’s it?” Hayley asked. “The company went out of business so we’re all out of a job?”

  He shrugged, not even bothering to look up at Hayley. Again with the shrugs. What was wrong with people?

  Hayley turned and left, picking up her pace as she neared the end of the hall. She slammed her fist into the elevator button and waited. She was about to take a sip of her coffee, but the idea of putting anything in her stomach nauseated her. The elevator dinged and the doors opened. She dropped the coffee into the trash on her way into the elevator.

  “Fuck,” she said as the doors closed. Now what?

  Chapter Two

  “What do you mean you’re quitting?” Lauren stared in shock at Pete, her most reliable line cook.

  He scrubbed the back of his neck, shamefaced. “I’m sorry, Lauren. I got accepted into that woodworking program I told you about. With the way the classes are set up, I won’t be able to do both.” He looked down at his baggy jeans, chewing the inside of his cheek. “Maybe I can do part-time?”

  She shook her head but didn’t say anything. Instead she stared out at the diner and the oddball patrons left after the breakfast rush.

  What was she going to do without Pete? He’d been here eight years, not quite as long as her. She did quick math in her head—over fourteen years. And now she was manager and Pete was still just a line cook. Okay, he had a point. Line cook at a diner was a dead-end job if you had higher ambitions. She couldn’t even remember the last time Greta had given him a raise. Aaron hadn’t approved any raises last year, which meant he hadn’t had a pay increase since before Greta died, which was over two years ago.

  Greta’s Diner wasn’t a big place—a line of five booths on one side and the counter seats on the other. It’s what Greta used to ca
ll a classic fifties diner. After she’d died, her son Aaron had taken ownership, but that’s about all he did. Everything—that didn’t include raises—fell to Lauren.

  The place had an eclectic feel to it that fit in with the neighbourhood. What had once been a run-down part of the city with short-stay hotels and low-income housing had begun the slow crawl toward gentrification about ten years ago. It still had some distance to go. The Palace Arms a few blocks away still rented rooms by the hour, and the park across the street hosted a variety of characters—cyclists, drug addicts, the homeless, can ladies as well as families, dog owners, and the regular mishmash of eccentrics that made the city interesting.

  Lauren loved every bit of it.

  The diner itself was fifties kitsch. The booth’s cushions were all red vinyl and the countertops faded Formica. A row of matching red stools swept the length of the counter, faded and ripped in places and, except for the one at the end, which screeched like fingers on a chalkboard when it swivelled, were still comfortable.

  Picture frames covered every inch of wall space. Old Coke and Pepsi ads mixed in with archival images of the city before cars, during streetcar and subway construction, when the city was young and optimistic. Lauren loved comparing the old intersections to what the city looked like now. Some buildings had stayed as regal as ever, and glass monstrosities had replaced others. She preferred the old historical buildings.

  Lauren reached over and straightened a metal ad for Heinz celery sauce. “When do classes start?” she asked. Maybe they could find a replacement before he left, although that would be damn hard. Sure, Ramiro, their head cook, was great, but he couldn’t work all the time. If she could clone Ramiro, her life would be perfect. Maybe not perfect, but easier. Instead she had Theo, who only worked part-time and was slow as cottage traffic in June, and Ezra had a bit of an attitude she could do without. Pete had been her go-to guy, her old reliable, her friend.