He nodded his thanks to the waiter who brought fre
sh coffee. “How do I fix this?”
“You even want to?”
It went deeper than want. “I need to. She’s incredible and I’ve done the wrong thing by her.”
Toni stood up abruptly and did a little jig, singing, “Anthony loves Bree. Anthony loves Bree.” Several heads poked out of the kitchen area to see what was going on.
“What are you five?” he hissed.
She sat. “What are you fifteen? If you’ve fallen for her, you know what to do.”
“I haven’t fallen for her.” Toni didn’t need to know he was so far down the well of fallen, and so in the dark about how that happened, he felt like his head might implode.
“How many times have I seen your penis?”
He groaned. She was such a brat. “Do you think you could ask that in a louder voice so the dish pig can hear you?”
“I’m trying to say I know you, so l know, you know what to do.”
“You don’t know me. Like I didn’t know you were this posh chef.”
“And stunning lesbian.”
“Right.”
Toni smacked her hand on the table. “Wrong. You didn’t know me because you couldn’t be bothered. That’s my whole point. You’re bothered about Bree—that’s big. You like her. She rocked your world didn’t she?”
Ant picked up the still lit fancy candle. “She rocked it.” He blew it out. “She rolled it so hard she nearly tipped me over. She makes me think differently about things.”
“Holy Mary, Mother of God. “Have you hooked up?”
“Yeah?” He poked a finger in the liquid wax and let it coat his finger, burn a little.
“And?”
He grinned. He put the candle down. “I’m not telling you about that.”
“You should see your face. I am so jealous.”
He cracked the wax off his finger in two soft halves. “How do I fix things?”
Toni considered. She stuck her finger in the wax too. It was something they used to do as kids. Ant wondered if Toni did anything more adult with candle wax now. He wondered if Bree would, then laughed at himself, because if she did, there was a possibility—remote and distant, but a possibility still—he might get to find out.
Toni cracked the wax off her finger. “It’ll need to be big.”
“How big?”
“Got any money?”
“Enough. I took a salary cut to take this job believe it or not. I’m gambling on the idea I should be able to earn more in the long run. And I just bought Mim her first car. I’m about tapped out for play money.”
“Could you free up a lump sum?”
He could max out a credit card, he could take a loan, but he wasn’t a fan of debt, had long since made it a rule to avoid it. He might splash money around from time to time, but he lived within his means. “If I had to.”
“I’ve got an idea.”