Love Simmers

Chapter 2

"Are you still glad you came home like a good, dutiful sister?" My best friend, Maddie, asked me over wine and pizza. To be honest, it was more wine than pizza.

"I've spent the entire day organizing the kitchen and bar supplies. When I offered to help them open the restaurant I didn't think they would have me stacking shelves and doing heavy lifting. I thought I would be sampling the menu for them," I whined, my feet sore from spending hour after hour standing. I didn't even get a lunch break. I wasn't cut out for so much manual labor. As a celebrity chef I spent my days filming my show and writing cookbook. Pilates twice a week and a short daily run was the sum total of my physical exertion. Ollie and Nate didn't seem to realise my limitations. If they did, they just didn't care.

"That bad?" She asked as she refilled my empty wineglass like a good friend.

"I dropped a glass. You would think I burnt down the restaurant the way that Nate berated me. I ended up paying for the glass just to shut him up."

"He's not warming up to your presence yet?" She sympathised.

Having gone to school with Nate, as well, she knew his personality wasn't always endearing.

"I'm chilled from being in his presence," I said, shivering dramatically. My melodrama amused her. We both broke into laughter.

I took a deep breath, leaned back into my chair, and let the atmosphere of my favourite pizza bar comfort me. I loved coming home. Hanging out with my friends, my family, this was the best vacation I could take. Believe it or not, I enjoyed coming home more than I enjoyed my holiday to Bora Bora last year. When life in the city was lonely and stressful I often asked myself if my success was worth the price of living so far from my family and friends. Ollie stayed in Chester and he was one of the happiest guys you'd ever meet. When he wasn't stressed out of his mind over his new business venture of course.

"The unresolved feelings between you and Nate are just priceless. I love it. It's the inspiration for my new romance novel," she told me, taking another bite out of her pizza slice. "The working title is 'Can't Stand The Heat'."

I didn't ask about her new novel. Mainly because I was sceptical over whether she would ever finish one. I'd read the first chapter of nine books in the last year alone. I'd finally had to tell her I wouldn't read another first chapter until she had written a second one. It left me with too many never to be answered questions about countless characters. If her ability to write a first chapter was any indication, she could be a great writer if she ever finished a piece of work. And that was coming from someone who didn't usually read romances.

"There are no unresolved feelings on my part. I'm resolved in my current feelings of irritation towards him. I remain resolved in my belief that Nate and I will never get along again. That whatever truce or bond we've had throughout our childhood has vanished," I ranted, mostly for my benefit more than Maddie's.

There had been one night in the last five years where we hadn't argued. But, then again, we hadn't spoken much that night. Ever since then we could barely be in the same room together without one, or both of us, snapping. Nate had never visited me in the city though I had never given him any indication he'd be welcome. Our estrangement was mutual it seemed.

"Has prom crossed your mind at all lately?" Maddie smiled smugly, the fact she knew only fuelled her delusional writer's mind. "I can see it now, once upon a time there were two teenagers on prom night..."

If only she could write the ending for me. I already knew the cliché beginning.

"Sometimes I think of that night," I shrugged. I confess, I thought about it more often than I wanted too. Seeing Nate usually triggered those memories. But then again, I thought about the night when I was alone in the city.