Bitter Truth (Hawthorne Vines #1)

My biggest weakness has always been how heavily I lean in to protein, and I make a pointed note to myself to remember this as I’m making adjustments to my menu in the future.

We spent the entirety of our cooking time going over what happened in Chicago. There is nothing as horrible as sharing your failures with the man who trained you, pointing out all the ways you didn’t become the person he tried to mold you into.

“I’m sorry I let you down,” I tell him, wiping off my hands on a napkin.

“You didn’t let me down, Wes.”

He crosses his arms and pins me with a look I know all too well.

It means a lesson is coming.

“Despite everything, I am proud of you,” he continues. “I’m proud of all you’ve accomplished and all you’ve tried to accomplish, because it means you pushed yourself outside of what is easy. So please don’t rest how you feel about everything on me being disappointed in you.”

His words ease something tight in my chest, and I give him a grateful nod.

“What it sounds like, though,” he adds—and here comes the lesson, I can feel it—“is that you let yourself down. You had expectations for yourself, and however things turned out with the Santiagos isn’t what you had hoped for.”

Fuck if that isn’t the truth.

“So the best thing you can do is learn from it.” He shrugs a shoulder. “It’s that simple and that easy. And it’s also that difficult and that complicated. Because not everybody knows how to learn from their mistakes. Instead they just keep doing the same things over and over again and hoping to come out better the next time.”

Chef Hines drops his arms and rounds the counter, then places his hands on each of my biceps.

“But I know you know this already. It sounds like you’re already making changes, figuring out what to do next, how to do it better.”

He squeezes gently, then lets his hands fall away and turns to clear the dishes we used to make the flatbread pizza.

“So what you need, Wes, is not to come to me hoping for forgiveness. You need to look inward for that. You are the only one who can forgive yourself for the ways that you feel like you’ve let yourself down. And that is one of the hardest things any of us can learn how to do.”

When I pick Murphy up from the airport later that evening, I can pretty much tell from her smile that the day was amazing. I already had an idea that she was enjoying it from the dozen or so texts she sent me throughout the day, but the pure joy radiating off her is just confirmation of what I only thought I knew.

“Tell me everything.”

“They offered me a job as a songwriter.”

I smile as I pull out into traffic. “Holy shit!”

“I know! It was so much better than I thought it was going to be, you know? Todd is actually really nice, and he set me up in the booth and had me play some of my music for him. And he said he wants me to write music for their artists. Not just Vivian, but other artists, too. People I admire and think are insanely talented.”

She sinks farther into the seat, a dreamy smile on her face.

“I can’t believe this is happening.”

I reach over and rest my hand on her thigh, giving it a light squeeze. “I can. When you’re as talented as you are, a guy like Paul can only hold you back for so long.”

Murphy gives me an embarrassed smile and hooks her hand into mine.

She tells me about her day, from the time she landed to visiting the record label’s headquarters.

And all the while, I’m gearing myself up for the part where she tells me that she’s moving back to LA. It makes sense that they would want her there, to be able to sit outside the recording rooms and collaborate.

She was happy there until it all fell apart, so I know she’ll be happy there again.

Even if it means she leaves me behind.

“They want me to move to LA,” she eventually shares.

She turns in her seat and raises her knee to her chest, then wraps her arms around it before slipping her hand back into mine.