Cook the Books

and that’s her cousin, who is married.” Josh shut off the computer and took my hands in his. “Since the day I met you, I have not even glanced at another woman. Not one. I don’t want anyone else. I don’t love anyone else. Only you. Do you believe that?”
    I wanted to believe him, but what was the point? He would go back to Hawaii soon, and I’d still be in Boston.
    “I’m starving,” I announced.
    Josh laughed. “Of course you are. Some things never change.”
    “And some things do,” I said pointedly.
    “Let’s get some food in you and see how you feel after that. You want to walk down to Pino’s?”
    I couldn’t say no to the best, gooiest pizza in the world. “Sure.”
    After all, I’d worked up quite an appetite....
     

TWENTY
     
    WHILE we got dressed, Josh brought up Kyle again. “Aside from wanting to see you tonight, I did want to warn you about Kyle. I’m glad you’re not dating him, but I don’t think you should be working with him, either.”
    “Why not?” I yanked a sweatshirt over my head and slipped back into my sweatpants. “What exactly is your problem with him?”
    “You told me you were working on a cookbook, but I didn’t realize it was with Kyle until I saw you with him at the Penthouse. Digger and I went to culinary school with him.”
    “Owen just told me that this afternoon. I don’t know why Kyle never mentioned that he’d trained as a chef, though.” I grabbed my winter boots and ski jacket, and took my keys off the desk. “You ready?”
    Josh nodded. “I’ll tell you why Kyle never told you. He dropped out of the program.”
    “He did?” We went out the back door. It was dark now. I held the railing as I walked down the stairs.
    “Yeah, and Digger and I are probably to blame for that. Kyle just couldn’t cook. He was awful. He couldn’t tell good food from bad. He dropped stuff all the time, never cleaned his workstation, burned things more times than I could count—he was just incompetent in every aspect.” Josh put his arm around my shoulder as we walked, and I unconsciously leaned into him. It was bitterly cold out. “He basically was lazy and a big baby. He couldn’t take the competitive environment at school. He hated the rough atmosphere and the constant pranks and jokes we all used to pull. Honestly, that made us ride him even harder, and we called him on all of his screwups. Look, it wasn’t nice of us, but we were young, and he was such an easy target.”
    “So you were a bully?”
    “I guess so,” Josh admitted. “And I did try to smooth things over with him, but he didn’t want anything to do with me. Honestly, all he did was complain and try to get us to cover up his mistakes or outright do his work for him. He was a pill. And he was always going out with these glamorous, attractive women. He thought he was so cool because he dated girls who looked like beauty-pageant queens. We teased him about that, too. Don’t think for a second that you’re going to get any credit for this cookbook. He’s going to say that he did all the work. That is, if he doesn’t ruin it completely.”
    “You sound like Kyle’s father. You know who that is, right? Hank Boucher.”
    “I know. His whack job of a father is the other reason he quit school. Just before Hank was coming to visit Kyle at school, Digger and I teased him to pieces about what we were going to do when his father the famous chef got there. That we’d make sure Hank knew how terrible his son was doing as a culinary student and all that. I know, I know,” Josh said when I glared at him, “it was wrong, and we were obnoxious punks back then. But Kyle wanted a free pass in life because of who his father was, and the whole time he couldn’t so much as boil water without setting fire to the entire stove top! Kyle was so bullshit with us and so scared of his father finding out what a dink he was that he up and dropped out of school just before his father arrived. Kyle didn’t like me much, obviously, but he really loathed Digger, because Digger was the one who instigated the majority of the teasing. Kyle totally wanted to kill him most of the time.”
    I stopped in my tracks, yanking Josh backward. “Oh my God.”
    “What?”
    “Digger was killed just before Kyle and Hank were supposed to meet him at his apartment for a tasting. I don’t think it was a coincidence.” I looked right at Josh. “I think Kyle never wanted Hank and Digger to meet.”
    “Oh God.” Josh