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“Great,” Zander says. “Of course, we’ll have to see how she handles pressure before we can really say.”
Nolan grunts in response.
I make a point of never looking Nolan’s way as I work. I can feel him just looming there, watching my every move. I don’t want to give him the satisfaction of acting like he’s bothering me. I settle for pretending he doesn’t exist.
I keep my eyes on the sauce, adding ingredients when the right moment comes, stirring, and managing the heat. It’s a strange feeling, though. I can feel the weight of eyes on me. Nolan watches from the doorway, watching with unreadable thoughts. Does he really just see me as some kind of plaything? Does he think seducing me into sleeping with him will somehow bring justice to the world since I was the one who broke things off two years ago? Or does he still have feelings for me, and he simply doesn’t know how to show it anymore?
And then there’s Zander, who almost seems like he’s touching me even more frequently now that Nolan’s watching. Is it just my imagination, or are the two men having some ridiculous, macho bullshit contest over me right now?
The tension in the kitchen feels palpable–a silent battle of wills and unspoken history playing out to a chorus of sizzling sauces and chopping knives.
Zander seems oblivious to it all as he moves beside me again. His hand reaches out and this time, I flinch back from it. “I’ve got it. Thanks,” I say, a bit sharper than I intended.
Nolan’s voice cuts in, as if he was waiting for the smallest hint that I wasn’t welcoming the touches to speak. “Give her some space, Zander. She knows what she’s doing.”
I finally steal a glance at Nolan, and our eyes lock for a second. The intensity in his gaze sends a shiver down my spine. I quickly avert my eyes and focus on the sauce again as I try to ignore the fluttering warmth in my stomach.
“Of course, Nolan,” Zander replies, but there’s a note of irritation in his voice that wasn’t there before. “By the way, are you planning to stay here for the whole shift? I was told you were really only interested in funding the restaurant and pitching in a few ideas for the menu. I didn’t realize you would be supervising.”
“Is that a problem?” Nolan asks. His voice is pure ice and I’m surprised Zander doesn’t shrink from it.
“No,” he says, but the clipped way his word comes out and the lack of explanation makes it clear it will be a problem if it keeps up.
Great, I think. I hate imagining that my presence here is already upsetting the balance of this place. Maybe Nolan really wasn’t planning to be around during the shift, but he feels like he has to be here to watch over me with Zander around.
I’m sure I could’ve smoothed all this over with a simple, adult conversation between myself and Zander. Still, though, I have to admit some small part of me enjoys the way Nolan tries to look after me. It’s an odd combination, because he seems to tease and taunt me with his words, but his actions all say he’s concerned about me and watching over me. Maybe I just wish I knew which part was the real him and which part was the act.
The silence that follows their brief exchange is thick. I can practically sense the staff’s curiosity, but nobody is foolish enough to talk until Nolan finally steps back out to the dining room when one of the servers calls his name.
After Nolan’s warning, Zander seems to temporarily forget about me as he focuses on butchering a thick slab of steaks for service. When he drops the trimmings at my station for the beef stock, he doesn’t even say a word.
Is he mad at me for that?
I’m about to apologize and try to smooth things over, but I decide I shouldn’t have to. All I should have to do here is show up and do my damn job. I’ll come every day, cook my ass off, and prove to anybody who doubts it that I belong here. I’m Mia Calloway, and I’m going to be the best damn chef Taste has ever seen. And yes, I’m aware that’s a bit less of a dramatic statement when you consider the restaurant isn’t even open yet. But I’ve got to start somewhere, right?
We all have family meal as a staff about thirty minutes before the first guests are set to arrive. It’s a simple pasta platter with fresh made bread and butter infused with duck fat. Edgar has us all laughing when he tries to hand feed a piece of bread to Zander. When Zander refuses him, Edgar threatens to haunt him, then fakes a heart attack. Then, Edgar goes on a long rant about how tough Tinder can be when you’re 82. He admits he lies and says he’s 74, which he doesn’t think is really that bad since he feels he could pass for sixty-eight.
I can’t help thinking how hilarious Edgar would be in the same room as my Grams, but I’m also kind of afraid to introduce them. Grams might just eat him up. Then again, Edgar might actually be spunky enough to handle what my Grams comes to the table with.
I enjoyed my food while I listened and I relished in the camaraderie.
Service was a whirlwind of orders being barked, hot plates, fast-moving bodies, and a rush of nonstop adrenaline. I was proud of my ability to keep up, even though Zander reminded me a few times he was going easy on me for my first day.
By the time the last guests leave, I feel tired and oddly exhilarated at the same time.
I let out a long sigh and lean on the counter, feeling like I don’t have something that needs to be urgently done for the first time in about four hours. It’s a happy kind of exhaustion–like the feeling of laying in bed after a physically exhausting day.
I run my hand through my hair, pushing it out of my face and look around. Edgar is washing dishes and Paisley is prepping some desert items that will need to set overnight in the fridge. She looks up at me. Her perfect blonde hair is mostly intact, but a few strands have fallen to hang in front of her face. “Well? What did you think?” she asks.
“It was awesome,” I say, laughing. “Kind of stressful and terrifying, but awesome.”
She smiles. “That’s how I felt on my first day. But my head chef was this terrible old battleax of a woman. She was always yelling the same thing. ‘If you got time to lean, you got time to clean!’ But none of us were ever leaning. She literally wanted us cooking with one hand and wiping things down with our other hand.”
“Oh my God,” I laugh. “That sounds obnoxious.”
She grins. “I got really good at working with one hand. Watch this.” She expertly folds up a pastry into a perfect flower shape with one hand while jokingly running a towel in a circle on the table beside her. “I got time to clean,” she says.
We both laugh, and then Nolan walks into the kitchen.
