AllFreeNovel
Share Us
PROLOGUE
February Winters.
As much as Feb loved her parents, she cursed them daily for that particular gift. According to them, it was in honor of her February fourteenth birthday. Valentine, they’d said, was too on the nose. And February wasn’t? If she had to guess, her dad had caught a case of Captain Obvious from all that John Madden Football he’d played, and after thirty-six hours of labor, her mom had been too damn tired to care.
The name was hell as a kid, and it only got more hellish as she climbed the professional kitchen ladder. Food critics loved a punny headline, and February Winters was a picnic basket full of fucking eye rolls.
February is Not for Lovers.
WinterHell’s Kitchen.
February’s Cold Winter.
All because she refused to open Under the Table, her baby, a shining star of the San Francisco food scene, on Valentine’s Day. Because she refused to serve some boring as fuck prix fixe menu like every restaurant was expected to do that one night a year when everyone took their sweetheart out for dinner.
One, she didn’t do sweethearts.
Two, it was her birthday.
Three, it was everything Under the Table wasn’t.
But this year... she decided to do it. On her terms.
Even a date with her maybe-sweetheart after.
Her terms, however, did not include hiding under the table at her restaurant by the same fucking name, but there she was.
Feb was not looking forward to tomorrow’s punny headlines.
ONE
The week before . . .
Feb spun on the barstool in her chef’s nook, flipping her pen around her thumb and watching through the interior glass window as her staff glided around the kitchen. No service tonight; just an afternoon of planning and mise en place for the week ahead. The music was turned up, the vibe relaxed, all smiles and shit talk, everyone productive without the stress of incoming tickets. Would the bomb Feb was about to drop destroy a perfectly good Monday?
A flash of icy blue drew Feb’s gaze to her head bartender weaving through the rows of stations, sampling this or that bite the chefs offered. Dylan Jacks had joined them three months ago, and they’d spent more time in the kitchen than any bartender Feb had ever worked with. They didn’t need to be at the restaurant more than a couple of hours each Monday. Just enough time to prep and stock the bar and let Feb know if they were running low on anything. But Dylan was usually there longer, spending extra time in the kitchen, chatting and tasting and taking notes on their personal tablet, and then like clockwork, the cocktail menu was updated every Tuesday to reflect the week’s ingredients. Expertly so. All of Dylan’s drinks were amazing, sophisticated but edgy, surprising yet comforting, and all exactly the vibe Feb wanted for Under the Table.
Exactly the vibe Feb would use to describe Dylan as well. Their mohawk defied gravity and had been candy-cane striped for the holidays before the pale wintery blue it was now. The tunnels and plugs in their ears were usually jeweled to match whatever lipstick Dylan wore that day. And their wardrobe straddled a seemingly impossible line—on off days and prior to service, they dressed the part of nerd in button-downs and funny ties, always with their tablet tucked under their arm, but behind the bar, they were the coolest person you’d ever meet in head-to-toe leather.
They’d once offered to dress more formally for service, but Feb had shot the suggestion down. Contradictions fascinated her. She’d decorated UTT’s entire dining room with them, from the painted black cement floors and soft pewter walls, to the navy, magenta, and purple velvet booths and chairs, to the bright white shiplap roof that arched over the entire space. Dylan, an equally fascinating contradiction, fit right in behind the room’s centerpiece, a bar made from the same live edge wood as the tables in the rest of the dining room. Together, the two—Dylan and the bar—had starred in more than a few of Feb’s dreams lately.
But as Feb glanced again at her chef’s notebook, at the blank page under the scribbled heading V-day Menu, she wondered if her obsession with contradictions had gone too far. Had her determination to be contrary outpaced the practical, at least where her culinary imagination was concerned? Because her subconscious sure as fuck hadn’t provided any inspiration on the V-day menu since she’d decided to be, well, contradictory. Thankfully, she’d surrounded herself with chefs more talented than herself.
Drawing her phone out of her pocket, she opened the app that controlled the restaurant’s music and lowered the kitchen volume. Heads swiveled in her direction as she slid off her stool, exited the nook, and came to stand in front of the expeditor’s station. She tossed her notepad onto the slab of colorful mosaic tile she’d laid by hand, her own finishing touch made three years ago, finished barely in time to open the doors. She felt more nervous—more lost—now than she’d ever been then. “I don’t know how to do this.”
Her sous-chef, Adi, straightened from where she and Dylan were sampling a kohlrabi noodle bowl she’d been working on the past few days. “Do what?”
“A Valentine’s Day menu.”
Adi dropped her spoon, Dylan choked on their slurp of noodles, and more gasps echoed around the kitchen. At the pastry station in the cold nook, a surprised Lacey cursed and squeezed her piping bag so hard she drowned a cupcake in yuzu frosting. “We’re working Valentine’s Day?” she squeaked.
“If you’ve already made plans, keep them.” This was the third V-day since UTT had opened, and Feb had been staunchly opposed the past two years. If she opened without a prix fixe, she’d catch hell from the special occasion diners who managed to snag a reso, only to balk at the price tag and too adventurous ingredient list. If she opened with a prix fixe, her conscience would revolt, and their regular clientele would whisper she was selling out. Damned if she did, damned if she didn’t, so for the past two years, she’d noped out altogether. Her staff had no reason to think this year would be any different. Hell, she’d said as much when Dylan had asked her about it last week. Feb wouldn’t penalize Lacey or anyone for their absence on what was typically a night off; she wouldn’t say no to any extra hands, though. “But if you’re available that night, yes, we’re going to open, and I could use your help. Assuming I can sort a menu.”
“Well,” Juan said from his sauce station, “what do you love about Valentine’s Day?”
“Nothing.”
“About romance?” Chloe asked as she slid a bowl of roasted chickpeas onto the tiles beside Feb’s notepad.
