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“Yeah, we were,” Adi said as she sipped from a mug on her South Beach balcony, the Giants’ ballpark visible behind her.
“Most of our reviewers were in before we had to cut the night short, so be on the lookout for reviews popping up online today. Text the group thread if we get some good ones. Only the good ones,” she emphasized. She had enough terrifying and uncertain circumstances to deal with. She didn’t need scathing reviews of their first V-day effort added to the seemingly insurmountable mountain.
“I haven’t seen any coverage of what happened at the end,” Lacey said.
“What did happen?” another chef asked.
“Where are Juan and Chloe?” from another. “Were they hurt?”
“Where’s Dylan?” Adi said, her dark eyes narrowed. “Or the new guy? He was a pro last night.”
Feb cleared her throat, knee starting to bounce under the desk. “They couldn’t make the call, but they’re okay.”
“And you?” Lacey said. “Are you okay? I saw you go back in.”
“I’m fine,” she said. “I went for my grandma’s skillet.” Holt stifled another laugh. Brax must have told him how he’d found her in the pantry. “Then I stayed behind to speak with the authorities.”
“And the restaurant?” Adi asked.
“Took some damage from an issue in the upstairs unit.” The story she’d rehearsed with Brax and Hawes this morning. “We’ll be closed through the weekend for repairs,” she told them. “We should be back for prep on Monday and open again Tuesday, assuming everything’s repaired by then.”
“Is there anything we can do to help?” Lacey asked.
“Go to Tahoe or Napa, take a well-deserved vaca?—”
“Holy shit!” Adi interrupted, standing abruptly, her head knocking one of the many hanging flowerpots on her balcony. She brushed dirt and hair out of her face, her gaze never leaving the phone screen, though to Feb, it didn’t seem like her sous was actually looking at the camera. It looked like she was reading something instead. “Render review is up.” She pumped her fist. “Three fucking stars!”
Feb muted her mic and whipped her gaze to the side. “How?”
“Is Dylan there with you?” Adi practically shouted, but Feb’s attention was on Holt’s screen, the Render review displayed there. After a moment, he rotated in his chair toward her, a wide grin splitting his freckled face. “There’s a message for us. In the review.”
“Guests don’t usually wash dishes.”
Feb glanced up from the soapy dishwater she was forearms deep in as Brax entered from the dining room, a collection of empty mugs dangling from his bent fingers. “I’m incapable of doing nothing in a kitchen. Drop those mugs in here,” she said with a nod to the sink.
“Baba!” Lily shouted from the step stool beside Feb. “She got more tattoos than you or Daddy.” In her excitement, she whacked Feb’s inked biceps with the spatula she’d half dried, slinging water and laughter everywhere.
“Easy, princess.” Brax slid the utensil from her tiny grip and set it on the island behind them. “As for the tattoos, Feb’s a chef. Every one I’ve ever met has ink, even the cooks your Daddy and I knew in the army.”
“Every chef I know too,” Feb added. “We have an annual staff contest at Under the Table. Best new ink.”
“I wanna be a chef,” Lily declared with all the awe and certainty of a four-and-a-half-year-old.
“You wanted to be a bus driver last week,” Celia said from the other end of the kitchen island where she was whipping up cream cheese frosting for the carrot cake she’d baked that morning.
In a flash, Lily swung from certain to uncertain, her expressive face on the verge of crumbling, the little girl torn between today’s fascination and last week’s wonder. Celia spared them the impending breakdown. “If you want to be a chef,” she said, “come help me frost this cake.”
“Frosting!” She raced down the two stool steps, surprisingly graceful for a preschooler, and to her aunt’s end of the island, climbing just as gracefully onto the barstool beside her. Far more gracefully than Feb had ever managed, and she spent more than half her life these days around barstools.
Feb turned her attention back to the dishes and Brax, who’d picked up Lily’s abandoned dishtowel. “I’m sorry,” she said to Brax. “I’m not the best with kids. I didn’t mean to give her?—”
“Another career option? More glimpses of art?” Brax dried and tucked utensils away. “None of those things are bad for my daughter at any age.”
He was a good dad, and so was Holt, their interactions with Lily this morning reminding Feb of the unconditional love her own parents gave her. She’d been ready to call them, to reassure them she was fine, if news had broken about the incident last night. But it mysteriously never had—or maybe not so mysteriously given the connections Jax’s family seemed to have. She opened her mouth to ask Brax how they’d managed that feat, but Brax beat her to a more pressing question—the here and now. “I asked last night if you would be in if the time came we needed your help.” He finished drying the last mug and handed her the dishtowel. “Well, the time’s here. Are you in, Feb?”
As she dried her hands, Feb let her gaze wander from Celia pulling Lily’s curls back so they wouldn’t get in the frosting, to Brax’s hazel eyes full of kindness and patience, to the tired, yet determined people in the dining room who’d worked all night and morning to find a way to bring Jax home. These were good people. And so was Jax, who was patient, funny, smart, an asset to UTT, and the person who had held Feb together the past week. Jax had given her more than only the next service to look forward to.
Her phone vibrated. She dug it out of her pocket and smiled as another rave review hit the UTT text thread. They wouldn’t have any reviews, including the Render one, without Jax, who’d helped define the V-day concept and who’d reined in Feb when she’d almost ruined it all. This was Jax’s victory too, and Feb wanted to celebrate it with them. She tucked her phone back in her pocket and met Brax’s gaze. “I’m in.”
