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When Jax entered the UTT kitchen later that day, they barely missed colliding with Juan, who, with a curse, pitched a smoking saucepan onto the teetering tower of dirties in the dishwasher’s industrial double sink. Their dishwasher, Adam, cursed in reply, sweat dripping from beneath the bandana over his brow. Neither seemed to notice Jax, who stepped out of the way just in time to avoid a second collision with Juan as he trudged back to his station. Shoulders slumped, he grabbed another saucepan to apparently try again, the heavy-bottom pot clanging as it came down hard on the burner grate.
Wide-eyed, Jax glanced around the kitchen and quickly concluded Juan wasn’t the only chef on edge. Lots of creased brows, short words, and messy stations. The entire kitchen was off, which Jax had expected to some degree today—they were test driving the Valentine’s Day menu tonight—but not this level of chaotic misery. This was not the kind of kitchen Feb ran.
Or maybe not Feb? Jax swept their gaze around the space once more. No sign of Feb and her messy topknot anywhere.
Concern spiking, Jax carefully but swiftly crossed to Adi’s station where the sous-chef was using tweezers to peel back the delicate, wrinkly skin of a morel mushroom. “Where’s Feb?” they asked, trying to keep the worry out of their voice, sensing it was the last thing Adi needed right then.
“In the dining room,” Adi replied with an uncharacteristic growl.
“Has she been back here lately?”
Adi snagged a tiny measuring spoon and gently scooped out the crab stuffing inside the mushroom. “Not once.”
Jax checked the time on their tablet. “It’s ninety minutes to service. Did anyone try to talk to her?”
Adi finished her delicate task and straightened with a huff. She closed her eyes and hung back her head, taking a long deep breath before righting her gaze and snatching a piece of paper off the adjacent expeditor’s station. She handed the sheet to Jax. “It didn’t go well.”
Jax skimmed the menu they knew by heart, except this copy of tonight’s line-up was covered with strikethroughs and scribbles in Feb’s familiar chicken scratch. “What is this?”
“A list of revisions to the menu. And she said more would be coming.”
Suddenly, the collective stress made sense. Feb would occasionally tweak dishes on the fly—a splash more sauce, leave the head on the fish, use edible flowers instead of chopped herbs for plating—but Feb’s revisions to the V-day menu weren’t minor tweaks. This was an overhaul of practically every dish. Too many changes all at once for a special dinner no one expected to be cooking in the first place. It was asking too much, even of these chefs, and totally not the kind of chef and boss Feb was.
“I’ll talk to her,” Jax said. “In the meantime, tell everyone to stop and clean.” It wasn’t their place in the kitchen hierarchy to give the order, but the chefs would listen to their sous, especially in Feb’s absence. But would the sous listen to them? Adi had every right to tell Jax to go jump in a lake too, and her cocked hip made Jax think she might do just that. Jax hoped not. They liked these people and wanted to help settle the chaos so UTT could shine tonight, like Jax knew they would. With the original menu. Not to mention, they were injecting enough chaos already, even if no one knew it. “Let me try,” Jax pleaded. “And let everyone else have a breather before someone breaks someth?—”
A glass shattered behind them.
“Else,” Adi said, lips twitching. “Something else. I’ve lost count of the shatters today.” She rolled her eyes before her gaze settled back on Jax. “Give it a go. None of the rest of us could talk sense into her.”
They nodded, waited for Lacey to pass in a chocolate-stained haze, then hustled for the breezeway. As they passed Feb’s empty chef’s nook, Jax mentally cursed themselves for not checking the surveillance feeds earlier. They’d sent a text to HQ, confirmed all was good, then steadfastly ignored the temptation to check the feeds themselves, determined not to invade Feb’s and UTT’s privacy any more than they had to. Maybe if they had, they could have helped sooner.
Jax stepped into the dining room, also mentally cursing their Redemption colleagues too. They should’ve alerted them, but in fairness, how would they have known what they were seeing was so out of the norm? They weren’t the ones who’d worked at UTT the past three months; they wouldn’t understand how strange the sight before them was. Two of the room’s tables were covered with printouts—was that also a calendar and almanac on one?—and the bar was similarly strewn with paper, some scribbled-on sheets, some balled up, the mess interrupted every so often by a coffee mug.
And at the far end of the bar sat a bedraggled-looking Feb. Gone were her usual contacts, replaced by glasses that were halfway down her nose; more of her long, caramel-colored locks had escaped her topknot than were in it, and her chef’s coat looked like it had been through the service from hell, stained with handprints and splashes of various colors. As Jax drew closer, they could also see the barely-there freckles on Feb’s nose and cheeks that were usually only visible toward the end of service, her light dusting of makeup worn off for the night. How long had she been at this today?
Jax lifted the bar flip and skirted behind the bar, calling out a “Hey, Feb” when they were halfway to her, aiming not to startle.
Feb didn’t bother to glance up, just flicked her pen in greeting before putting it back to paper, lining out something else. “Can you make me a London Fog? Adi tried, and it wasn’t the same. I think she used vanilla instead of honey.”
Both were in a London Fog, not one instead of the other, and Feb knew that. She’d worked with Lacey last month on a deconstructed version of the tea latte for a dessert course. Someone definitely wasn’t thinking clearly. She’d probably also had enough caffeine for the rest of the week, judging by the number of dirty mugs on the bar. Jax poured her a glass of water instead and slid it in front of her. “Adi said you weren’t cooking yet today. Your chef’s coat says otherwise.”
“At home,” she answered.
“Since when?”
“Four.”
But it was only four-thirty. She must have meant she’d been cooking at home before getting here at four. “So you just got here?”
“In the morning,” she corrected. “Got here at noon.”
Jax leaned forward, their forearms braced on the bar. “Feb, you left here at twelve-thirty in the morning.” No response, just more scribbling. Jax nudged the glass of water closer. “Does your cooking marathon have anything to do with the menu revisions?”
Finally noticing the glass, Feb exchanged her pen for the water and took a giant gulp, giving Jax the distraction they needed to swipe the pen. Lowering the glass, Feb immediately looked again for it; when she couldn’t find what she was looking for, she began checking under the stacks of paper. “Where’d my pen go?” She slid off the stool, looked beneath it too, then back up at Jax. “Did you see where my pen went?”
“Can you tell me what this”—Jax gestured at the chaos in their immediate vicinity—“is all about?”
Feb spun on her heel and shuffled papers on the nearest table. “I read all of Pappas’s reviews. Made a list of things he’s critical of or doesn’t like. Here!” She twirled back around and slapped a piece of paper on the bar. One edge was singed, and the other was stained with something green. “We needed to make revisions.”
