epilogue
MEI
Tovek’s hands are shaking.
Not much—just a tremor when he reaches for the garlic, the kind you’d miss if you weren’t watching for it. But I’ve been watching. Eighteen months since he proposed in our kitchen amid burning sesame seeds, and somehow we’ve built Spicy Orc & Co. into the most impossible thing: a flagship restaurant booked three months out, expansion plans already in motion, and a husband who’s working himself into the ground.
“We need another sous,” I say.
He shrugs without looking up. “Next month. When the Dragon’s Nest numbers come in.”
I’ve been hearing “next month” for twelve months straight. Ever since the first review called us “the most exciting new restaurant concept in a decade” and we stopped being able to keep up.
“I’m posting the ad tonight.” I don’t make it a question. “Full benefits, signing bonus, someone who can run this place when we’re not here.”
Relief flickers across his face before he catches it. “If you think that’s best.”
I do. For the restaurant, sure. But mostly for us—for the future that includes this forty-seat place, the original Drunken Dragon that Greta runs, and the Dragon’s Nest that’s become impossible to book.
We got married quietly. Old Chinatown, tea house owner as witness, Sunny sobbing loud enough to rattle windows. Simple ceremony. Just the words that mattered, the promises we’d already been keeping. No white dress, no reception, no Instagram moment. Just us, making official what’s been real since I walked into his bar three years ago.
And now this. A restaurant with our name on it. A cookbook in progress. A social media following that’s tripled. The scandal thoroughly debunked, the fake screenshots traced back to a competitor’s PR firm, my “comeback” as carefully crafted as any dish on our menu. But the numbers feel different now. Pleasant, not necessary. Not what defines my worth, just another tool to make sure what we’re building stands on its own.
“Seven-top just ordered the tasting menu,” Tovek says, already moving toward the walk-in. “Dragon pepper supplement.”
“I’ve got it.” I reach for my knife. “You check table twelve. They’ve been waiting twenty minutes for dessert.”
He disappears through the swinging door. My husband. My partner. The man who’s been with me through spectacular failure and the occasional moment of courage. The tightness in my chest isn’t the burn of dragon peppers or even the warmth I feel when he looks at me across a crowded room. It’s the recognition that what we’re building is worth protecting.
Service passes in the usual rhythm. Orders flying, plates moving, the careful dance of a packed kitchen. By the time we finish, I’m exhausted but satisfied. Tovek’s still moving—breaking down stations, checking inventory, doing all the tasks that come with success neither of us expected.
“I’ve got this,” he says when I reach for a dish towel. “You’ve been on since six.”
So has he. Six AM for prep, straight through service with one fifteen-minute break to inhale noodles. And he’ll be here tomorrow, and the next day, until someone makes him stop.
“I’ll wait. We can close together.”
He shakes his head, jaw set. “At least another hour. Go. I’ll be home before you know it.”
I want to argue. Point out the fourteen-hour days, the dark circles, the fact that burnout doesn’t care how successful we are. But there’s that note in his voice that makes my chest tight.
So I go. Not home. To our office at the back of the restaurant, the one with the door that locks. I pull out my phone and start planning.
Twenty minutes later, I’m in our bathroom. The lighting’s perfect, I’m wearing the black underwear that makes Tovek’s pupils dilate, and my hair’s down in that crimson curtain that’s become my signature.
First photo: relatively tame. Me in profile, one hand on my hip, trying not to look like a thirty-three-year-old woman taking nudes feels slightly ridiculous.
Caption: “Tonight’s special: hand-pulled noods, served hot. Chef recommends immediate consumption.”
Send.
Second photo: bra unhooked but still on, hand grazing my breast.
“Nudes for my orc. Or should I say... noods? Either way, this dish doesn’t deliver itself. Thirty minutes or you get a refund.”
Send.
Third photo—the one that’ll actually get him to leave: topless, hair falling forward for plausible deniability, expression shifted from embarrassed to focused.
