“Fallon! What can I get you?”
“Hey, Joe. I need ten pounds of that prime ribeye, trimmed. And five pounds of short ribs. And those sausages we talked about last week?”
“Coming right up.”
While Joe weighs and wraps the meat, I turn to Amber. She’s examining the display case, looking at the marbling on a sirloin with a critical eye.
“You know your beef,” I observe.
She shrugs. “I’m a mom. I did cook before I started working in a restaurant, you know.”
I laugh. “Touché.”
“So,” she says, turning to look at me, “how did you get into this? Being a butcher, I mean. It seems like... a lot.”
“It is,” I agree. “But I love it. My dad was a fisherman. Worked the boats out of Portland his whole life. Hard, dangerous work. My mom was a nurse. We didn’t have much money, growing up. I’m the youngest of five.”
“Five?” Her eyes widen. “Wow.”
“Yeah. My brother Sean is a cop in Portland. Fiona is a teacher in New York. Connor owns a bait shop down in Miami—loves the heat, the idiot. And Moira tends bar in Seattle.” I shake my head, smiling at the memories. “It was loud. Always someone screaming or stealing your food.”
“Sounds intense,” she says softly.
“It was. But we stuck together. My mom is the one who taught me to cook. Said if I could feed myself, I’d never go hungry.” I lean against the counter, watching Joe wrap the meat in brown paper. “But I didn’t really get into cooking, not seriously, until I got a job at a local meat market when I was fifteen. Just sweeping floors, cleaning the grinder.”
“And you liked it?”
“I loved it,” I admit. “There’s an art to it. Understanding the muscle, the bone. How to cut something so you waste nothing, but you get the best flavor. It’s precise. It’s visceral. I worked my way up, got a job at some high-end restaurants in Portland, doing the prep and the butchery for them. That’s where I met Knox and Eli. We clicked. The rest is history.”
Joe hands me the packages. I pay him and we head back to the truck, loading the meat into the coolers in the bed.
“Next stop, fish,” I tell her.
The docks are cold, the wind whipping off the river and cutting through my coat. Amber shivers, wrapping that pink cardigan tighter around herself. I walk closer to her, using my body to block the wind as we talk to the supplier.
I pick out some stunning halibut and salmon, the flesh bright and firm. Amber watches with interest, asking about sustainability and seasonality.
She’s smart. She asks the right questions. I could watch her all day, her nose pink from the cold.
By the time we have the fish packed away, the morning is wearing on. My stomach growls, loud enough that Amber hears it over the wind.
She laughs. “Hungry?”
“Starving. All this talk about food is killing me.”
“Coffee?”
“God, yes.”
We drive back toward town, stopping at a small café near the riverfront. It’s warm inside, smelling of roasted beans and sugar.
We order at the counter—large black coffee for me, a latte for her—and I grab a box of donuts, sliding them across the table to her once we sit by the window.
“Eat,” I command. “You’re too skinny.”
She picks out a glazed donut, taking a small bite. Powdered sugar dusts her lip. It takes everything in me not to reach across the table and lick it off.
I swallow a gulp of hot coffee, burning my tongue slightly. It wakes me up. My gaze drifts to her forearm, resting on the table.
