I stand over the large pot, skimming the impurities with a ladle, my movements precise and automatic. This is my meditation. This is my church.
The kitchen is quiet, save for the rhythmicthwack-thwack-thwackof Fallon’s knife against the butcher block. He’s breaking down a side of pork, his movements less surgical than mine but incredibly efficient.
He’s a force of nature in his section, muscles bunching and shifting under his T-shirt as he separates the ribs from the loin.
I check my watch. 6:15 p.m. The dinner rush hasn’t quite started yet, but the prep list for tomorrow is already looming over us like a storm cloud.
Eli has been gone for an hour.
“Where the hell did he go?” I mutter, mostly to myself, dropping a sprig of thyme into the stock.
Fallon doesn’t look up from his work. “Probably went to feed a stray cat. Or save a burning building. You know Eli. He’s the Patron Saint of Lost Causes.”
“He’s the pastry chef,” I correct him, stirring the stock. “He should be here glazing the tarts for the dessert service. If those aren’t ready by seven, the tickets are going to back up.”
“Relax, Knox.” Fallon slices through a piece of fat with a wet sound. “We’re ahead of schedule. The guy is allowed five minutes to himself. He’s been working his ass off since we opened.”
I frown, lifting the ladle to check the clarity of the stock. It’s coming along nicely. “We have a system. Deviations from the system create inefficiencies. If he’s not here, the balance is off.”
“You sound like a robot.” Fallon laughs, wiping his knife on a towel. “Did you program yourself to say that in your sleep?”
“I programmed myself to say it because it is true. Order is the foundation of excellence.”
The back door opens, letting in a blast of cold air that makes the flame on the gas burner flicker. Eli walks in, shaking snow from his coat.
He looks… different. His cheeks are flushed from the cold, his glasses are slightly fogged up, and there’s a distinct spring in his step that wasn’t there when he left.
He hangs up his coat and walks over to the sink to wash his hands, humming a tune I don’t recognize.
“Look who decided to join us,” Fallon calls out, leaning against his prep table. “Did you get lost on your way to the sugar aisle?”
Eli turns, drying his hands on a paper towel. He’s smiling—a genuine, unburdened smile that I rarely see on his face. “I had an errand to run.”
“An errand?” Fallon waggles his eyebrows. “Is that what we’re calling it now? Who is she, Eli? Come on, spill. You were gone for an hour.”
“It wasn’t like that,” Eli says, but the color in his cheeks deepens. He moves to his station, avoiding Fallon’s gaze.
“Bullshit,” Fallon proclaims, pushing off the table to loom over the pastry station. “You smell like that. That specific scent. It’s not just sugar and vanilla. It’s… her. Who is she? Do I know her?”
I pause my stirring, my senses sharpening. I take a subtle inhale. Fallon is right. Beneath the smell of the cold air and the usual scent of Eli’s detergent, there is something else.
A faint, floral trace. Jasmine. And something warmer, sweeter. Omega.
My spine stiffens.
“It’s no one,” Eli says, reaching for a piping bag. “Just a friend. I dropped off some tarts.”
“Tarts?” Fallon laughs. “You walked all the way in the snow to drop off tarts for a ‘friend’? Please. You’re wooing someone.”
Eli focuses intently on fitting a star tip into the bag, refusing to make eye contact. “I’m just being nice. She likes lemon tarts.”
“She?” Fallon pounces on the pronoun. “Aha! So it is a she. Is it someone from town? Don’t tell me it’s Mabel’s niece. She’s like, twenty.”
“It’s not Mabel’s niece.” Eli sighs, finally looking up. “And I’m not wooing anyone. I’m just… being friendly. We had a conversation the other day, and I thought it would be a nice gesture.”
I turn off the burner under the stock and move to the end of the prep table, crossing my arms. “Eli.”
He looks at me, and I see a flicker of apprehension behind his glasses. He knows what I’m thinking. He knows the rule as well as I do.
