I push that thought out of my mind and start to dice the mangos like he taught me.
An hour later, however, things are, in a word, fucked. I stare with panic at the sunken cakes I just took out of the oven, wondering what the hell I did wrong. I weighed everything twice. I tasted the batter before it went into the pans. I set the timer on the oven, my phone,andthe little egg-shaped magnetic timer that lives on the lowboy door. I let the cakes do their thing instead of opening the oven and checking on them a zillion times, which Jack explained is the exact wrong thing to do when baking. Despite all of that, they collapsed.
I pull off my oven mitts slowly, chewing the inside of my cheek.
This is a disaster. Everything is mapped out to the second, and Jack needs this oven within the next five minutes. There’s no time to try again, but I’m going to have to throw them out. We’ll be left with bowls of jam for dessert.
I press my wrist against my nose, stifling a sniffle.
I can’t cry in this kitchen. Not now. Not in front of Jack.
As if I summoned him with my mind, strong hands settle on my shoulders. Jack kisses the top of my head. “Hey, Princess.”
“They’re ruined.” I can’t look at him. I feel his gaze over my head, surveying the damage.
I expect some reaction, at least a bitten-off curse, but he just rubs my tense muscles. “So, we pivot.”
“There’s nothing to pivot to!”
He dips a spoon into the pot of jam bubbling on the stove, making a noise of approval as he tastes it. “That’s delicious. The ganache looks right, too.”
“Without a cake, these are just components. Not a dessert.”
“We’ll make it into something else.” He steps around me, examining the cakes. They’re in springform pans, so the sides lift away from the bottom of the tin. He pries one free. It collapses in on itself even farther. I clap my hands over my eyes, peering out between my fingers.
“I don’t even know what I did.”
“Maybe too much leavening agent.” He breaks off a piece, tasting it. “Whatever happened doesn’t matter. The parts that did bake properly are good. Take a deep breath, Poppy.”
“No,” I squeak, voice muffled.
“Pivoting in the kitchen is normal.” He pulls my hands away from my face. “Nothing ever goes off without a hitch.”
“But everything you do is perfect.”
“Hardly.”
“I had one job, and I just—”
“One job?” he interrupts. “You engineered this entire evening. You brought this restaurant back to life. It’s stunning out there. Don’t downplay that.”
“It’s your menu.”
“Our menu.”
My lips twitch upward despite myself.
“This is just dessert,” he adds. “We can fix it. Think, clever girl. What should we do?”
I take that deep breath, finally. My mind runs through thepossibilities. I didn’t realize that I absorbed quite so much knowledge over the course of my time here, but now it springs up, ready to be used.
“The coupe glasses,” I say slowly. The fancy ones I wanted to buy instead of the high-end steak knives, but managed to get from the company in exchange for promotion on our platforms. Hopefully they won’t mind a curveball. “We have a ton of those. Enough for each guest.”
“True. But we were going to put the signature cocktail in them.” I can tell by the glint in his eyes that he’s challenging me. Not because he thinks I’m wrong—but because he wants me to be confident I’m right.
“We’ll find something else for that.” I bounce on my heels, unable to stay still. My mind is racing so fast, it practically trips over itself. “We’ll use wineglasses, or whatever. It doesn’t matter. The new dessert will look great in those glasses, and they’ll be easy to eat.”
“And what’s the new dessert, Chef?”
