Page 13 of Neap & Spring

“Yeah.” I cross my arms. “That’s it.”

We stand there, and the space between us feels like an ocean. Five years and a thousand unsaid things and all the ways we used to know each other, buried under anger and confusion and the sting of betrayal.

She takes a breath and squares her shoulders. I watch her pull herself together in real time, so easily slipping into armor. Her spine straightens and her chin lifts, the professional mask sliding into place so smoothly it’s almost impressive. It’s like watching a door close. And nothing like the girl I knew.

“Alright,” Her voice is steady now. “Then let’s get started. I’d like to do a walkthrough of the space. Review the kitchen. Look at the —”

“Fine. Whatever you need.”

“Great.”

“Great.”

Neither of us moves.

This is a nightmare. This is actually a nightmare, and I’m going to wake up any second and realize I fell asleep at the stove again.

Except I don’t wake up.

Vivienne is still standing there, in my restaurant, looking at me like I’m a stranger.

And maybe I am.

Maybe we both are.

“The kitchen’s through here,” I say finally, because someone has to break this standoff, and it’s apparently going to be me.

I turn toward the kitchen doors without waiting to see if she follows.

But I hear her hesitant footsteps behind me, the soft click of her heels on the hardwood.

I push through the kitchen doors hard enough that they crack back against the wall. Roman and Cora both startle, spoons halfway to their mouths. Their faces are curious, but they take one look at me and the curiosity shifts to concern.

And I know, with a certainty I can’t shake, that the next six months are going to be the longest six months of my life.

CHAPTER FIVE

Vivienne

6 YEARS AGO

The bar is tucked down a side street that our classmate Dominic had insisted was très authentique, which meant the wine was cheap and the stools were mismatched and the lighting was so amber and low you could barely read the chalkboard menu on the wall. Not that anyone was reading it anyway. We’d eaten enough that day to last a week. Just a few hours ago, we were all standing at our stations in Le Cordon Bleu’s grand exam kitchen while three judges in pristine whites moved silently between us, tasting and writing and giving nothing away, like gods deciding our fates. As if they didn’t know they were holding our entire futures in their mouths.

I received a distinction. So did Callum. We were the only two in our class who did. But I also took the Chef’s Award, voted on by the instructors, which was a separate thing entirely, and which Callum has spent the last two hours insisting is deeply corrupt and politically motivated and that his sauce alone should have ended the conversation before it started.

“I’m just saying,” he says, “the Chef’s Award should have been based purely on technical execution, and my beurre blanc was technically flawless.”

“Your beurre blanc broke twice.”

“It broke stylistically.”

“That is not a thing.”

“It’s absolutely a thing. I obviously invented it this afternoon.” He winks. “The point is, whatever political machinations led to you winning that award —”

“The instructors voted.”

“— the instructors, who are people, with biases —”