Page 36 of Neap & Spring

“Okay,” I said finally.

“That’s my girl.”

We talked for another twenty minutes about nothing important — her book club, Dad’s golf game, the neighbor’s new dog. Normal things. Safe things.

So I didn’t leave. I stayed in the cottage.

And today, I worked on my report and tried not to think about the fact that I still haven’t unpacked, even though I decided I am staying.

But by five o’clock, I couldn’t avoid it any longer. I needed to see dinner service. I needed to observe how the kitchen handled the rush. It was part of my job, and I’d already skipped the morning.

So, I changed into clean clothes — the last clean clothes I have, which means laundry is officially unavoidable — and drove to Neap & Spring.

The sun was starting to set when I arrived. The restaurant looked beautiful in the evening light, and for a second I let myself imagine what it would be like to just be a customer. To walk in and have dinner and not carry the weight of everything that’s broken between me and the person who built this place.

But I’m not a customer. I never get to be just a customer. I always have to be the person who sees what’s wrong. And this time, what’s wrong goes a whole lot deeper than the menu.

I grab my bag and get out of the car. I can hear music playing inside. Voices. The sound of silverware being set on tables.

Frannie’s at the hostess stand, and her face lights up when she sees me. Over the past two weeks, she’s become the closest thing I have to a friend here.

“Viv! I didn’t think you were coming in today.”

“I worked from the cottage this morning.” I shift my bag higher on my shoulder. “But I’m here for dinner service.”

“Your table’s open.” She grabs a menu out of habit, even though I never order. “Want me to have Roman send out some things for you to try?”

“That’d be great, thanks.”

She walks me to my corner table, and I settle in, setting my iPad and notebook down, arranging them just so. The table is by the window, close enough to see the ocean but angled so I can watch the open kitchen without being obvious about it.

The dining room is starting to fill up. Couples, families, a group of women celebrating something that involves a lot of laughter and a bottle of wine. The atmosphere is warm, and comfortable. People are happy to be here.

I pull up my notes, scrolling through pages of observations, data points, and financial breakdowns. Before long, I let my eyes wander around the dining room. The couples leaning close over candlelight. The family with two kids, the mom cutting food into small pieces, and the dad making the toddler laugh. The group of women laughing over wine, their glasses catching the light. The exposed beams overhead. The way the last of the sunset catches the ocean through those massive windows.

It all leads back to the open kitchen.

Callum’s in his element. He’s calling out orders, his voice carrying over the noise of pans and timers. He’s plating dishes with the kind of perfection that comes from years of practice, his hands moving with absolute certainty. He moves through the space like he was born there and the kitchen is an extension of his body. His chef’s whites are pristine despite the chaos of service, his sleeves rolled up to his elbows, exposing those tattooed forearms. His hair is pushed back under that same worn gray baseball hat from Paris, turned backward, a few dark strands escaping to curl at his neck. The mustache I wasn’t sure about when I first saw him, but watching him now, confident and focused, I have to admit it works on him.

There’s an intensity to the way he moves. He’s economical and purposeful. No wasted motion. When he plates, his hands are steady and confident.

He’s beautiful when he cooks.

I look away quickly, back down at my notes, but I can still see him when I close my eyes. Callum’s hands. The concentration on his face. The way he tastes something and adjusts the seasoning without even thinking about it, his whole body attuned to the food and to the rhythm of cooking.

It’s the same way he cooked in Paris.

In a raw, honest way that made me fall a little bit in love with cooking in the first place. Watching someone do what they were meant to do.

I’d forgotten that. Or maybe I’d forced myself to forget.

In school, watching him work was one of my favorite things. He had this way of making everything look effortless, even when we were both dead on our feet. He’d crack jokes with the other students, tease me about my obsessive note-taking, and somehow still turn out perfect dishes every single time.

He made cooking look like love.

Now, he makes it look like survival.

I force myself to type something — anything — into my notes. My fingers feel clumsy on the screen.