Page 55 of Neap & Spring

Ishouldn’t be in the kitchen.

That’s what I tell myself as I push through the swinging door, a heavy gray bus tub full of dirty plates and glasses balanced against my hip. I should stay at my table, in my corner, doing my job like the professional consultant I’m supposed to be.

But Frannie looked overwhelmed when the lunch rush hit. She had a frantic look in her eyes as she tried to bus tables and seat customers at the same time. And Lou, the dishwasher, called in sick this morning, which Danny mentioned when I asked why he looked like he was about to cry. I watched him sprint from his prep station to the dish pit and back again, stopping every few minutes to jump on the line whenever Callum needed an extra hand, trying to do three jobs at once, and I just —

I couldn’t sit there anymore.

So here I am. In Callum’s kitchen.

Again.

This time doing dishes.

The kitchen is in that pre-dinner-service chaos I remember. It’s controlled but just barely, like a pot just about to boil over. The air smells like garlic and butter and some herb I can’t quite place. Roman is at the main cooking station, a metal bowl in front of him. He’s tasting something from a spoon with the kind of concentration usually reserved for defusing bombs. Cora is in her corner of the kitchen, piping what looks like chocolate onto perfectly round tart shells. Danny is finally back at his station, a cutting board in front of him piled high with vegetables, his knife moving in quick strikes.

And Callum is standing at the window that separates the kitchen from the dining room, where finished plates get sent out to customers. He’s going over the new specials, a small notebook in one hand and a pen in the other. His chef’s whites are pristine, not a stain on them yet, and he’s wearing that backward gray baseball hat to keep his hair out of his face.

He looks up when the door swings shut behind me with a soft whoosh.

“What are you doing?”

He doesn’t sound angry this time. More curious, if anything.

“Helping.” I set the bus tub down on the stainless-steel counter next to the industrial dishwasher. It’s a massive machine that looks like it could eat me whole. “Danny was trying to do three jobs at once, and I have hands.”

“You don’t have to do that.”

“I know I don’t have to.” I start pulling mugs out of the tub, lining them up next to the sink. “But I’m going to anyway.”

He watches me for a second. I can feel his eyes on me with that same assessing look he used to give dishes in school, trying to decide if they met his standards. Then he goes back to his notes, pen moving across the page.

It’s been different this past week.

Better, almost.

Callum’s been lighter, somehow. Less of that cold anger that made the first few weeks feel like walking through a minefield and more of the person I remember. The one who’d crack stupid jokes in the middle of a brutal shift and steal bites of my prep ingredients when he thought I wasn’t looking.

Who could make hours in hell feel almost bearable.

He apologized.

Three days ago. It was early morning, before anyone else arrived. I’d been at my table with my laptop, trying to make sense of the reservation patterns from the past month when I heard footsteps.

I looked up to see Callum walking out of the kitchen with two cups of coffee.

My heart had done this stupid jump thing in my chest at the sight of him.

He set one of the cups in front of me, and I could tell from the color it was made exactly right. Then he sat down across from me.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

Just like that. No preamble or stepping around the situation. Just straight into it.

“For how I acted that night in the kitchen. After I told you about Sarah.” He was looking at his coffee, both hands wrapped around the mug like he needed something to hold onto. “It wasn’t fair to tell you everything and then demand you do the same. That’s not — that’s not how trust works.”

My throat went tight. I wrapped my own hands around the coffee mug, felt the warmth of it seeping into my palms.

“You’ll tell me when you’re ready,” he continued, his voice quiet. “If you think I need to know. And if you don’t, that’s — that’s your right. It’s not my place to demand it.”