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The changes Hannah was making, the future of this kitchen, were going to be an incredible project for whatever chef they brought on when his mom retired, and for the first time in his life, instead of wanting to run screaming from it, he was envious that he wouldn’t be involved. Someone else was going to have this time with his Hannah but would never be able to click with her the way Levi did. He didn’t know what to do with that. He couldn’t stay working here, but he could never leave Hannah. And none of that took into account what Hannah wanted, personally or professionally.
Hannah eventually left for her own bed, and he found he was too full of thoughts to stay inside.
The walls of the old inn closed around him until he couldn’t see to the other side of his brain and he needed air. It was partly his own panic and some of it probably the wallpaper that might be slightly molding. Parrots. Honestly. Picking up a cup of coffee and wrapping far too much scarf around his neck, he started off into the Hundred Acre Wood of his childhood, prepared to be charmed by its beauty or, at least, distracted by nostalgia. He didn’t realize, until she found him under the trees, that he was hoping for Miriam’s company.
“What are you doing out here, Miri-belle?” he asked, bumping his shoulder against hers. “Do you never sleep, either?”
She smiled at the long-forgotten nickname. “Getting some quiet in the trees. Letting my soul stretch out. Hoping to watch the sun rise. You, Bluebird?”
“The same, I think,” he said, a peace settling over him as she rested her hand in the crook of his arm. They walked silently next to each other, existing in spring in the mountains.
“Are you used to it yet?” he finally asked. “Being here?”
They had both left, in some way, to save themselves, and she was the only person who could understand what the leaving had cost.
“Not really? While I was gone, I dreamed about being here, but I never thought I would be again, so I kind of constructed a fantasy version of Carrigan’s in my head. Carrigan’s, through a filter. It helped it hurt less, to look at it sideways in my memory. But now I’m here, and it’s like I’ve laid my childhood version, and my pretend version, in layers over the actual Carrigan’s.” Miriam shook her head, laughing. “I don’t know what I’m saying. But it helps if I envision it as A New Adventure.”
“Might be easier with a new love than an old one,” he pointed out.
“Might be easier in a place I visited on school holidays, not the home I grew up in,” she agreed.
He looked out over the mountains, thoughtful. “The weirdest part is trying to figure out who I am here. The person I used to be at Carrigan’s is gone, and he wouldn’t be welcome even if he still existed. I can’t be the person I was out in the world, because that person didn’t have any past.”
“Why the intense self-reflection? Other than you being you.” Miriam leaned on him. He kissed her on the head, thinking about how to explain.
“I got an email today from my agent. He’s in talks with Food Network about market testing my brand, or something.”
Miriam smirked but listened.
“Miri, the actual fucking words ‘culinary bad boy’ were used.” He grimaced.
Now Miriam laughed at him. “Oh, come on, Blue. Hipster hair and beard? Leggings and giant scarves? Brash, opinionated beautiful boy with an overinflated idea of his own talent and a chip on his shoulder about being working class? You’re a literalTop Chefvillain.”
He scoffed. “First of all, my idea of my own talent is not overinflated. But more importantly, I’m horrified by that guy. I want to throw that guy off a cliff. I’m not a Type. I didn’t go to work for some”—he waved his arm around, looking for the right words—“French guy! I worked in street food stands. I don’t think kitchens work better when we give our staff PTSD, and I’ve never done coke, even once. I’m a fully realized creation, my own human. I don’t have…you know, tattoos of bacon!”
Miriam threw back her head and cackled, her giant mane of dark curls blowing in the wind. “I mean, your mother would explode if you either got a tattoo or ate bacon, so no. I’m sorry you’re having an identity crisis, but, like, where’s the fire?” She turned to him, her tone gentle. “Maybe you’re becoming a real adult and having to decide who you want to be. Possibly getting a Food Network show isn’t an emergency situation. What are you actually scared of?”
He scrunched his shoulders up to his ears and hid his face in his scarves. Why did she see him? It was awful to have lifelong friends.
“I gambled everything on this idea that I could find myself out there, that there was a myself to find and I couldn’t find him here, and that whoever I found would be worth the sacrifice.” He stopped and turned to her. “I invented this entire new me out of whole cloth, and I don’t know if he’s good enough. But he has to be, because I lost everything to find him.”
“Good enough for what, Blue? For who?” Miriam asked, capturing his hands.
“All of Carrigan’s thinks I’m bad for Hannah, that we’re bad for each other,” he reminded her.
“But no one thought thatbeforeyou left, LB. And if you left to make yourself good enough…where did that come from? Who made you believe that?”
“Have you met me? Have you met Hannah? She’s a fairy-tale princess if the princess could lead an army into battle on a whim,” he said, and it wasn’t a lie. That was true, too. “No one’s good enough for her.”
“That’s not an answer,” Miriam told him, but she kept walking with him in silence.
No matter how much he didn’t want to answer her question, he had to. Mostly because otherwise, she’d hear it from Hannah or Noelle, and she deserved to hear it from him.
“There’s something I have to tell you. About Cass. And I don’t want to,” he said finally, picking up a stick and tossing it as far as he could.
She listened to him as they walked, her arms wrapped around herself, and when he was done talking, she sat down on the ground in a pile of pine needles, her knees against her chest, her face buried under her hair. Levi knew this was a massive blow for her. Her parents had been horrific, although her mother was coming around, and Cass had been the only family Miriam was close to. Cass had seen her talent, had supported her art career. Cass had given her a whole new life.
“You okay under there?” he asked, lifting the curtain of Miriam’s curls and peeking underneath.
