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He wasn’t my type. At all. Not that it mattered because Chef Ben was not to be messed with. We knew these things. Oliver had been full of useful information, giving me the lowdown on every single staff member, from the Filipinas who ran our housekeeping department to the Albanians who controlled the loading dock and the mix of nationalities who manned our front of house.
Oliver also had a firm grip on everyone’s preferences, or so he thought because…well, let’s just say I had still to prove him wrong in his observations and knowledge of our esteemed staff.
And now Benjamin Desjardins was just standing there. Arms crossed.
“You need to eat or what?” he barked.
The kitchen was still busy, and the noise coming through the open doorway was hurting my head.
“No, thanks, I’m good. Just taking my break.” I tried to smile. Tapped my phone to wake the screen up. Pretended I was busy.
“Mate, you need to eat. You’ve been here since three and not left that desk. We’ve got, like, seven specials and a whole menu. Choose something.”
Impatient, much? I didn’t want anything. No food. Not for me.
“I’m all right, promise. I’ll eat when I get home.”
I wouldn’t, but that was for me to know and him not to. I had a protein bar in my jacket pocket. Half for later, half for breakfast tomorrow morning. They were rank but fulfilled my nutritional allowance.
Finally, he sighed loudly and turned and left. I put the phone back down on the table and unscrewed the cap of my water bottle. Took a small sip. And another. One sip at a time. Lid back on.
But apparently, Benjamin Desjardins was a bloody stubborn dick because here he was, back in my space. He put a plate down in front of me and held out a fork.
“Eat,” he said. He might as well have been speaking Korean, the way I stared at him.
“E-excuse me?”
“Cheesecake. This is my new creation. Triple chocolate . Try it. If it’s rank, let me know.”
Then he turned on his heel and stormed out, letting the door slam shut behind him.
“Cheesecake?” I said out loud in total disbelief. I’d kind of liked cheesecake in a former life. Maybe I still did. I hadn’t tried one in years and didn’t plan on trying one now.
Yet I was still sitting here with a fork in my hand and the cheesecake on a plate in front of me. A delicate drizzle of something orange dressed the white porcelain, a kumquat fruit placed perfectly next to the precisely cut cake.
The cake that seemed to magically grow on the plate.
I carefully pushed it away as my phone lit up with another message.
I didn’t want to know.
And another. Which meant Lewis was angry again, and whatever he was angry about was all my fault. He’d no doubt seen the broken tile. Or realised that I’d taken the wedding invite. Or that my bracelet was gone from his bedside table. My bracelet. His bedside table. Go figure.
I could text him back and apologise, but sometimes that made him even angrier than when I ignored him.
I wanted to ignore him. The voices in my head screamed for me to ignore him—almost as loudly as the voices telling me to put the cheesecake in the bin. I wanted to ignore them too, as my breath was making weird noises in my chest.
I didn’t want this. I’d never asked for this. I just wanted peace. Quiet. Solitude in darkness.
But whatever I had done wrong today wasn’t done haunting me, as Benjamin Desjardins once again burst through the door with a plate in one hand, a fork in the other.
And if my life wasn’t already imploding, he plonked himself down on the chair opposite and stared at me.
Ben
My mum had always teased me about my friends. Even at school, I had hung out with the smaller kids, dragged new boys home for playdates.
“You are such a kind boy.” She’d laugh, kissing my forehead. “But it’s not your job to save other children.”
