I blink.
Then I call her back before I can talk myself out of it.
She picks up on the second ring. “Dawson.”
That voice hits like a welcome jolt of caffeine.
“Chef Vaughn,” I rasp.
“You sound like shit.”
“Appreciate that.”
“You still cooking?”
A pause. “I’m trying.”
“Well,” she says, “you might want to stop trying and start packing. I’m opening a place in Denver. High-end, seasonal, hyper local, all the pretentious farm-to-table buzzwords people eat up. But the food’s going to be real. Simple, honest. The kind that punches you in the gut and leaves you crying in your wine.”
Despite myself, I almost laugh. “Sounds like your style.”
“Damn right it is. I need someone who can run the lunch menu. Someone who doesn’t flinch under pressure. Someone who knows how to make food taste like a story, not a Pinterest post. You want to come and check the place out? See if it’s something you’d be interested in?”
I blink.
Stare at the wall like it might help me process what’s happening.
She’s offering me a job.
In Denver.
A real job.
The kind of opportunity I used to dream about before I moved to Silver Peak. Before I fell into Knox’s orbit. Before I started building this quiet, small town life that felt like it could maybe, someday, be enough.
But that dream?
It died last night.
And this... this is something else.
This is a door.
A way forward.
I press the phone tighter to my ear.
“Yes,” I whisper. Then louder. Stronger. “Yes, I want to see the place for sure.”
“Good. I’ll send you the deets.”
She hangs up before I can say thank you.
I sit there, phone clutched in my lap, the silence pressing in again.
But it’s different now.
The ache is still there, deep and heavy, but now I feel something else underneath it.
