Eric commanded the center of the storm at the pass, feet planted shoulder-width apart, a black bandanna knotted around his head like a pirate’s. My fingertips tingled, itching to push beneath the texture of his hair, to find the strong shape of his skull.
I expelled my breath.Hoo, boy.
“Rib eye up,” Lucas yelled from the meat side, his voice fraying.
I jerked forward, pot in hand. My elbow knocked a half-full hotel pan from the flat-top, spilling buttery browned circles of potato fondant all over the floor.
Crap. Crappity crap.
Ray, on fish, swore. “Get it together, March. What’s got into you today?”
Your boss,I thought inappropriately. My boss. Eric.
All through service, I’d been acutely conscious of him, touching, tasting, plating, his strong hands coaxing and sure, teasing exactly the response he wanted from every gleaming entrée, every delicately placed garnish. The soft, secreted nerve endings inside me twitched to insistent life.
“Sorry,” I mumbled.
I willed myself not to glance toward Eric. It wasn’t his job to rescue me.
But of course he heard. He heard everything that went on in his kitchen.
“Veg on the fly,” he said. “How long?”
Handling me—his clumsy prep cook, his onetime hookup—like one more spinning plate in his juggling act at the pass.
My face burned as I calculated my time. The goal was to get all the ingredients to the pass at the same time so that Eric could plate. A second pan of potatoes, already seared and seasoned, waited for the kiss of butter and thyme that would bring them back to life. “Three minutes, Chef.” Impossible in this environment even to imagine calling him anything else.
“Push back the rib eye,” he instructed Lucas. “Three minutes, yeah?”
“Yes, Chef.”
Eric plucked a ticket from the rattling printer. “Ordering,” he called, focusing all eyes back on him. “Table twelve, two charcuterie. Followed by one pappardelle, two sea bass, one rib eye, medium rare.”
A chorus of assent echoed back.Yes, Chef. Oui, Chef.
I threw down pans for vegetables and heated up sauce. Beneath my cheap chef’s jacket, I was sweltering. Sweating. I’d be playing catch-up all night now. Did I have enough? Should I have prepped more potatoes? Two minutes and fifty seconds later, I grabbed my pots and headed for the pass.
Eric accepted my offerings without a word. Deftly, he composed the dish, scattering gold coins of potatoes around the plate, dotting orbs of flavor in a seemingly random arrangement. Instagram stuff. #foodporn.
He paused. Considered.
I held my breath. Not that I needed his approval. He wasn’t my father.
But he was my boss. He’d taken a chance on me tonight, putting me on entremets when Frank called out sick. Cooking was a job for me, not a career. But I wanted to impress him, wanted to believe my best was good enough. So, yeah, okay, alittleapproval would be nice.
He glanced up. His eyes crinkled, just barely, before he touched my shoulder. The fleeting gesture seared through my chef’s jacket all the way down to my toes. Amazingly, I did not dissolve into a puddle of lust and relief on the floor.
“Service!” he called, and turned back to the board.
Good. Fine. No special treatment, no favoritism, no gossip.
I retreated to my station, my cheeks still burning with residual heat.
Five hours later, the last tickets—desserts and salads, late-night stuff—had been cleared from the rack. Eric called the last order and disappeared into his office, leaving Ray in charge of the pass. The crowd out front had dwindled to a couple of college girls on barstools flirting with the manager and a four-top of campers who wouldn’t leave until we turned out the lights. I hauled my pans to the dishwashing station. Isaam and Tomas were moving mountains of pots and plates, the spray from their hoses raising clouds of steam. My back ached. My feet hurt as if I’d just completed a marathon. I was dehydrated, depleted, my blood buzzing with a potent cocktail of adrenaline and endorphins like a runner’s high.
Ray shut off the heat lamps. “Right. Start breaking down.”
My station looked like a battlefield, debris everywhere, shriveledcorpses of potatoes scattered on the rubber mat by my feet. I attacked the mess, labeling and stowing the mise en place away. Scrubbed the tabletop, polishing the stainless until it shone. Knotted my trash chute bag and carried it out back.
