The man from the Hollow. The one who’d watched me dance like I was the only thing in the room. The one who’d nearly kissed me before vanishing into the night.
He didn’t so much as blink as his eyes swept the room like I wasn’t even there. No heat. No flicker of recognition. Just professional detachment and a black book tucked under his arm.
“Stations will be assigned shortly,” he said. “Please pay attention…”
His voice faded away as Thalia leaned in, eyebrows up. “Okay. That was your poker face, but your eyes just screamed‘that’s the guy who almost fucked me’.”
I didn’t answer.
“Holy shit,” she whispered. “I’m right, aren’t I?”
“Not really. Nothing happened, we just…talked,” I muttered, voice low and disgruntled. “I didn’t know who he was.”
“And now he’s pretending likeyoudon’t exist? Damn. That’s ice fucking cold.”
I clenched my jaw so hard I thought it might crack, and turned my attention back to the front of the room.
“Thank you, Theo,” Timothy said with a saccharine sweetness that didn’t match his face. “It’s an honor to have you as part of the team.”
Theo. I rolled his name around inside my head, certain it was short for something pretentious like Theodore, but I liked the way it sounded in my head. I can’t believe I didn’t get his name last night. If I’m being honest with myself, I never thought I’d see him again, and now that I had, I didn’t know what to make of it.
Timothy droned on about responsibility, impression, and every ridiculous thing that would be expected of us. His voice was as monotonous and bland as his face. At one point, Thaliastarted snoring on my shoulder, which earned her a round of stifled laughter from the other new staff members. If Timothy had been a cartoon character, steam would have been pouring from his ears.
Theo slipped from the room while the Timothy show was in full production, no one else seemed to notice, but I felt his absence. The shift in the air. The ability of my lungs to fill with oxygen while still feeling starved.
Once the lunchrush had died down and the clinking of cutlery gave way to the drone of industrial fans, I was stuck in the back kitchen, elbow-deep in dish racks and bone china. Because God forbid the ultra-rich eat off anything less than the powdered bones of old money.
Each plate had its designated place—teacups aligned to the left, dinner plates stacked by size, not a single blemish allowed on their glossy little egos. I was three seconds away from smashing one just to feelsomething.
Every part of this place made my skin itch.
The stiff uniform. The expectations. The hierarchy disguised as hospitality. Fucking Timothy constantly breathing down my neck.
I’d been told not to slouch. Not to swear. Not to flirt. Like that last one wasn’t practically breathing for me. I’d been told to smile more, but only the “right” amount. No teeth. Don’t scare the club members and their friends.
My eyes wandered toward the wall clock and fuck it was only two p.m. Still ninety agonizing minutes left in this polyesterpurgatory. No phone. No music. Just the clink of plates and the slow, grinding death of my soul.
I needed a nap. A drink. And a good, filthy fuck that made me forget what my own name was. My right hand was on strike from overuse. My dick chafed every step I took. I slammed the washer shut, a little too hard, and turned—andhewas there.
Theo.
He was a goddamn ghost in the machine. He was leaning against the wall, flipping through the pages of his black book like he wasn’t the human embodiment of every impulse I’d been trying to suppress.
His sleeves were rolled up, revealing thick, veined forearms—of course they were—and he was frowning with the intensity of someone grading a moral philosophy paper.
The air thinned. My pulse didn’t just spike—it flipped the bird and ran off a cliff. “So that’s how it’s gonna be?” I said, voice low. A cut waiting to bleed.
Theo didn’t flinch. “You’re on dish duty today. Not front of house, you should be working, not talking.”
“Don’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“Pretend like you didn’t watch me last night like you wanted to press me up against the wall and ruin me.”
His pen paused mid-tick. Eyes lifted. I saw the flicker of undeniable heat there in those green depths. Gone in a breath. But I saw it.
“You’re mistaken,” he said, flat as glass.
