I followed his eyes. He’d managed to work out, correctly, that the station with a band of magnetic green tape across the cooker hood was the place for the spatula. But he was right. The spatula there had a band of red tape around the handle.
I stalked over to it. “Who put this here?” I asked.
Drake shrugged as he glanced up, seeing the red spatula in my hand. “I did. When you asked me to wash up yesterday.”
I scowled. “You didn’t think the colored tape meant anything?”
He smiled lightly. “There’s a spatula at each station. What does it matter?”
I gritted my teeth. “This is our system,” I said. “Green goes with green and then we know where everything is.” I put the green spatula against the green tape on the hood, feeling the magnets in both click together and hold it in place. I walked around to the red station – Luca trailing behind me – and went to put the red spatula in place, only to find it was matched up with the blue tongs.
I took a deep breath and tried not to let it ruin my day – but part of me thought that Drake had probably done this on purpose just to rattle me.
And damn it, it was working.
“What’s the matter, Raf?” Drake asked as I passed behind him, glancing over his shoulder at my face, right after Grey had finally stepped away to woo his customers.
“The matter?” I huffed, wishing I could just ignore him but finding myself responding anyway, as I gathered a bunch of chopped ingredients and threw them into the waiting pan thatshould have been filled ten minutes ago. “Who says anything’s the matter?”
“You’re not having any fun,” he claimed, spinning his greens into the air again with a grin. “I haven’t seen you smile all day. Lighten up and have some fun!”
“I’m sorry that my face isn’t satisfactory to you,” I bit out, even pausing in my work to stare right into his eyes. “But while you’ve been having fun and showing off, I’ve been keeping this kitchen together. So, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to keep on being the Head Chef this team deserves.”
I regretted it the moment I said it, ducking my head back down to put the finishing touches on the plate in front of me.
The last thing I wanted to do was give him any tips on how to improve. Let him fail. I would get the job that was deservedly mine all the quicker.
Drake only laughed and moved on, turning to put a pair of plates on the counter and call for service, which made me seethe even more.
I pretended I was ignoring him as he left the kitchen area, taking the route that didn’t require him to pass behind anyone and announce his presence, disappearing in the direction of our storage. Pretended – but I hadn’t been able to ignore him all night. Every single move he made, every stupid comment and laugh he made to Grey, every dish he’d plated up – I’d been all too aware of all of them.
Which was why my eyebrow raised of its own accord when he came back out of the storage area empty-handed and returned to his station as though nothing had happened.
“Behind!” Ainslie called out, and I tensed, jerked out of my own thoughts and back to reality. There were meals to be made andcustomers waiting out there, and I had no time to ask him what he had been doing. Besides, if I asked, he would talk to me again. I didn’t want him talking to me.
“Chef?” Luca’s timid voice rang across the kitchen, his messy-haired head – even worse now with the steam and heat of the dishwashing station – poking out from his alcove. I sighed and went to him – because as much as I needed to answer the open tickets, I also would need clean dishes before the end of the night – and if he wasn’t on top of them, we would all be delayed even more.
By the time we finally stopped, I was dead on my feet – even more so than on a normal night.
I clapped Luca on the shoulder as we headed for the door. His frame was bony under my hand. “Good work today,” I told him. “I think you’re getting the hang of it. Before the week is out, you’ll be bored as hell and trying to come up with new ways to make it interesting for yourself.”
Luca blushed slightly and shook his head. “I doubt it,” he said. “It’s so busy here.”
I nodded. What else was there to say? He was right. I glanced around the empty kitchen before reaching to turn the lights out; we were the last to leave.
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” I told him, locking the door behind us. “You have a way to get home?”
He nodded towards the road. “Bus.”
“It’s still running at this time of night?”
He checked the time on his phone. “Yeah, the last one’s due soon.”
“Get over there quick, then,” I told him. I hesitated for a moment; if he missed it, he would need a ride. But then again, Iwasn’t his Dad or his brother or his best friend. And I really was dead on my feet.
I got into my car and drove almost on auto-pilot, thinking about tomorrow and hating Drake and worrying about whether Luca had caught the bus. I pulled up outside my own apartment without fully knowing how I’d got there, and turned off the engine with a sigh.
I leaned back for a moment, looking up at the quiet and dark building. Out here in the wider alley that served as our building parking lot, at least I could see the world carrying on around me. Cats jumping down to find rats amongst the garbage cans. The flicker of street lights as a bird, probably a gull, swooped by it. The gentle whoosh of the waves, still close enough from here that you could hear them even if you couldn’t see them.
