Well, IthoughtI had a had a line for whatever he could answer. Guess he just proved me wrong.
I shrugged it off and walked on. There was time to kill before the start of my trial day, and I wasn’t going to cry over a stranger who didn’t want to talk.
I had a feeling I was going to have plenty of opportunities to meet someone here, anyway.
The water met a pebble and stone beach with a rushing sound, each wave turning over countless rocks and rattling them against one another. Standing above it all on a high walkway that separated the beachfront stores from the tide mark, it was even kind of peaceful.
Much better than a sandy beach, anyway. The rattle and whoosh of the waves filled my head and pushed out any thoughts that threatened to shove in between each one. I could stand here and just be, instead of thinking too much.
It was almosttoogood – because I found myself checking the time, swearing, and rushing back the couple of streets to the parking lot and the restaurant at the back of it. I was almost late. As much as I had a bad boy image with my bike, tattoos, smoking habit, and the way I fucked around, the one thing I never fucked around with was work.
A tall, blond man stood behind the host stand in the front of the restaurant. He glanced up as I walked in, his eyes flicking over me with a slight frown. “We’re not open yet,” he said. His voice held a faint accent – Russian or Slavic, maybe.
“I’m Drake Warwick,” I said. I didn’t have to elaborate. His eyes widened in understanding.
“The new chef,” he nodded. “Okay, right. You can go ahead through the door to the left. Grey’s in there, expecting you.” He gestured towards the back of the room, which was marked with a swinging door on the far left and a more traditional door on thefar right. It didn’t take a genius to know: kitchen and back office, respectively.
“Thanks,” I nodded. The waiter hadn’t offered me his name, but I figured I was about to be bombarded with so many names I wasn’t going to remember most of them, anyway.
I headed back towards the door, taking the restaurant in one more time as I went. Last time I’d been here, it had been when the whole place was shut and the staff hadn’t come in yet. Nothing had changed, but it was a chance to reassess my decision to come here and make sure it was still the right one.
The décor was heavily black-themed, leaning into the name of the place – The Crow – and the walls were even patterned with a dark graphic wallpaper featuring a repeated crow motif. A lot of the fixtures and fittings had a vintage look as if we’d been transported into the world of Edgar Allan Poe’s Raven – the wrong bird, but close enough.
With all of that darkness, you might not realize this was a gay-owned and gay-run establishment. But Grey Monaghan, the owner, had clearly thought of that: on every available spot on the wall, neon signs with irreverent messages blazed out pink, yellow, green, and blue over the tables. The lights reflected from the shiny, polished surfaces of the dark wood, bringing the entire place to life.
The only concern I had so far was what the food was going to look like under all that multicolored glow, but I could figure that out once we started service.
I didn’t hesitate as I reached for the door and swung it open. This was no time to be shy. I had to make a good impression the first time if I wanted the kitchen staff to respect me.
Which they would – because I was going to be their new Head Chef.
I kept my head up and swept my gaze around the room calmly the second I stepped inside. The place was a chrome haven, all of the equipment professional-grade and sparkling clean. Unlike on my last visit, this time it was so fully populated that it almost felt cramped: two line chefs stood near prep counters, Grey Monaghan had his arms folded as he watched them, a young man wearing the same black and white uniform as the waiter out front leaned near the door, and a fifth man in chef’s whites was busily rearranging items at one of the stations. Behind me, I heard the footsteps of the waiter from front of house following me into the kitchen.
“Ah!” Grey exclaimed, turning to see me enter. Every face snapped towards mine, except for the chef in whites with his back to me. “Chef Warwick - you’re here! Let me introduce you to everyone.”
I pasted a friendly yet somewhat wry smile on my face, calculated to try to get as many of them on my side as possible through empathy over the awkwardness of first introductions, as Grey rattled through a list of names. The blond waiter I’d met at the front was Nikolai, and the other one was Kit. The two line chefs were Ainslie and Beau – though Beau looked like he belonged in his mother’s basement more than he did in my kitchen. I’d have to see whether he lived up to the role.
“And this,” Grey said, turning to gesture behind him. “Is Rafael, our current Sous Chef.”
I met Rafael’s eyes and a knowing smile curved my mouth. “Rafael,” I repeated. My fellow chef was stiff as a board, his shoulders practically up around his ears and his face frozen in an expression of horror and mistrust. He knew as well as I did that, not half an hour before, he’d blown off my attempt to hit on him in the parking lot. I held out a hand toward him. “Nice to meet you.”
I watched him swallow hard and push whatever he was thinking and feeling down. He reached out for my hand and shook it. The callouses on his palms and the rough skin from years of cuts and burns grazed against mine, producing a sensation that thrilled through me. At least he felt like a real chef.
“I’m acting Head Chef,” he said, correcting Grey with a sideways glance that suggested he wasn’t afraid to go head-to-head with his boss now and then. Maybe that was why I was being brought in for this trial. If the acting Head Chef had an attitude problem, he wasn’t going to be the Head Chef for very long.
“ActingJointHead Chef,” Grey corrected him back smoothly. “Along with Warwick, here.”
“Drake, please,” I said with a disarming smile. My eyes swept over the group again before lingering on Rafael.
It was a shame he was my rival for this job. He was definitely the hottest out of all of them. Kit had a certain boyish appeal, but I wasn’t into the young look. Grey was a fox, but I wasn’t into dating men older than me, either.
Rafael, though?
Rafael was just right.
But that didn’t mean I was going to go easy on him.
This job was mine, and pretty-boy Rafael was going down.
