I gritted my teeth and tried one more twist.
Agonizing pain shot through my wrist and hand, traveling up my arm and sending a wave of nausea through me. I closed my eyes and gripped the side of the counter with my other hand so hard my knuckles went white, trying to hold in a scream of pain.
I opened my eyes and caught Rafael looking at me with a curious frown, but he looked away again swiftly when he knew I’d seen.
Fuck him.
Fuck all of them here.
If they wanted to shut me out, fine. They were going to have to cope without me.
I stalked outside, grabbing my coat from the hall as I went. My phone was in my pocket. I sat on the stoop outside the door, making sure it was fully closed behind me and none of them could hear, and dialed my doctor.
I asked for an emergency appointment with the wind buffeting me. The air was cold and somehow charged; it felt like a storm was coming in. Appropriate, I thought. Luck was on my side, though – they had an opening for later today.
It was right at the start of service, but fuck it. They could cope without me if I was that much of a burden to keep around.
I opened the door up, knowing I was going to have to at least tellsomeoneif I was leaving for the day. I had no intention of telling Rafael, though. He could find out by his own smug self. Besides, as much as he clearly didn’t want to talk to me, I also didn’t want to talk to him.
He clearly brought out something very strongly in me, and I had no desire to hurt my hand further.
I also very much did fucking not want to create a situation where I might find myself leaning towards him again, only for him to push me away – as I had no doubt he would want to.
I skulked through the kitchen without meeting anyone’s eyes. Thankfully, Luca was already washing up earnestly and getting through the pile, Beau wasn’t in the kitchen – probably because he was gathering ingredients for family dinner – and Ainslie and Rafael were deep in conversation about some element of the menu for tonight. I walked past them all and into the restaurant without anyone acknowledging me.
Nikolai looked up from his task of laying out silverware for tonight with some surprise when I emerged out of the kitchen, but Kit had his back to me – and I ignored them both as I knocked on Grey’s door, wincing when I did it with the hand I was trying to rest.
Grey didn’t call out to tell me to enter, but I tried the door anyway. After all, maybe he was trying to hide away until the whole thing with Luca died down so that he didn’t ever have toadmit to anyone that he’d made a mistake – or have them point it out by saying he’d finally done the right thing.
The door opened, which meant he was in, because it was locked otherwise. I stepped in and looked up –
And cleared my throat, because apparently Beau wasnotgetting the ingredients for family dinner after all.
Grey made an impatient grunt and pulled his arm down from the wall where it had been leaning above Beau’s head, turning to look at me. “What?” he ground out like he wanted to fire me just for the interruption.
Beau’s cheeks were flushed as he leaned against the wall, and he was looking down at Grey’s midsection rather than up at me.
I narrowed my eyes.
No, fuck it; this was nothing to do with me. Beau didn’t even want to talk to me this morning. He was a big boy. He could do what he wanted.
“I’m going home,” I said. “I have an emergency doctor’s appointment.”
Grey nodded and jerked his chin towards the door. “Fine,” he said. “Let me know about tomorrow’s shift before the end of the night.”
That was it?
I left the office and let the heavy door slam itself shut behind me, making my way to the front of the restaurant with a scowl. I nodded a quick goodbye to Nikolai and Kit when they looked at me, but didn’t offer them an explanation for where I was going. They both looked away fast, anyway. I would have bet my left leg that Rafael had told them not to talk to me, either.
Let them see how well shunning me would work when I wasn’t even there to notice them doing it.
I stepped outside and into the parking lot, and then let curses rain from my tongue towards the sky as I remembered I had to ride the fucking bus.
Rafael
“Where the hell is Drake?” I muttered under my breath, glancing around the busy, steam-filled kitchen and seeing not a single sign of my so-called rival. If he was hiding out in the storage unit or the walk-in taking pills again, then he was gifting me the job. Not that I was going to stop him.
“Uh, Chef?” Beau said. His cheeks were flushed, but perhaps that was because he was standing over a pot of boiling water. “Didn’t Grey tell you?”
