“How do you feel?” Beau asked me with an almost shy smile.
I glanced at him and took in his expression. Did he know something I didn’t? Had Grey given him an exclusive preview of what the results were going to be?
I was probably overthinking it. Beau was just shy sometimes.
“I feel normal,” I said pointedly. “Because it’s a totally normal day.”
“Well, it isn’t,” Ainslie said. “Is it? It’s the day Grey decides who gets the job.”
“So, ask me how I’m feeling tomorrow, not today,” I said.
Even as I said it, though, I knew it was just a bluff. Underneath it all, I was far from calm and composed. I was on the verge of sheer panic.
I didn’t have access to the numbers, but I’d noticed Drake plating up more of his stupid little vegetable patterns than I did of my lobster risottos. The only thing that remained to be seen was whether Grey was actually going to stick to the rules of the contest we had agreed upon, or whether he was going to screw the numbers and pretend that I’d won to keep me.
For the first time in my life, I was actuallyhopingfor Grey to be the untrustworthy asshole I had known him to be for all these years.
He couldn’t really fire me, or take my job away and expect me to stay under a demotion, to bring in this jumped-up new chef, could he? After all the years of service I’d dedicated to this place?
Could he?
I kept my eyes on my work, trying to focus. It was a normal day at work. A normal day in which Drake wouldn’t speak to me or even meet my eyes, even though he’d spent the whole time since we stopped talking to him trying to goad me into slipping up. A normal day, I reminded myself. Beau would go and hang out with his new boyfriend, my boss, in his office after the service was finished, like he had started doing this month. And the chef who didn’t belong in my kitchen was probably about to take it over and completely mess up my carefully curated system. Yep. Just a normal day.
I sighed and put down my slotted spoon for a second, looking at the mess I’d made of the plate I was putting together. No one in their right mind would accept this as a beautifully-made meal in a high-end restaurant. It was only fit for the garbage. I scraped everything off the plate, moved behind Ainslie to give the dirty plate to Luca, and went back to my station.
“I can do plating today, if you’re not feeling it,” Drake said.
I looked at him sharply. What was he doing? Trying to put me off? But there was no malice or even that teasing twinkle that his eyes held when he was flirting. Just concern.
“I’m fine,” I insisted, louder than I had meant to. I glanced around the room in general, gesturing with the spoon. “I don’t know why everyone keeps thinking that I’m not fine!”
“Really?” Drake asked with a completely straight face. “You don’t?”
I scowled at him, grabbed the pan, and set to work on plating up a new version of the dish I’d butchered.
The closer we got to the end of service, the more my hands started to shake. There was a desperate tightness in my chest that kept getting worse and worse. Everything in the kitchen seemed to be a trigger of sorts. I caught myself looking at certain pieces of equipment or tools or even the storage shelves, wondering if this was going to be the last time I ever got the chance to work with them.
There were other restaurants in Crowhill Cove.
I would be able to find work somewhere else.
But…
It wouldn’t be here.
And I’d dedicated so much of my life and time, spent so long building relationships with all of these people… to see it disappear now…
I swallowed hard and managed to get the lump in my throat back down into my chest before it made me cry.
We were nearing the end of the day, finishing off the last couple of orders, when I started to really panic.
“Well, looks like we’re down to the last ten or so tables,” I said. “Ainslie, you could probably clock off if you wanted to.”
Drake was giving me a strange look across the kitchen, but I ignored it. We both knew – we all knew – that Grey wanted to make his announcement tonight. I was just thinking I would rather there were fewer of my friends there to see it.
Ainslie snorted. “Are you kidding? Of course, we’re going to stick around to find out who’s going to be leading the kitchen tomorrow.”
“Or you could just turn up for your shift and find out,” I muttered under my breath, but thankfully, no one seemed to hear me.
