"Chef?"
The voice is distant. Underwater. I can't place it.
My heart is a drumroll. My lungs won't expand. The oxygen refuses to cross the threshold of my teeth.
I fist my hands. My fingernails dig into the soft flesh of my palms, but the pain doesn't register.
Nothing registers, except the noise. That echoing, catastrophic bang that my brain has cataloged as threat—incoming, get down, move. Move.
"James."
Closer now. I feel a hand on my forearm. Light, testing.
I flinch.
"James, look at me."
I can't. My gaze is locked on the floor, on the dropped pan, on the chaos of the kitchen that suddenly feels like a battlefield I can't navigate.
"Chef, I've got the pass." Harper's voice. Steady. Low. Not a question. A statement of fact.
She steps into my line of sight. Not crowding me. Just…there. Her features are calm, her eyes tracking mine with the kind of focus I usually reserve for plating.
"You're at The Edge. In London. You own this restaurant. You’re a three-Michelin-star chef," she says quietly, her tone stripped of urgency. "It’s Friday night. Service is running. Everyone's fine. You’re fine."
I hear the words. I don't believe them.
My breath comes in shallow, jagged bursts. My pulse is a freight train. The kitchen sounds: the sizzle, the shouts, the ticket machine. It’s a cacophony I can't filter.
"James." Her hand moves to my wrist, her fingers wrapping around the pulse point.
I flinch, but enough of my consciousness has filtered in that I don’t shake it off either.
She gently squeezes. "You're safe. But we're going to move. Okay?"
I manage a nod.
She doesn't wait for more. She shifts her body, creating a barrier between me and the rest of the kitchen, shielding me from their view. I’m half aware of the rest of the kitchen watching us. Of the silence which has fallen over the space.
They shouldn’t see me this weak. They shouldn’t realize how vulnerable I truly am. How much of a front I put on. How inside, I’m not in control.
Her other hand goes to my elbow, guiding me away from the pass with the kind of quiet authority I didn't know she possessed.
"Mark, you're on expo," she calls over her shoulder, her voice switching effortlessly to command mode. "Keep the line tight. Fire table twelve in two."
Even though my mind is buzzing with static, and my entire body feels heavy, like I’m weighted down with anchors, I have enough presence of mind to appreciate that she chose Mark to take on the role of being the equivalent of the air traffic controller in the absence of both of us.
He’s calm and able to think on his feet.
He’d have been my choice too.
"Yes, Chef!" Mark calls out.
She walks me toward the cold storage. The one place in the kitchen designed for silence. It strikes me; this is the same place she retreated toafter that viral video that started this saga of us becoming husband and wife, at least, temporarily.
The door opens with a heavy thunk, and the temperature drops thirty degrees in an instant. The noise of the kitchen muffles, then disappears entirely as she pulls the door shut behind us.
The cold hits my skin like a slap. The shock of it is sharp, immediate. It cuts through my befuddled state and brings me back into my body.
