“Four tops or twos,” he asked, stacking chilled plates.
His voice rasped at the end.He swallowed it down and kept moving as if it made no difference.
Kyla ran the knife through one more pass, then set it flat on the board.“Twos near the window.Couples where they can admire themselves.Simone’s crew gets the worst light.”
A brief smirk touched her mouth.Private.Gone almost before it arrived.She looked at him then, and for one small opening, the stress in her face made room for pleasure.
The walk-in door opened behind them and the sous-chef hurried through with a tray of herbs, breathless and apologetic and easy to forget the second he passed.Titus wiped his brow with the back of his wrist and kept his hands busy.
Plates.Towels.Salt bowl.Anything that kept him from fidgeting with the crate.Warm air from the stove fan ran over his face.Kyla stayed near the edge of his thoughts whether he wanted her there or not.
She worked around him in close passes that never quite touched.She opened the oven, slid plates onto the rack, crossed behind him, and each time the distance narrowed by a fraction.
In any other life, he might have put a hand to the small of her back and let it stay there.In this one, he braced both palms on the counter and tried to be useful without asking for more than she meant to give.
Then she started calling to the crew.Her voice stayed low and sharp, every order stripped to what mattered.He found himself breathing to her timing.She crossed to a rookie’s plate, lifted a garnish with her fingers, shifted it left, and moved on without apology.
She barely saw anyone but him in the brief seconds when the line eased and her shoulders dropped, but Titus had enough sense to know shared strain could look like many things from the wrong angle.
The evening tightened around them.Glasses rang in the dining room as new guests came through the door.Titus straightened, rolled one shoulder, and turned back to the pass before anyone caught the uncertainty working under his skin.
If she needed brawn or backup, she would tell him.Until then, he would move trays, stack plates, and wait for the smallest sign that he belonged here for more than muscle.
By seven, every chair in the dining room was full.Plates came back scored with knives and half-finished bites.Titus moved between kitchen and floor with sweat working under his shirt and steam sticking to his skin.The room outside carried a city kind of noise that sat wrong on Montana air.A car with Denver plates eased up near the curb.Somebody in heels laughed into her phone beside the side door, lips painted the same red Kyla wore when she wanted the world to know she had come armed.
He crossed the dining room with a tray balanced one-handed, ducking coat sleeves and elbows and phones lifted to record first bites.Gold rings caught the candlelight.Guests aimed cameras at their plates as if proof mattered more than taste.Titus kept his jaw set and his eyes low.Nobody looked twice at him.Kyla was the draw.He was traffic.
Back in the kitchen, sweat gathered between his shoulder blades and stayed there.Kyla ran the pass like the whole place answered to her pulse.
“Mid on six now.James, scallops.Titus, ice for the bar on the right.”
She pivoted, corrected a garnish with two fingers, then looked at him when he took half a second too long, and the look made clear she had no mercy left for anyone lagging behind.
He went for the ice bin, knuckles aching against the lid.More guests crowded the dining room.Suits.Sharp shoes.Watches that cost more than a feed run.By the time he came back from the walk-in, the room had shifted again.New voices.A ripple that moved through the front of house with no one willing to name it.
Then he saw why.
Simone came through the dining room with her dark hair pulled sleek and her suit sharp enough to make everyone else look rumpled.She did not hurry.She did not need to.Heads turned.Conversations dipped.
Even the locals who pretended not to care tracked her progress anyway.She carried Manhattan with her in the way she looked at a room, as if she had already measured what it could offer and found it lacking.
She came all the way to the pass before Kyla spoke.
“Critics eat last.”
Kyla flipped a plate and covered a mark nobody else would have noticed.
Simone leaned on the stainless edge as if it belonged to her.“You always did hide your best in a mess.”
Her tone stayed soft enough to pass for civility, but the line came sharp.Her gaze slid over Kyla’s arms and paused at the old burn before returning to her face.
The kitchen narrowed to that patch of counter.Titus set his tray down and gripped the edge hard enough for the metal to bite.Simone did not spare him a glance, but her perfume cut through the air anyway, expensive and cold with something bitter under it.
“Tomorrow night,” Simone said.“Manhattan.You, me, a hotel kitchen, and a pop-up with your name on it if you want the press.”
Her smile came thin and bright.“Unless you plan to waste this on Montana.”
Kyla did not move.Her shoulders locked tighter and a pulse worked once at the base of her throat, but her voice stayed flat.
