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Chapter 16

Ruben

I could take snowboarding or leave it. It didn’t make much difference to me. The best thing about snowboarding was that I had done it with Shane. The time he had spent with me on the slopes was the best since . . . I don’t know. I couldn’t remember the last time I had done something just because I was in the mood for it. Except for cooking. And even though cooking was a team effort, it was still lonely sometimes.

When you mixed the same sauce day after day. Over and over again, without allowing it to change, because that was exactly the sauce the guests expected on the menu. It was perfection if you managed exactly that. But it was also . . . lonely.

Tumbling down the slope with Shane had felt like an adrenaline shot.

As I plated up and sent out dishes in the kitchen, I thought again about the tingling sensation in my stomach when I managed to push myself to take a turn. That flutter in my stomach as I passed the apex and surrendered to the slope of the mountain and the pull of the valley.

The same sensation I got when Shane touched me.

It was nice to slide parallel to the mountain and not let Shane get close to me.

But opening myself up and becoming vulnerable, aligning my board that I surrendered control to the forces of physics, sent a rush through me that I had never experienced before.

And contrary to my fears, Shane hadn’t rushed away and waved goodbye. He had stayed by my side. He cheered me on, gave me tips, caught me. Even when I finally crashed into him at full speed.

I controlled the dispenser on the dressing bottle and positioned it over the next row of plates.

With a mixture of control, muscle memory, precision, and a light touch, I distributed the five drops of dressing behind the baby spinach. Exactly five. Not four, not six. If it were six, I might as well throw the plate away. It would never be sent out.

Highly focused, but without actually thinking about it, I set the table. Like a precision worker, I assembled my plates to identical perfection.

After all, you eat with your eyes first. And not only did they eat, they evaluated, they judged. And the owner of those eyes then paid.

I only noticed that I had been on my feet for fourteen hours because the orders were slowly becoming fewer and the dessert station was approaching the peak of the evening.

I no longer noticed the shouting around me. At that moment, Connie’s mood was none of my concern. I had gotten my fair and deserved punishment three hours ago. Now it was someone else’s turn.

I straightened up and struggled to suppress a groan. The tension in my back had hardened into stone.

Would Shane want to go out with me again sometime?

To be on the safe side, I went through the orders again. Of course, I hadn’t missed any. Slowly, I allowed myself a sigh of relief that evening. But only secretly. I would never let my head chef see that I was only half mentally present while cleaning my station. My body took care of the rest. It longed for an extended cuddle and fuck session with Shane. The order didn’t matter. The main thing was that I could be with him.

If he wanted to.

I hastily gathered my utensils. As beautiful as Shane’s words had been, he had only spoken of the past.

He had wanted me. He would have given us a chance. He had wanted to see where things were going. He hadn’t talked about the present.

When I had returned to the cabin the day before, Shane had already fallen asleep.

It was hardly surprising, given all the drinking and lack of sleep. Still, I had been equally disappointed and relieved.

I had hoped that we would pick up where we had left off. On the other hand, I wasn’t sure where we stood.

The overwhelming emotion was still that I wanted to be with Shane.

My tidying up became faster and faster.

“Are you coming, Ruben?” Torin, our potager, wanted to know.

“Where?” I hadn’t understood what he was talking about.

“We’re going to sit together for a while. And relax.” He had lowered his voice slightly with the last words. But I wasn’t in the mood for that kind of relaxation.