Drake
Grey’s hand landed on my shoulder as we walked towards the kitchen. “Good work in there,” he said, quietly enough that I thought he maybe wanted to avoid Rafael hearing us.
“Thanks, boss,” I grinned. “I hope to impress you again tonight.”
“Oh,” Grey said, and his eyes traveled up and down my body in a way that was more than suggestive. “I’m sure you will.”
He tapped my shoulder twice before walking away towards the back room.
I moved through into the kitchen with that look on his face cemented in my mind’s eye.
It troubled me and also didn’t. And the fact that it partially didn’t troubled me even more.
The guy was clearly interested in fucking me. I was used to that. I normally embraced it. A quick and dirty fuck on a back room desk was my kind of Saturday night. But this particular guy was my new boss – and not only that, but the trial was potentially only temporary.
I could laugh off his flirtations for now, but there might come a time when I had to decide whether to push him off or let him drag me into some dark corner.
Was it going to become a problem that I had to deal with?
Or was this the thing that was going to make sure I got the permanent job?
“How are you going to run this?” the chubby one – Beau, I thought – asked. I glanced over my shoulder and realized he’d addressed the question at Rafael, who had only just come through the door. What had he been doing out there?
“As normal,” I said. “I’m your Head Chef today, just as I have been since Jesse left. will watch me until I’m reliably convinced he has the hang of everything.”
Boring. I rolled my eyes, knowing he couldn’t see me. “I think I can handle prep,” I said.
“You haven’t cooked our dishes yet.”
“Actually,” I said, turning to grin at him, wanting to see the look in his eyes. “Grey shared the full menu with me a couple of weeks ago, along with the flashcards you made for everyone to crib from. So, I’m pretty familiar with everything.”
The glare he fixed me with could have burned a hole in the sun. “You didn’t want to mention this when I wasted my time showing you the menu earlier?”
“It’s always good to check nothing has changed,” I said innocently, practically purring it.
From the way his nostrils flared, I could see Rafael wanted to get into it with me. But he pushed whatever he was feeling aside and a slow, cold smile crept over his face instead.
It chilled me to the bone.
“Okay, Chef,” he said. “Since you don’t need the practice, maybe you could pitch in some other way. We’re down a dishwasher at the moment, since Ainslie was recently promoted. Maybe you could deal with the plates from family dinner. They’re just sitting out there waiting, and our waiters have enough to do as it is.”
I felt my jaw clench with tension as I tried to fight to keep the smile on my face, not letting it turn into a grimace. I wouldn’t let him see he was getting to me. Let him think that no matter what he did, I gave zero fucks. I would take psyching him out over actually beating him in the kitchen if it meant I got the job.
“Anything I can do to help,” I said. “A clean kitchen is a happy kitchen.”
The look on his face as I swanned past him and back into the restaurant was enough to make up for the humiliation of actually having to clear the plates.
Stepping back into the empty restaurant on my own – I had no idea where the waiters had gone, but they weren’t in the room – I was able to take a minute to take stock of my new workplace. The neon lights on all of the walls hadn’t turned out to be a problem for the food; some kind of clever lighting trick made it so that every plate ended up looking the color it was intended, so I needn’t have worried about that.
But the coding of the place made me stop for a second and look around again, seeing it like a customer this time. The neon everywhere, the saucy phrases it spelled out, the colors and the vibe… I’d been to plenty of gay bars in my time, but never a gay restaurant.
It was a strange feeling, to be in a place where everyone not only knew I was gay but shared the same orientation. It was freeing, in some ways. Flirting openly with Grey, teasing Rafael even if I wanted to kick his ass out of this place – knowing there would be no repercussions, at least not the kind that came from straight men. Most of the customers that came in tonight would be gay. It was strangely overwhelming to think about. Not being the minority anymore.
It was a very specific business model, but apparently, it worked: The Crow wasn’t only surviving but thriving, and it had become a renowned spot to visit for the gay community from even out of state. Now, I was going to be a part of that. When I thought about my legacy as a chef, this is what I wanted to see. I wanted to know I’d been a pioneer in a restaurant that was the best of its kind, taking a theme to the highest possible level of quality.
And it wasn’t going to achieve that if they carried on serving beat-up-looking plates like the shit Chef Rafael had served us.
I swept up all of the plates in one go – almost all of them were empty, so balancing them wasn’t a problem – and headed back into the kitchen. It was already heating up into something starting to approach the chaos that I knew would reign later tonight when customers were in their seats. Ainslie and Beau were hard at work batch-prepping all the raw ingredients we would need for the night, while Rafael was already starting on some of the more complex processes and desserts.
I’d gathered the guy who left before was a pastry chef, moonlighting as a real chef to get more experience in running a kitchen under his belt. I’d imagined that I could beat Rafael easily if he’d only learned under a pastry chef – my skills would be so much better than his for all other types of cuisine.
I wasn’t expecting him to be messy and bad with the desserts, too.
I snorted under my breath as I walked back from the dishwashing station, my fingers wrinkled from the water, watching him pipe cream that should have been beautiful but instead looked like an afterthought.
“Something I can help you with, Chef?” he asked without looking up.
“No, Chef,” I replied. “I was thinking I could help you.”
It wasn’t until he looked up at me with the slightest flush on his cheeks that I realized it had come out more flirtatious than I had intended.
“You can look over Ainslie’s work,” he said, after a long moment. “He hasn’t been in his position for long. He was trained well, but he could still do with a bit of extra support.”
I nodded and moved away, trying not to be unsettled by how gorgeous that light dusting of pink had been over Rafael’s cheekbones.
I wandered over to Ainslie’s station and looked over his shoulder.
“Do you always cut the onions that thick?” I asked, making him jump half out of his skin.
“Chef!” he exclaimed.
“Behind,” I said belatedly with a grin.
He sighed and shook his body as if he was trying to chase off a chill. “What’s wrong with the onions?”
“May I?” I took the knife from him and held the remaining part of the onion tightly, keeping my fingers just out of the cutting zone. I started to chop fast, shearing off thin slices of the onion in a fraction of the time Ainslie had spent making thicker chunks.
“Oh, wow,” he said. “Let me try that!”
I placed the knife down on the chopping board – safer than handing it over – and made a flourish of a gesture towards it, indicating he should give it a try. I held back my wince and pulled my hand behind my back, clasping it out of the way as I watched Ainslie try.
“That’s good,” I said. “Do you have all the onions you need for tonight?”
Ainslie looked at the pile at the edge of his chopping board. “I think so. I still need to bring the garlic out, though.”
I patted him lightly on the shoulder. “I’ll do that,” I said. “I need to familiarize myself with the storage system here, anyway.”
“Thanks!” he exclaimed – Ainslie was already coming across like the kind of person who used a lot of exclamation marks – and I headed off to the storage units where I could get a moment to myself.
I already knew where the garlic was; I had spotted it earlier, on our whistle-stop ‘tour’. I took a deep breath of the somewhat fusty air of the storage – it smelled like potatoes and wheat and cool temperatures, as well as fresh fruit and vegetables on the lighter side of the scent.
I reached into my pocket and took out the small baggie I’d put there. I used to carry the pills around in a bottle, but bottles rattled. I’d found it was quieter and less obtrusive to just stick a few in a bag and shove that into my pants pocket.
I took out two pills and swallowed them dry, waiting a moment for the familiar wash of sensation to settle in. It only took a short time. They were good pills.
“Oh – Chef,” someone said, and I swung around quickly. One of the waiters – the Russian-looking one; Nikolai, I remembered – was standing in the doorway.
“Hi,” I said. I gave him a loose grin. “Just trying to find – oh, there it is!” I reached forward and grabbed a bunch of garlic from where it sat right next to his elbow.
“Right,” Nikolai said. “I’m getting some fresh napkins for the tables. Do you need to find anything else? I can probably help.”
I shook my head. “This was all we needed,” I said. “Hey, you’ve been here a while, right?”
Nikolai gave me a wide-eyed, sideways look like he was afraid of what I might ask. “Yes. Why?”
“Did you know the last chef?” I asked. I leaned against the wall, not quite next to him in the doorway but almost.
He took a moment as if he was analyzing my question for a trap, but he nodded. “Jesse. I was here when he started.”
“Oh, so you knew him well,” I commented. “So, why’d he leave?”
“He started his own bakery,” Nikolai said.
It had the smell of a party line. Said just a little too quickly, a little too rehearsed.
“That’s what everyone else says.” I shifted a little. “Why’d he really leave?”
“He always planned to go when he had enough experience,” Nikolai said.
“Hm.” I wasn’t asking the right questions, clearly. “Why did he choose to leave now ?”
Nikolai swallowed and glanced over his shoulder. He lowered his voice. “Well, you know, he was in a committed relationship.”
“And?”
The glance over his shoulder again. He was definitely afraid of someone overhearing. “And people in committed relationships who don’t want to cheat don’t always last long around here.”
I tilted my head to the side. I thought it over. Grey Monaghan had flirted with me during my interview, and he’d flirted with me today. And when I flirted back, I’d caught a murderous look on Rafael’s face.
“Grey,” I said.
Nikolai nodded and lowered his voice to a whisper. “Jesse didn’t want to sleep with him.”
“Does Grey sleep with all his chefs?”
“Or tries to.” Nikolai straightened up, as if afraid he’d said too much. “I’m going to get those napkins. Good luck with service tonight.”
I watched him head over to the next door in the storage area, presumably the linen closet. Carrying the garlic bulbs out into the kitchen, I looked over at Rafael, busily focused on preparing the night’s meals.
Had Grey tried to sleep with him?
Was Grey sleeping with him – actively?
Was that why he resented me coming here?
The thought of it made my jaw clench. I pictured the two of them and for some reason I found my hand forming into a fist. Grey with his fingers running over Rafael’s shoulders, taking hold of his calloused chef’s hands, kissing his neck.
It didn’t bear thinking about.
I walked out and placed the garlic in front of Ainslie, accepting his enthusiastic thanks with a nod.
I glanced at Rafael again with narrowed eyes.
I was going to keep my eye out for signs – and if they were sleeping together, maybe it was a better idea for me to quit while I was ahead and go find another restaurant to work at.