Rafael
I looked at the agency staff Grey had brought in to desperately run the kitchen while he was short-handed and shook my head. This wasn’t going to work. This wasn’t going to work at all.
“I can’t do it,” I told him. “I mean, I could do it, but it will take months to get them up to speed. And they’re temps. They’ll probably go off and work somewhere else the second I have them fully trained.”
Grey sighed. “What do you want me to do about it?” he asked. “I can put ads out, but who knows how long it will take to fill the jobs with permanent staff.”
I looked at him sideways, slyly. “You could always let me call the staff you already have fully trained up for these roles.”
His jaw clenched, but I knew it was what he wanted. He kept staring straight ahead instead of looking at me, watching the newbies make a mess of his kitchen.
My kitchen.
“Fine,” he said at length, realizing I wasn’t going to throw him a bone and speak first. “Call them.”
“And I can tell them what you told me?” I asked. “The contract you just made?”
He grimaced but nodded stiffly. “Fine. Tell them, if it will help.”
“I think it will help,” I assured him with a grin. “And what about the others? Will you offer them the same contract?”
He gave me a pained look. “I can’t afford that!”
“Well, you only have to pay out if you mess up,” I pointed out. “Do you have any intention of breaking the contract?”
“No,” he said, clearly suffering.
“Then you won’t need to pay out,” I said reasonably. “You can afford zero dollars, I’m pretty sure.”
“Can’t they just be persuaded by your contract?” he asked. There were beads of sweat breaking out on his brow. “I have every intention of following through, but… two years…”
“It is a long time,” I agreed. I grinned wider, ready to let him out of his suffering; it had gone far enough now. “Alright. I’ll sign the contract if you let me tell the others. That seems fair.”
He sighed with relief. “And they’ll come back?”
I shrugged. “That’s up to them,” I said. “I can’t make them do it. If they listen to me, you’ve got a fair chance.”
“And they’ll listen to you?”
His eyes were wide with desperation. I gave him a gentle nod. “I hope so.”
He rubbed a hand over his face and walked back out to the front of house, where I gathered there were some nervous young waiters desperately in need of training.
With any luck, we could send them home at the end of the night and never see them again.
I grabbed my phone out of my pocket and dialed Drake’s number first. I hadn’t wanted to leave him this morning, but he was sleeping peacefully – and with Grey’s offer ringing in my ears, I’d known how important it was to get to The Crow and discuss it properly.
The line rang out, landing me on a voicemail message. I frowned and tried to think of something to say – I hated speaking into machines. Was I supposed to reference the incredible, world-shifting sex we’d had last night? Or just play it casual? I decided to go with professional, since this was about work, after all.
“Uh, Drake? It’s me. Um, . If you couldn’t figure it out from my voice. Anyway, I’m calling from The Crow. Grey’s calling a general meeting tonight after the end of service. I think you’re going to want to hear the offer. We all will. I’m calling the others as well. Let’s just say things are going to change around here, and I think you’ll like it. So, uh, yeah. Call me back. Or just come along tonight. It’s up to you.”
I ended the call and then sank my head against the cool chrome of the unit I was standing next to. That… could have gone better.
“Chef, what do I do with the carrots now?” someone called out. I looked up and saw what he’d done – a level of chopping that made me think he had absolutely none of the experience in professional kitchens the agency had said he had – and rushed over to fix it.
I called the others one by one between attempts to prevent the amateurs from burning the whole restaurant down, which ended up in the busiest prep session I’d ever had with no time for family dinner. Not that it mattered. I managed to eat a bowl of completely destroyed carrot pieces and some burnt bread – which was fine once you cut off the whole of the top of the loaf – between dashing here and there.
One by one, they reluctantly agreed to come and hear Grey out. I knew all of them were only coming because of the assurances I’d made, and if Grey did screw up again after this, I was going to kill him. He would be dragging me down with him in the eyes of my team, and I couldn’t have that.
But there was a look in Grey’s eyes I’d never seen before, and this time, I had a feeling it was actually going to work out.
The last call I had to make was the most difficult one. I found a short time in the middle of service, when we had a lull in customers and the trainees seemed to be able to handle the simple task of putting a piece of meat and some vegetables neatly on a plate, and stepped outside. Sitting down on the stoop, I took a deep breath before I hit the call button.
It connected after only a few rings.
“Chef?”
I nearly melted at the sound of his miserable voice. “Beau,” I said, injecting as much warmth as I could into my voice. “How are you feeling? I didn’t know if you would pick up.”
“I’m okay.” He sniffed loudly, belying his statement. “I feel like an idiot.”
“You’re not an idiot,” I reassured him. “A lot of people have fallen prey to that asshole. You’re far from the only one.”
“But you all warned me,” Beau said. His voice was strangled like he was on the verge of bursting into tears again.
“And you didn’t listen, because you’re an optimist who actually believes in love,” I told him. “That’s special. Don’t ever lose that. Especially not because of Grey Monaghan.”
He laughed thickly, and I gave him a moment before getting to the point of my call.
“Look, a lot happened since yesterday,” I said. “I thought you would want to know.”
I told him everything: the walkout that had happened as soon as he left, the way Drake had been offered the job but quit anyway, how we’d left Grey without even a dishwasher to his name. I’d left out the part about taking Drake back to my place and the night we’d shared, thinking that it would be insensitive to rub it in Beau’s face while he was heartbroken.
But, finally, I told him about this morning. About the call I’d had from Grey, and how I’d gone in to hear him out. The promise he had made. How it didn’t make it right, what he’d done to Beau, but how it would serve as a reasonable condition for the rest of us to return to work. Ultimately, I wanted to know what he felt about it. Whether he thought it was fair. And then there was the big question.
“Look, I don’t know how you feel about all of this, but I’ve got to make the offer to you if I’m making it to anyone,” I said. “Would you come back to work under those conditions?”
Beau snorted. It wasn’t a happy sound, or even a very bitter one; he just sounded sad. “Thanks, but I didn’t walk out in protest about his lifestyle,” he said. “I walked away because he cheated on me. I don’t think there’s any way I can come back from that one.”
I nodded sadly. “I can understand that,” I said. “I’ll miss you. We all will.”
“I know.” Beau hesitated. “You know, I think there’s a reason why everything happens. Maybe this is the push I needed. I’ve been thinking about setting out on my own for a while. I don’t think I’d ever make it to Head Chef at The Crow – you’ll be around for so long, I’ll be most of the way through my career if you ever even retire – but I might be able to make a success of my own business.”
I chuckled at the way he’d said it. “You never know. I might move on from The Crow one day, myself.”
“Nah,” he said, and there was a fond tone in his voice, no judgment. “You love that place. I know you do. One day, I think you’re going to buy it off Grey and run it yourself, even if he doesn’t screw up again.”
Now, there was a pretty vision of the future. It wasn’t like I spent most of my paycheck. I lived well within my means, and I was making savings – I just had no idea what I was saving up for .
Maybe Beau had a good idea, there.
“Christ,” I said with a chuckle. “You’ve thought about this more than I have.”
“I won’t think badly of you if you take your jobs back,” Beau said. “Any of you. I didn’t ask you to walk out. You can go back if you want. Just don’t involve me with anything to do with Grey ever again.”
“I can do that,” I promised. “Let me know if you need any help getting back on your feet. If I can write a letter of recommendation for you or help you out with setting up a new business – whatever you decide to do. Just call me if you need help.”
“I will,” Beau promised. He heaved a sigh. “If you don’t mind, I’ve got a date with a king-sized tub of ice cream and some weepy romcoms.”
I rubbed at my eye. I wasn’t crying. It was just a cold night and the wind was stinging my eyes. “Alright, Beau. I’ll let you get to it.”
He hung up, and I sat for a moment long, feeling the cool air on my skin and taking one moment to myself before I stepped back inside to chaos.
By the time service ended and the replacements were walking away from the restaurant, I was glad to look outside and see Luca and Ainslie walking across the parking lot together. In the distance behind them, I saw Kit and Nikolai getting out of the same car, and stepped inside to wait.
Grey had put in some effort; once the restaurant was empty, instead of closing up, he’d set up the table we used for family dinner with clean settings and candles. The neon lights were off and the wicks were lit, giving a softer light to the place. With exchanged glances, the others took their seats one by one. Grey stood at the head of the table, holding onto the back of his chair as he leaned on it, and I hovered by mine.
“Is this everyone?” Grey asked. I looked at my watch. It was already fifteen minutes past closing time. Drake should have been here.
“Not yet,” I said. “Just wait, please.” I walked to the doors and looked out, scanning the whole parking lot for a sign of his bike.
I couldn’t hear that throaty engine powering down a nearby street, no matter how hard I strained my ears.
Hadn’t he listened to my message?
Or was he like Beau – and he considered his bridges burned now that we’d had a romantic entanglement?
I thought back to my message, agonizing over what I’d said. Should I have mentioned the sex? Told him I wanted to see him again? Should I have been more firm and told him to come here, rather than asking?
What had I done wrong?
“,” Ainslie called out, not reproachfully. “Uh, Chef?”
I looked back at them. He was right. It was time to get started. These people had already taken time out of their day to come here, with no guarantees that they would be taking their jobs back. I couldn’t ask them to wait indefinitely.
I took one last glance over my shoulder and reluctantly closed the door.
“Okay,” I said, moving over to my chair. “Let’s get this meeting started.”