Chapter Fourteen
POST-PRODUCTION CONFESSIONAL
CLOSE QUARTERS
FINN PEARSON: HEAD CHEF
PRODUCER
So, the editing crew would like to have some talking head footage from you for episode four just kind of explaining your love of cooking, how you came into it, why you love it so much. Sound good?
Finn gives thumbs up.
PRODUCER
Great. So, you already told us a little bit about how cooking has been your love language since you were a child. How did it all begin?
FINN
I fell in love with cooking when I was about five, I think.
After me grandad passed, me granny moved in with us.
We didn’t have a lot when it came to food, but somehow, she always whipped up the most magical meals.
Nothing against me ma or da, but cooking was never their strong point.
We got by, we ate grand, but with Granny?
We ate like bloody royalty. I started offering to help — mostly because I wanted to spend more time with her — and from the start, she treated me like I was capable.
She didn’t hand me some daft little job just to keep me busy.
She showed me how to hold a knife proper, how to dice onions without crying all over them, how to thicken up a sauce when it was too watery, or stretch a meal when there wasn’t enough to go round.
At first, it was just fun. But soon, it became an obsession.
I loved making delicious meals from scratch.
I loved hearing the praise when I got something right.
I don’t feel confident many places… but I’m at home in the kitchen.
PRODUCER
Beautiful, Finn. We find it really fascinating that you use the specific term of food being your love language. In a previous interview, you said, “I don’t think there’s a better way to show you love someone than by cooking for them.” Can you explain that a bit?
FINN
It’s intimate, isn’t it? Cooking, baking, all of it…
It takes creativity, thought, energy, and time.
When you cook for someone, you’re not just feeding them — you’re saying, I see you.
You’re thinking about what they love, what’ll make them smile, what reminds them of home.
It’s not just picking out a card at a grocery store or ordering some flowers that someone else arranges and delivers.
It’s personal. When I cook for the guests, it’s my job, sure, but it’s also me making this the vacation of a lifetime.
PRODUCER
And when you cook for your family, or your friends?
FINN
Ah, it’s even more special then. Feels like a proper love letter, doesn’t it?
It’s like putting the kettle on when someone’s had a shite day, or warming their coat for them before they head out into the rain.
It’s a small thing, but it says, I care.
I’m thinking of you. It’s comfort, it’s celebration, it’s even a way to say sorry when words won’t come.
In my family, we’re not the best at talking feelings out — but you know you’re forgiven when a plate of your favorite biscuits lands in front of you.
PRODUCER
Would you say you quite literally use food to declare your love, then?
FINN
One hundred percent.
Finn pauses, frowning.
FINN
What episode did you say this was for again?
The groans of a crew sharing mutual hangover woes carried through the crew mess like the wails of ship-wrecked ghosts.
I could barely stomach the coffee I very much needed as I wrapped up the interview with the production team. They wanted to get some reactions to the crew night out. I imagined they also wanted to capture how miserable we all were today on camera.
Brilliant jerks.
I escaped the interview mostly unscathed; although, they did question me about why I slept in the guest cabin.
They also reminded me that every word between me and Finn last night had been caught on camera — but I dutifully ignored that point.
My conversation with Finn had already played on repeat in my head all night long.
I didn’t need the production crew to remind me of it, too.
I ducked into my cabin just long enough to swap my pajamas for my uniform — crisp polo, tailored shorts, hair slicked back into a bun.
The boat was already in good shape after the work we’d done before heading out last night, but there was still plenty to tackle before the next guests arrived.
We’d need every minute of the morning to make sure every surface gleamed and every pillow was perfectly fluffed.
And I’d need every bit of distraction work would offer to not think about Finn.
I didn’t think it was possible, but I felt even more confused and unsettled after all he’d confessed.
Suddenly, he’d given power to the voice inside me that had always wanted to believe he gave a shit.
All this time, I’d thought he was a player, that he’d just said and done what was needed to get me in his bunk for a season.
Even when it felt wrong to think it.
Even when, deep down, I felt I was wrong about that.
Maybe I just thought it was safer to feel angry and scorned than to admit that I’d been so deeply hurt.
Now, after last night, I had no fucking idea what to feel.
Fortunately, my cabin was empty when I popped in to get changed. Gisella was likely on deck already and Finn in the galley, but I wondered if he’d slept here with her last night since I had been in the guest cabin.
I caught myself looking at the rumpled sheets of the top bunk for a beat too long before I grabbed my radio, strapping it to my belt and heading for the crew mess. I needed sustenance to make it through the day.
“Mornin’,” Cameron greeted me gruffly from where he was already devouring a plate of scrambled eggs.
“Good morning. How are you feeling?”
“Not my best,” he admitted, pointing his fork at the plate of eggs in front of him. “This is helping, though. And Cheffy made baked beans for me. Absolute angel, he is.”
“I could go for a greasy cheeseburger right about now,” I said, then grabbed a plate and started shoveling eggs and breakfast potatoes onto it. “But eggs will do, I guess. I—”
My next thought flew out of my head like a bird from an open cage, eyes catching on a plate of food I didn’t expect to see.
“Aye, I don’t know what Cheffy was thinking with those,” Cameron said around a mouthful of eggs. “Who the hell wants something sweet when they’re hungover?”
I swallowed, heart thumping hard against my chest. “Me, actually.”
I just barely whispered the words, my gaze still fixated on the plate.
Cameron shrugged. “Well, I’d wager you’re the only one in this crew, so eat up. They’re all yours.”
I covered my mouth with one hand as a smile slowly spread on my lips. I felt dizzy with the simple kind of giddy joy that can only come from a reborn memory.
“You’re kidding. Pancakes?”
I bite my lip and nod as Finn shakes his head at me. “What? They’re delicious! Especially banana ones. Those are my favorite.”
“Alright, Jack Johnson.”
I lift his palm to my mouth and playfully bite where his thumb meets his wrist. “You asked! Don’t be a bully about my breakfast choices.”
“Well, as far as day after drinking food preferences go, that may be the worst answer I’ve heard. Eggs, bacon, a Bloody Mary… hell, even cold pizza would be more acceptable.”
“Make fun of me all you want. I don’t need you to make my breakfast, anyway.” I pop up out of his bed, nearly tripping on the sheets we were tangled in before I find a pair of shorts and tug them on. “I can make my own damn pancakes.”
“You better not.”
“Watch me.”
But before I take a step, he wraps me up from behind, his warm arms taking me back toward the bed as I giggle and pretend to try to get away. He hauls me up into the top bunk in a feat of strength and balance unmatched by anyone I know.
“I will make you pancakes,” he growls in my ear, spanking my ass for good measure. “With bananas and whatever other weird shit you want in them.”
“Right now?”
“Right now,” he confirms, and then he turns me in his arms, sweeping my hair from my face as his eyes settle on mine. “And tomorrow. And every day for the rest of your life, if that’s what you want.”
I blinked out of the memory and swayed a bit, reaching my hand out for the edge of the table to steady myself.
“Whoa, there. You alright?”
I nodded, righting myself as I came back to the present, back to the stack of perfectly cooked banana pancakes in front of me. They were even dusted with powdered sugar, and there was a ramekin of raspberry compote to top with instead of syrup.
I instantly recognized it for what it was: not just a plate of pancakes, but an apology.
It was Finn’s way of starting over.
My pulse stuttered with the memory of the night before, all the words he said dancing in a dizzying blur in my mind. For two years, I thought he’d lied to me. I thought he’d played some sick game to get what he wanted from me before leaving me behind.
Now that I knew the truth, I realized it was nobody’s fault.
We were both young. Emotions were high. Time was short. I was stubborn and he was prideful.
But it was what it was — a messy, unfinished story neither of us knew how to end. And those pancakes? They were an invitation to write a new chapter.
Leah and Bernard poured into the mess, both groaning at the sight of the feast Finn had prepared for us.
I greeted each of them before plopping two pancakes on my plate and smearing them with the compote.
I grabbed a fork next, told my crew to meet me in the main salon after breakfast, and then padded barefoot up to the galley.
I climbed the stairs with the plate balanced carefully in both hands, my stomach a knot of nerves and nostalgia twisting tighter with every step. It was just breakfast, I told myself. But it felt like something more.
Cooking had always been how Finn expressed himself when no words would work, and I was trying my damndest not to read too much into whatever the hell he was trying to tell me with these pancakes.