Epilogue
TOVEK
I wake before the alarm to dragon peppers and garlic sizzling in oil.
The bed’s empty, sheets still warm. I inhale deeply.
Three years together, and Mei still rises before me some mornings, slipping into the kitchen to chase whatever flavor woke her.
I’ve memorized her routine. The way she piles her hair on top of her head.
The fuzzy slippers she refuses to replace.
How she always uses my old t-shirts instead of her own.
My wife. My partner.
When I pad into the kitchen, barefoot and shirtless, I find her exactly where I knew she’d be. Hair flaming red against the kitchen light, one of my shirts hanging to mid-thigh, the noodle tattoo on her thigh visible beneath the hem.
She doesn’t look up. Too absorbed in whatever she’s building at the stove.
“Do not touch that spoon,” she warns without turning. “It’s the perfect consistency and I swear to god, Big Guy, if you fuck with it, I’ll divorce you.”
I lean against the doorframe. “Good morning to you too, Hot Pot.”
She glances over her shoulder, and that smile still gets me. “Morning. Sorry. This oil needs three more minutes or it’ll burn.”
“You said that about the last batch.”
“This one’s different.” She turns back to her pot, stirring with hypnotic precision. “New ratio. More dragon pepper, less Szechuan peppercorn. The restaurant in Shanghai uses this technique for their soup base, but I think it could work for the oil if I’m careful about the temperature window.”
I move closer. The aroma intensifies. Fruity heat from the peppers, nutty warmth from toasting garlic, the complexity that only comes from ingredients handled with absolute care.
“Three years as New Vegas’s spice queen, and you’re still experimenting at 5 AM,” I say.
“Two years and eight months,” she corrects. “And I’ll stop experimenting when I’m dead.”
“Even then, I’d expect haunting via new recipe suggestions.”
She laughs. “You’d still follow them.”
“Every last one,” I admit, because it’s true.
Spicy Orc & Co. has expanded to three locations across the city.
The Dragon’s Nest, our intimate chef’s counter experience next to the original bar, still has a three-month waitlist. The product line, Mei’s Fire chili oils and condiments, ships nationwide to specialty stores and directly to customers who order by the case.
We’ve been featured in every major food publication, won regional awards, turned down two reality TV shows, and said yes to a cookbook deal that gave the publisher higher pre-orders than they projected.
The Drunken Dragon still stands on the same block it always has, six blocks from the Strip. Its neon sign glows fully now. The dragon and its beer mug complete, every scale lit, the D burning steady instead of flickering.
Greta runs the bar with the same efficiency she always has. She gave me exactly one comment on the sign repair when I pointed it out. “Took you long enough.” Then she went back to polishing glasses.
Not bad for a woman who once ran from success because she feared it couldn’t last. Not bad for an orc who once thought owning a decent bar was the height of what he could build.
“It’s ready,” Mei announces, lifting the spoon to inspect the oil’s viscosity. She extends it toward me. “Taste.”
I lean forward, letting her feed me directly from the spoon.
The oil hits my tongue. Complex layers of heat that bloom rather than attack, the dragon peppers dancing with the nutty base oil, garlic and shallot providing a foundation that grounds the fire.
Better than the last batch. Better than anything we produced in the first year.
“Well?” she demands, those amber-flecked eyes searching my face.
“It’s good,” I say, watching her eyebrows lower in immediate disappointment. “It’s fucking transcendent, Mei. You know it is.”
She grins, satisfaction replacing the momentary doubt. “Had to make you say it.” She turns off the heat. “Think the Shanghai place will be mad I reverse-engineered their secret?”
“They’d be madder if they knew how much you improved it.” I step closer, wrapping my arms around her from behind. She fits against me perfectly, her head tucking beneath my chin as she relaxes into my embrace. “What woke you this time?”
“Dreamed about that soup from the festival last year. Couldn’t get the oil base out of my head.” She tilts her head back, exposing the line of her throat.
I press my lips to the sensitive spot just below her ear. “You could have woken me.”
“You were snoring.” Her hand reaches up to thread through my hair, holding me against her neck. “Besides, I work better alone when I’m testing something new. You’re distracting.”
“Am I distracting you now?”
“We have to be at the restaurant in two hours,” she says. But her hand stays in my hair.
Later, showered, dressed, only slightly behind schedule, we make the drive to the flagship. Mei scrolls through her phone, reading reviews.
“Someone posted about the lotus root dish,” she says, angling the screen toward me. “Fourteen fire emojis and ‘life-changing experience.’”
“Add another batch to prep,” I say.
“Already texted Lin.” She’s quiet for a moment. “Cookbook’s doing well.”
“I know.”
“The publisher wants a second one.”
I glance over at her. She’s looking out the window, trying to sound casual about something she’s been wanting to say for a week. I’ve known it was coming. “What do you want to do?”
“Say yes,” she admits. “I think I want to say yes.”
“Then say yes.”
She smiles at the window. “Just like that.”
“Just like that,” I confirm. “You’ve already been building it in your head. I’ve seen the notes on the fridge.”
She laughs, caught. “You weren’t supposed to read those.”
“You wrote them in red marker on the communal fridge.”
We arrive at the restaurant an hour before opening.
The morning prep team is already in place.
Lin has everything running with the efficiency Mei trained into her.
I handle the front of house while Mei disappears into the kitchen, already in conversation with the prep cook about temperature windows and the suspect peppercorn shipment.
“Chef,” one of the servers says, approaching with a concerned expression. “That food critic from the Tribune is here again. Third time this month.”
Carlton Reed. Thin, bespectacled, expensive suit, expression of studied indifference. He’s been coming since we opened, looking for the gap between our reputation and our reality. He hasn’t found one yet, which seems to irritate him.
“Table twelve,” I say. Best view of the open kitchen. “Let Mei know he’s here.”
She knows, by the time service starts, and she gives him a show. Every dish that leaves her pass is exactly what it should be. Reed tries to maintain his aloof critic’s demeanor. I watch him taste the dragon pepper broth and fail.
The slight widening of eyes. The pause in his note-taking. The second spoonful before he can catch himself.
The situation with table nine arrives halfway through service. A red-faced man, the Five Alarm Noodles, the claim that no one would actually serve food this spicy and that it’s all for social media attention.
I start across the floor. Then I stop.
Because Mei is already there, and her expression tells me everything I need to know about whether she requires assistance.
I watch her listen to the complaint, nod once, pick up his chopsticks, and eat a substantial mouthful of the Five Alarm Noodles with the focused attention of someone conducting a quality check.
She chews, swallows, considers. “Delicious,” she says.
“Though I think the green onion garnish could be slightly fresher. I’ll speak to our produce supplier. ”
The man gapes. Reed’s pen is moving.
She offers the sesame noodles, on the house, with a smile that contains multitudes. Then she walks back through the kitchen doors without a backward glance.
I find her at the sink, gulping water directly from the tap.
“That was a mistake,” she gasps, eyes streaming.
“That was extraordinary,” I say.
She looks up at me, face flushed, and grins. “Did you see his face?”
I hand her a towel. “Go check on Reed,” she says, pressing it to her cheeks. “I bet he took notes on the whole thing.”
He did. When I return to the dining room he gives me a small nod that feels almost like respect. It’s the closest thing to approval Carlton Reed has ever offered anyone in this city, and I will take it.
By closing time, I’m bone-tired and satisfied in the way that only comes from a successful service. We lock up and walk to the car, my arm around her shoulders.
“Think Reed will finally give us a decent review?” she asks.
“Does it matter?” I ask, genuinely.
She considers this. “Not really,” she decides. “Though it would be satisfying to convert him.”
“You converted me,” I remind her. “A stubborn orc set in his ways. Reed should be easy by comparison.”
She smiles, leaning into my side. “You weren’t that hard. You just needed the right spice in your life.”
“The right fire,” I correct.
Before Mei, my life was ordered and controlled and predictable. Now it’s chaotic and challenging and infinitely more flavorful. I wouldn’t change a single ingredient.
Later, after we’ve showered away the day and collapsed into bed, she curls against me, her body fitting against mine the way it always has. Her hair is freshly dried, red against the dark silk of the pillowcase, smelling of the fancy shampoo she pretends not to care about but orders by the case.
“I’m going to say yes to the second cookbook,” she murmurs, her voice thick with approaching sleep.
“I know,” I say, stroking her hair.
“What if it’s not as good as the first?”
“What if it’s better?”
She’s quiet for a moment. “That’s scarier, somehow.”
“Whatever happens,” I tell her, “we face it together. Just like we have from the beginning.”
She shifts, looking up at me with those eyes that still make my heart skip. “From the beginning? When I told you your menu was boring as hell?”
“Even then,” I confirm. “I think I fell in love with you that day. Didn’t know it yet.”
“Sap,” she accuses softly. But she’s smiling.
I pull her closer, pressing a kiss to her forehead. Within minutes, her breathing deepens into sleep, her body heavy and trusting in my arms.
I lie awake a little longer, the way I always do. Listening to her breathe. Thinking about the orc I was before she walked into my bar with her sharp tongue and sharper knives.
Now look at us.
Tomorrow we’ll wake and do it all again.
Create together, argue about ingredient ratios, fall asleep tangled in each other’s arms. I’ll find her in the kitchen before dawn, and I’ll lean against the doorframe and watch her work, and she’ll know I’m there without turning around, and she’ll say do not touch that spoon, Big Guy, and I’ll say good morning to you too, Hot Pot, and the whole long ordinary extraordinary day will begin.
My perpetual flame. My life. My love.
I will never hunger for anything more.