Chapter Eighteen
The kitchen had long since quieted, but Franco lingered at his prep station, idly spinning a spoon between his fingers.
Ben was in his office dealing with paperwork.
The last of the staff had gone, even Willow, but Raj was still wiping down the counters with the same methodical care he always took, as though the shine of the stainless steel said something about the man who ran the place.
Will I be sleeping alone tonight?
It didn’t matter that Ben had acknowledged to the staff they had something going on: Franco wasn’t going to take it for granted he’d be sharing either his bed or Ben’s that night.
Where is this going?
Perhaps the more pertinent question should have been where was Franco going?
Am I going anywhere?
Right then he had no clue.
“Clock out already, mate,” Raj said without looking up. “You’ve been staring at that spoon as if it’s about to tell your fortune.”
Franco forced a grin he didn’t feel. “Maybe it will. Maybe my destiny’s hidden in the reflection. Look…” He angled the bowl toward Ra j, where his own upside-down face stared back, distorted. “Don’t you think that’s the face of a man meant for greatness?”
Raj snorted. “No, that’s the face of a man who needs to go home and sleep.” His eyes sparkled. “Especially since I’m pretty sure you’re dealing with a sleep deficit these days.” His gaze flickered toward Ben’s office door.
Franco ignored the bait. He set the spoon down and leaned on his elbows.
“Can we be serious for a minute?”
Raj blinked. “Well, I can. I’m not sure about you, though.” He went back to wiping down the counters.
Franco’s stomach churned. “Do you ever wonder if this is it?”
Raj finally looked at him, his eyebrows raised. “It?”
“This.” Franco gestured to the empty kitchen, the shelves stacked with neatly labelled jars, the lingering smell of onions and garlic.
“Six years. Same menu, give or take a few changes, same walls, same bloody customers asking if the arrabbiata is ‘too spicy.’ I mean, I love it, I really do, but sometimes it feels as though I’m stuck in a rut. ”
Raj didn’t answer right away but wrung out his cloth and folded it neatly. “You’ve never been stuck a day in your life. You keep this place alive.”
“That’s great—for the restaurant, I mean—but what about me ?” The words came out sharper than he’d intended them to be. He sighed, raking a hand through his hair. “I want more , Raj.”
A moment later, Raj leaned back against the counter. “Specifically?”
Franco was a demon when it came to the specifics of his dreams.
“I want to travel, to cook with chefs who’ve seen the world. To eat my way through every street market from Bangkok to Buenos Aires.” He swallowed. “To not feel as though the biggest thing I’ll ever do is charm the Saturday night regulars.” He bit his lip. “I want to be a chef,” he said simply.
Raj crossed his arms, his gaze steady but annoyingly calm, the way it always was when Franco started spiralling. “So what’s stopping you? Go.”
Franco blinked. “Go?”
He shrugged. “You talk about it enough. If you want to leave, leave. Chase your pasta gods or whatever you’re always rambling about.”
Franco tried to laugh, but it caught in his throat. “It’s not that simple.”
“Sure it is.” Raj tilted his head. “ You’re the one making it complicated. And do you know why? Because deep down, you like it here. You like belonging.”
That hit uncomfortably close to home. Franco looked away, tracing circles on the counter with his finger. “Belonging’s fine. But I can’t spend my whole life in one place. I need to see what else is out there. To find out who I am when I’m not just Franco, the life of the restaurant.”
When Raj didn’t respond, Franco glanced at him.
Raj regarded him with narrowed eyes, and Franco knew he was reading him the way only Raj could. “You’re hiding something.”
Franco hesitated a moment before saying in a sheepish tone, “I sent off an application a while ago. A stage in Florence. Chef Gallo’s kitchen.”
Raj let out a low whistle. “That’s not small potatoes.”
“Yeah, well.” Franco shrugged, trying for casual, although his chest tightened at the thought.
“Could you afford to do something like that? I mean, you’d be working without pay.”
“Sure, but it’d be in Florence ? I’ve got some money put by, enough for the flight, I think, and the application form said there’d be accommodation provided. But think how it’d look on my resume. It could open up all kinds of doors for me.”
“How come you’re only mentioning this now?”
He sighed. “I forgot about it, honestly. Not that I ever expected to hear back. People like me don’t get picked for things like that. ”
Raj studied him for a long moment. Then he said simply, “And what if you do?”
Franco froze. The words hung heavy between them.
What if?
He forced a grin he knew was too bright, too deflecting. “Then I’ll drink better wine, eat worse gelato, and send you postcards you won’t read.”
Raj shook his head, but his mouth curved into the faintest smile. “Just don’t come crying to me when you realise you actually like being tethered somewhere.”
Franco laughed, but it sounded false. He had a feeling that at some point in the middle of the night, that question would return to plague him.
What if?
Ben had stayed later than usual that night, not because there was work left undone—there never was, not with him—but because the quiet hum of the restaurant after close was easier to endure than the silence of his flat.
He sat in his office with the door cracked, his papers neatly stacked, the soft chink of dishes being put away in the kitchen seeping through the walls.
When the voices had faded and most of the staff had finally trickled out, Ben let out a breath. For a few minutes, it was just him and the muted throb of the refrigeration unit outside the office. Then he caught sight of Franco through the small pane of glass in the office door, and he stilled.
Franco was leaning against a counter, still in his apron, laughing at something Raj had said. His whole body seemed to move with it, as though laughter lived in his bones. Even from here, Ben could read the warmth of it.
But when Raj turned away to wring out a cloth, Franco’s smile faltered. It was only for a second, but it definitely happened. His gaze slid to the far wall, distant, restless.
Ben straightened in his chair. Restless wasn’t a word he’d normally apply to Franco. Teasing, flirtatious, irreverent, yes, but not that.
Something tugged at him, an itch he couldn’t quite place. He told himself not to dwell on it or read into it. Franco was probably tired, or bored, or… well, Franco. It didn’t matter.
And yet, when Franco finally slipped out into the night, Ben caught himself watching the back door long after it closed, as though some part of him expected Franco to walk through it at any second.
He dragged his gaze to the spreadsheet glowing on his laptop screen.
Numbers don’t waver. Numbers don’t look at you as if they’re already someplace else.
Still, the recollection of Franco’s smile fading from bright to dimmed kept slipping into his mind, until the columns on the screen blurred, and he’d lost all focus.
“See you in the morning,” Raj called out as he left.
Ben hardly heard him. He pinched the bridge of his nose, irritated at himself.
I don’t need to understand Franco’s moods. I don’t need to understand Franco at all.
Except, for reasons he couldn’t explain, he wanted to.
Might that have something to do with the fact that you’re sleeping with him?
You just informed the staff you’re seeing each other.
Doesn’t that imply you need to understand him at least a little?
Ben closed the laptop harder than necessary, the snap of it too loud in the empty office.
Enough .
Numbers wouldn’t steady him tonight. They couldn’t block out the memory of Franco’s restless smile .
He pushed his chair back, slipped his laptop into his bag, and switched off the desk lamp. Darkness enveloped the small room, leaving only the bright square of glass in the door.
But when he opened it, Franco was there.
Ben frowned. “I thought you’d gone.”
Franco gave a shrug, his expression unreadable. “I did. I came back.” The words were uttered with nonchalance, but a shadow seemed to pass over his eyes.
“Franco?”
Franco’s mouth tilted into something that was almost a smile. “I don’t suppose you’re in the mood for some company tonight.”
There was no playful note in his words this time. They were raw, stripped back, a question hidden in plain sight.
Ben’s chest tightened. Logic told him to keep his distance. Logic said this was trouble wrapped in the scent of sugar and aftershave.
Logic had been losing battles to Franco since the day they met.
“Come home with me.”
Franco didn’t hesitate. “Yes.”
The world blurred between the restaurant and his flat. Cold air, wet pavement, the hum of passing cars—all of it was forgotten the second the front door clicked shut behind them. Franco didn’t speak. He stepped close, cupped Ben’s face, and kissed him as if it was inevitable.
Ben returned the kiss, only harder, pulling Franco into him, steering them toward the bedroom. He didn’t care about pace or rules or the fact he’d spent the entire day convincing himself not to want this again. All he knew was that he wanted Franco in the worst way.
Clothes came off in pieces, tossed wherever they landed. The sheets were cool against Ben’s calves, Franco’s body hot and insistent above him. Then the kisses slowed, becoming exploratory, until Ben thought he might combust from the sheer patience of it.
Franco kissed him as if he was learning Ben cell by cell: lips brushed over Ben’s mouth, throat, chest, and stomach, Franco’s hands tracing the lines of his ribs as though memorising them.
And Ben, who always held on tight to control, couldn’t do a thing but arch into it, caught between frustration and bliss.