Chapter 5 #2
“And dish pit is around the corner?” I ask, heading to the back left section of the kitchen that wraps around behind the walk-ins and leads to the back exit.
“That’s right,” he says. “And if you take the hall here, you’ll find dry goods, the locker room, and some stairs that go up to the manager and chef office. Or you can follow it straight down and get back to the front of house and the bathrooms.”
“Where should we start?” I ask him.
“Inventory.” He claps his hands together and leads me to a clipboard hanging on the wall. “Deliveries from our main supplier come Tuesdays and Thursdays, local produce is set up to come Wednesday and Saturday. There are some specialty places we can use as needed.”
Samuel pushes the clipboard against my chest until I take hold of it.
“Inventory and ordering is going to be all you, partner.”
“Let’s fucking go,” I say, grin in place, ready to get this party started.
Throughout the morning, I learn Samuel has been the one prepping the back of house for opening. He worked at the original diner for twenty-something years and was able to get the kitchen set up to the point it’s at now in just the last couple of weeks, along with the manager.
I’m impressed with the dry goods pantry, he’s got a great system in there, and the inventory is solid. The walk-ins don’t have a whole lot yet, but we shouldn’t order too much of that inventory until we have to. When dry runs start.
It’s not in bad shape. He’s got my approval.
“How about our inspections?” I ask him.
“Gotta talk to the boss about that,” he says, whistling through his teeth. “Above my pay grade. I’m just the fry guy now that you’re here.”
I bend down so I can lean close, face to face with him. “I didn’t take your job, did I?”
Samuel shakes his head, mustache twitching with a smile. “No, you did not.”
Phew! Tension in the workplace avoided.
That could’ve been ugly. The last thing I need is to get off on the wrong foot with one of my new teammates.
I lean back, relieved.
Samuel chuckles and explains, “I was just trying to keep things under control until she found someone. Chef, I’m sixty-three years old. I don’t need to be anything more than a line cook. Knock yourself out, partner.”
As we’ve done inventory, I’ve filled my clipboard with notes on what hasn’t been done yet, what needs attention, and questions for the manager.
Samuel tells me they’ve already hired all the other staff, and that they’ll be starting shifts later this week to get each area ready for opening.
Sounds like a lot still has to happen over the next two weeks.
My first priority is revamping this menu. We need to get suppliers and inventory sorted for the new lineup, and then get new menus made and printed.
The original menu was nothing but greasy diner food.
Definitely didn’t say Wilder Amante made this with love.
My new menu does. And once she lets me upgrade the basic selections, then I’ll hit her with my real ideas. The good stuff I’ve been saving all these years, dogeared for Salt + Spice, but I’ll happily share some of my recipes with this place. The food is what it’s all about, after all.
The longer Samuel walks me through the stockroom, the protocols, the shit I could do in my sleep after all the kitchens I’ve been in and out of in NYC, the stronger the burn in my flesh is to get on the line and start cooking.
The managerial shit isn’t my favorite, but I know I can do it.
Planning the menu, coming up with unforgettable dishes, blowing guests’ minds with every bite they take? That’s where it’s at for me. I was born to be behind a cooking station. Nothing makes me feel as alive as when I’m turning ingredients into edible perfection.
Except, maybe, a beautiful woman who gets my pulse—and other parts—up.
And now it’s hitting again. The itch of need to see the gardener girl again.
The energy between us is addictive. I didn’t know I could crave something I’ve barely tasted, but I find myself on high alert for her when I take a midday break. Samuel heads home to see his family over lunch, and I find myself wandering downtown, eyes searching for my new obsession.
Every lamppost with a hanging basket of flowers is a tease, every flower bed a trap for my eyes, hoping she’ll pop out somewhere, tool in hand, insults on her lips.
My senses seek her out as I pass by the shops that line both sides of the street, looking for some proof of her presence.
A huffed scoff of annoyance, a catty remark, the distinctive swish of her jeans between her full thighs as she stalks somewhere—or maybe just the ends of her wild hair as she rounds the corner to a building, ponytail whipping out behind her as she does.
I’m dying for more with her. This intensity that started building between us that day, it needs an outlet, and I’d happily give her one.
But she doesn’t show up on my lunch break, and by the time Samuel is ready to take off for the day, I’ve given up on running into her in the wild. I’ll have to start asking around and see if I can find her on my own, not leave this up to fate.
“Tomorrow the other line cook will be here,” Samuel tells me, rounding up his bag in the locker room.
“Charlie the firefighter?” I ask, proud I remembered one of the ten names thrown at me today.
“Mmhmm, and the rest of the back of house staff should be here as well. It’s time to hunker down.”
“Okay with you if I stick around a little longer?”
I’d like to spend some time in the kitchen getting my bearings.
“Doesn’t bother me.” He shrugs. “Just leave through the back exit, it should lock itself on the way out.”
I wave from the back door, as Samuel heads into the alley that borders the west central parking lot downtown.
“You’re sure, partner?” he asks for the fourth time, and I tip my head at him.
“I got this. New guy gets to put in some extra hours, pay my dues. Don’t worry about me.” There’s plenty to be done here, and besides, it’s not like I have anywhere else to be.
“Well, I gotta pick up my grandkids, so I’ll see you later.” With a final salute, he’s in his pickup—the whole parking lot is full of ’em—and he’s off.
The staff only exit closes behind me with a heavy thud and an echoing click as I walk through the back hallway toward the front of the restaurant.
Wandering through to the kitchen, I grab my clipboard from the steel work surface and review my notes, doing a mental tally of when what needs to be done by when, scribbling as I go.
My cheeks puff out and I let a big breath out.
This shit is getting cut close. I’m gonna need to schedule a meeting with the manager ASAP and get us on track.
We don’t even have our final health inspection scheduled yet, as far as I could find out when I tried calling the inspector’s office.
Making myself comfortable, leaning down, elbows on the metal surface, I jot out a plan in my chicken scratch that no one else but me could ever decipher.
With my cutting skills and this handwriting, I could’ve been a doctor, maybe a surgeon.
Too bad I’ve broken more bones than I’ve fixed.
A noise in the front of the restaurant has my head jerking up, grabbing my knife set for protection, and I stalk silently to the doorway to check on it.
Maybe fate’s looking out for me after all.
The gardener girl is back in the restaurant. Samuel must have forgotten to lock the front door before he left.
Today she’s wearing loose-fitting jeans that look new, and a top that’s not very practical for gardening in. Puffy white sleeves, low cut and a big bow in the front, she looks like a package I’d unwrap with my teeth.
Her ample breasts bounce with every step she takes, and it’s filling my head with filthy thoughts. The way they’d bounce if I was pounding into her. How they’d feel between my teeth, under my tongue as I’m fucking her, cock bottoming out as I make her whole body ripple with each thrust.
This is a dangerous path to let my mind wander on as the sun is setting, casting her in a reddish glow and highlighting how absolutely edible she looks. “If it isn’t gardener girl,” I croon as she steps within hearing range.
She startles at my voice but doesn’t say anything.
I jerk my chin toward the window display up front, the flowers she did there. “You did so good,” I tell her.
And there my mind goes again, taking off on its own thoughts, all the ways I could praise her.
But if I had to guess, this isn’t a girl who wants praise.
She wants to be owned, and she’d probably fight tooth and nail the whole time, making sure I earned her, and loving every second of it, a real-life tiger.
I feel my eyes blaze at the thought, but it looks like I’m not the only one whose mind lives in the gutter, because dots of pink bloom on her cheeks just as quickly, those brown eyes finding anything around us but my own.
“The flowers,” I clarify. “They look great.”
“Thanks,” she says brusquely.
Awful short with me for someone who I caught, carried, hydrated, and fed after she fainted in my presence.
I kinda wanna tease her about it, the way I nursed her back to health, crack this tension she’s encased in, but something tells me she wouldn’t respond well to it. It’s that same instinct that tells me she wants passion and vigor, not sweet nothings.
That voice has been right a lot in the past, kept me alive during my worst years, so I listen to it.
The woman I can’t stop thinking about looks between me and the front door of the restaurant, then she asks, face innocent, “Are you working here?”
Waving one hand down the front of my body, the chef jacket, the black pants, the black Crocs I’d never set foot in a kitchen without. Bag in my other hand carrying my knife set, but maybe that’s not something she’d recognize unless she was in one of two industries. The only two I’ve ever been in.
“You can call me Chef,” I tell her, winking.
“You got the job?”
“I did. But you tasted my food. You knew I’d land it.”
“Congrats,” she says unconvincingly, rolling her eyes.