6. Chapter 6
Chapter six
Dax
I’d always thought there was something kind of sacred about the hours in the kitchen before service started.
The quiet, precise sound of knives hitting cutting boards.
The aroma of garlic toasting in olive oil.
No music. No chatter. Just the peace of knowing these were the few moments I’d get before the synchronized chaos began.
It had been three days since Lucy came into this restaurant like a whirlwind and then stole my Crocs and jacket. I hadn’t heard from her. It wasn’t like I was expecting to ever again, and that was how it should be.
A girl like that was a complication I didn’t need in my life.
I had enough to take care of as it was. That didn’t stop me from thinking about the way that thin, wet dress stuck to her curves like the fucking forbidden fruit.
She was bad news, and it was good that I’d never see her again.
At least that was what I was trying to convince myself, even though the image of her resurfaced in my mind at a concerning rate.
The dress. My Crocs on her feet. That fucking fire behind her eyes as she stepped on the bus in my chef’s coat.
Damn.
“Boss,” my sous-chef, Mateo’s voice jerked me out of my train of thought. The middle-aged man with deep-set brown eyes and a thick mustache gave me a concerned smile. He nodded to the large pot of béchamel I’d been stirring.
“Fuck!” I yelled. I hadn’t been paying attention, and the sauce had started to separate. I turned down the burner and started whisking it vigorously to try and save it.
Mateo turned back to slicing shallots by my side down the line. “Everything okay with you?” he asked after I’d salvaged the sauce.
Not really, I wanted to say. Clay’s unannounced visit to Bellissima the other night had triggered me in ways I couldn’t tell Mateo about.
I liked Mateo–he was a hard worker, he had a nice family, and we’d grown into something close to a friendship over the past couple years. But he had no idea who I really was, and it needed to stay that way.
Nobody in San Francisco knew about my life before.
In New York. About how I got here. All my staff and acquaintances from here knew only that I hailed from the East Coast and had experience running restaurants out there.
That wasn’t even close to the truth, but nobody had tried to expose me so far.
I knew what I was doing in the kitchen, and the business came naturally to me after growing up in the deli.
“Yep.” I didn’t want to talk about it. Not about my past, or the reason I was here in the first place.
Not about Clay, and how the asshole thought he could just waltz in here and try to get me to change my mind.
Especially not about the beautiful, fiery brunette who stole my shoes and coat—whom I’d never see again.
I should have been happy about that, but disappointment rode my shoulders as Mateo and I continued our kitchen prep in peaceful silence.
It was a little after four o'clock when Ricky blasted through the back door of the kitchen in a hot, glittery mess of sass and splendor. “Please hold your applause, ladies and gents. I’m here.”
I looked pointedly at the clock on the wall opposite me. “You’re late,” I said.
Ricky pulled down his sunglasses with an arched eyebrow. “Traffic was audacious. It’s fine though, because I already got all my restocking done last night.” He turned toward Mateo with a mock whisper, “What has his panties in such a twist?”
Mateo returned his question with nothing more than a cool stare.
“It smells amazing here as usual.” He made a show of breathing in the aromas coming from the hot, deep sheet pan in front of me. “Is it lasagna night?” He beamed. “That’s my favorite.”
That was one of the reasons I’d hired Ricky. He was great with people, which was part of what made him a good bartender. He knew how to change the subject.
“No, it’s a fucking grilled cheese sandwich.” I rolled my eyes. I wasn’t going to let him get off that easily.
“Very funny. So, we don’t have a dishwasher again tonight?” He gestured toward the station where one of the line cooks was taking his turn running the machine. “What happened to that pretty girl who was here the other night? Lucy?”
My blood heated at the mention of her name. I hated how my body reacted when I thought about her. “You’re welcome to take the position if you’d prefer. I’m sure Bianca would love being promoted to bartender, and at least she’s always here on time.” I gave him a checkmate smile.
“That witch could never live up to my prowess.” He flicked his hair and wisped his way out of the kitchen.
The rest of the night went by in a smooth rush.
Mondays were never nearly as hectic as the weekends, but they were still busy.
Ever since Bellissima had received a glowing writeup a few months ago, it had remained steadily packed.
I was grateful—proud even—for the business.
Of what I had accomplished. I really did, however, need to find a new dishwasher.
I stood in the dish-pit, rinsing the remaining dishes from the dinner service. My mind traveled, as it often did, to my last night working at my father’s deli.
I was eighteen. One more day here, and then I could get the hell out of this place for good.
My classes started at NYU next week, and I would finally be out of the confines of this damned place.
A place that once held some of my happiest moments had slowly morphed into the gray, foreboding future of what life could have looked like for me.
Dad had always wanted me to take over the deli. When I told him about college, he’d tried his best to convince me to stay. He tried again, in a last-ditch effort to force me to continue his legacy.
“It’s a good, honest living. You already have everything here, figliolo. In another ten years, I won’t be able to do it anymore, and you’d have a perfectly good business to take over. Think about it.”
It wasn’t what I wanted. It was always his dream–his dream with her.
Not mine. None of it even mattered anymore.
He was just trying to hold onto the past because he knew it was all he’d ever have.
It was what made him weak. And I’d lost my respect for weakness a long time ago.
It was why I spent every waking second away from here studying or in the studio learning how to fight.
“You’re not gonna see me slicing fucking salami in Brooklyn for the rest of my life,” I told him.
I’d never forget the look on his face. The hurt. The betrayal. The knowledge that deep down, at the end of the day, everything he’d worked so hard to build would mean nothing.
If only he could see how I turned out. Would he have laughed in my face, knowing I’d ended up exactly like him?
Trapped and alone, and with nothing but my own past to dwell on?
No. He wouldn’t have laughed in my face—he wasn’t that cruel of a man.
And somehow, that made the hole in my heart deepen every time I thought about it.
By the time I shut the kitchen down, I found Ricky and Bianca sitting at a low table with a stack of cards, two half-eaten plates of lasagna, and an opened bottle of Lambrusco between them.
“About time we see your handsome face out here.” Ricky winked and summoned me with a come-hither motion of his manicured fingers.
I stayed right where I was. “That wine better be left over from service or it’s coming out of your paycheck,” I said.
“Of course, only the scraps for us peasants,” Ricky chided, which earned a quiet chuckle from Bianca. I glared at her, still pissed she coerced me into her drama the other night.
I gave a not-so-subtle nod toward their plates.
“I kid,” Ricky snorted, “this lasagna is to die for. You want in on the next round?”
They were in the middle of their nightly gin rummy standoff.
Whoever lost had to buy drinks at the next bar they went to.
I liked to give them shit for it, but deep down I was honored they liked to spend their time here after work.
It reminded me of the old-timers who would sit on the metal chairs and tables outside the deli and play chess for hours when I was a kid.
The place had become a sense of home to them over the years, and they became a part of the family that existed there.
I only hoped the same could be said of Bellissima someday.
“Can’t, I have a bunch of shit to take care of in the office. Have fun.” I left them to their game and was about to head to my office when I glanced up and noticed someone standing behind the glass of the closed front door.
No, not someone. Her.