Chapter 1 Caught in the Cooler #2
Just careful. Sophia nodded without looking at him and hurried into the dining room.
She made it to table seven. She set down the tiramisu.
She smiled when the woman in the blue sweater said it looked wonderful.
She answered a question about decaf. She refilled water for table five.
She did all of that without dropping anything.
That seemed like a miracle. When she returned to the service station, Victoria was waiting.
Sophia stopped. “Please don’t.”
“I’m going to.”
“I know.”
Victoria grabbed two clean forks from the bin and started rolling silverware beside her. “Were you going to kiss him?”
Sophia’s hand tightened around the water pitcher. She could lie. She was a terrible liar.
“I don’t know.”
Victoria gave her a look.
Sophia looked down. “Maybe.”
“Maybe?”
“Yes.”
“You said yes to maybe kissing Vinny Marino in the walk-in cooler?”
Sophia winced. “Can you say it quieter?”
“No.”
“Victoria.”
Victoria lowered her voice by almost nothing. “That man has probably flirted with every woman between here and the lake.”
Sophia looked toward the kitchen doors. Vinny was visible through the little round window, laughing at something Gia said. It looked normal. It should have made Sophia feel silly. Instead, it made her feel worse. Because now she had seen his face when he stopped joking.
“I know his reputation,” Sophia said.
“Do you?”
“Yes.”
“You’ve never even been on a real date.”
Sophia went still. Victoria’s face changed as soon as she said it.
“Sophia,” she said, softer. “I didn’t mean it like that.”
Sophia folded a napkin slowly. Too slowly.
“I know.”
“I just mean he has experience. A lot of it. And you are—”
“Small?” Sophia asked.
Victoria closed her mouth. That word had slipped out sharper than Sophia meant it to.
She hated that word some days. People said small like a compliment, the same way they said sweet or cute, as if it meant something that needed protecting.
Something to handle gently. Her mother said it when Sophia carried heavy groceries.
Her aunt said it when Sophia ordered coffee instead of dessert.
Teachers had said it when her parents divorced and everyone in the school office talked to her like she might break if someone used a normal voice.
Even nice people did it. Especially nice people.
Victoria looked guilty. “I was going to say careful.”
Sophia let out a breath. Careful was true. Careful was safer than small.
“I know what you mean,” Sophia said.
“I don’t think you’re weak.”
“I know.”
“I think Vinny is a lot.”
That, unfortunately, was also true. Sophia looked toward the kitchen again. Vinny caught her looking through the pass. He smiled, not his full grin, but a smaller one that felt like it was only for her. Her stomach flipped so hard she almost dropped the napkin.
Victoria saw it. “Oh, this is bad.”
Sophia faced forward. “Nothing happened.”
“Stop saying that. It keeps sounding less true.”
Sophia had no answer. Because Victoria was right. Nothing had happened, but Sophia knew the room had changed anyway. In the kitchen, Vinny burned his thumb on a sheet pan because he was too busy watching Sophia pretend not to watch him.
“Damn it,” he hissed.
Gia looked over. “You all right, Romeo?”
He stuck his thumb under cold water at the sink. “Don’t call me that.”
“Oh, my mistake. Walk-In Casanova.”
“Gia.”
“What? You prefer Cooler Prince?”
Vinny shot her a look.
She leaned against the prep table, completely unbothered. “I have more.”
“I’m begging you to have fewer.”
“Never.”
Antonia walked past with a stack of clean plates. “Vinny, stop sulking near my prep station.”
“I burned my thumb.”
“I know what I said.”
Gia laughed. Vinny turned off the water and grabbed a towel.
He wanted to look toward the dining room again, but he managed not to and counted that as a tiny, embarrassing victory, even though his thumb stung and his chest felt worse because he had almost kissed Sophia.
She was not some girl from a bar or someone who knew how this worked, not someone who would laugh, kiss him back, and make it easy to pretend it was nothing by morning.
Sophia Rossi, who looked at hot plates like they had personally offended her, who corrected his grammar only when she forgot to be shy, who smiled at Victoria like the whole room got less sharp for a second.
Sophia, who had said yes. His brain kept getting stuck there.
She had said yes. Quiet. Nervous. Brave.
Then Gia came in, and the whole thing became a kitchen event. Maybe that worked.
Maybe he would have messed it up. The thought bothered him more than he wanted to admit.
Vinny was skilled at flirting. He knew that.
Flirting was easy: smile, joke, make someone feel pretty for a second, and let them decide whether to smile back.
Sophia wasn’t easy. Not because she played games.
Because she didn’t. She either meant something or she shut down.
No extra performance, no fake confidence, and no trying to impress him.
If anything, she tried to disappear half the time, which made him notice her more.
He had noticed her the first day. He could still see it.
Sophia near the bar with her notebook clutched to her chest. Victoria beside her, already watching the room like she was ready to block anyone who got too close.
Sophia’s hair loose and wavy over one shoulder.
Her eyes too wide as she watched the kitchen move. She looked tiny.
That was his first thought. Then he watched her thank Antonia for explaining the table map, and his second thought was kind.
It wasn’t fake or customer-service kind.
She listened all the way to the end before answering.
Then Victoria said something under her breath, and Sophia laughed.
A quick, brief laugh, like she hadn’t meant to give it away.
Vinny had wanted to hear it again immediately.
Which was weird. He had heard plenty of women laugh.
He liked making people laugh. But Sophia’s laugh made his chest do something stupid.
So he leaned through the pass and opened his mouth.
Because that was what Vinny did when something got under his skin.
He talked. For months, that worked. Teach, jokes, little comments, tiny smiles, and one real laugh here and there.
Then tonight, inside the walk-in, his mouth had finally stopped being useful.
He had almost kissed her instead.
“Hey.” Gia snapped her fingers near his face. “You still in there?”
Vinny blinked. “What?”
“Antonia asked for parsley.”
“I’m getting it.”
“You were staring at the sink.”
“That doesn’t even make sense.”
“It made sense to me.”
“No, it didn’t.”
Gia pointed at him. “Don’t argue with me when you just got caught trying to kiss the shyest person in the building next to the mascarpone.”
Vinny glanced toward Antonia. She was at the stove, but he knew she heard. Antonia always heard.
Vinny lowered his voice. “I wasn’t trying to mess with her.”
Gia’s teasing faded a little. “I know.”
That made him look at her.
Gia shrugged. “If I thought you were messing with her, I would have hit you with the clipboard.”
“Comforting.”
“I’m comforting.”
“You are absolutely not.”
“Rude.”
He huffed a laugh despite himself.
Gia pointed toward the dining room with her chin. “Just be careful.”
That word again. Everyone kept using it around Sophia, careful. Part of him hated it. Part of him understood.
“I am,” he said.
Gia’s eyes narrowed. “No. You’re trying. Different thing.”
Vinny had no joke ready for that. So he got the parsley.
Service dragged on forever. Sophia stayed busy.
Vinny stayed on his side of the pass. Victoria kept appearing between them like a tall, attractive security gate.
Gia looked delighted every time it happened.
Antonia watched Vinny like she had already scheduled the conversation.
By closing, Vinny had chopped parsley, plated pasta, burned one thumb, over-salted nothing, and looked at Sophia only twenty-seven times, probably.
Maybe more. He was wiping down his station when Sophia came into the kitchen with a stack of clean ramekins.
Victoria wasn’t with her. Gia was at the bar.
Antonia was in the office. For the first time since the cooler, they were alone for more than half a second.
Sophia stopped when she saw him. So did he. Brilliant. Real smooth.
“Hi,” he said.
Hi? He deserved to have his own mouth fired.
Sophia hugged the ramekins closer. “Hi.”
“You all right?”
She nodded. Too fast.
“Yeah. I’m fine.”
“You sure?”
She looked down at the ramekins. “I said I was.”
That wasn’t rude. It wasn’t exactly soft either.
Vinny set his towel down. “Right. Sorry.”
Her face changed. Not much. Enough that he saw she hadn’t expected him to back off so fast. Maybe that worked. Maybe that was sad. Maybe both.
Sophia shifted the ramekins in her arms. “I’m not mad.”
“All right.”
“I’m embarrassed.”
“Yeah.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “Same.”
She looked up. A little surprise moved across her face.
“What?” he asked.
“You don’t usually get embarrassed.”
“I hide it under talent.”
Her mouth twitched. Victory. Slight one. He took it.
Then she looked away again. “Gia is never going to let this go.”
“No. We should accept that now.”
“She said walk-in incident.”
“I got Walk-In Casanova.”
Sophia blinked. Then laughed. Not big or loud.
But real. The sound hit him right in the chest. The first thing he had wanted from her months ago.
The thing he still wanted. Only now, it didn’t feel like winning.
He heard her laugh and went still. His joke died on his tongue.
Sophia stopped laughing when she saw his face.
“What?”
He shook his head. “Nothing.”