Chapter 22
Hunger & Heartbreak
After scorching the first batch of rice and a brief crisis of confidence, the paella is perfect.
Golden crust on the bottom, lobster tails curled on top, fresh Dungeness crab legs nestled among blistered cherry tomatoes and sweet peas. I’ve been chopping, stirring, and whispering spells into this pan all afternoon. Cooking has always been how I process heartbreak. And tonight, I’m doing it for Kiki to help her take back a dish that once symbolized the night she fell for Mel in Madrid.
“I want to let go of my love for Mel but not my love for paella,” she confessed.
The garden glows like a scene from the movie Amélie, if Amélie had grown up watching Queer Eye and subscribed to Magnolia magazine. Kiki fell in love with it the moment I showed it to her. She admired the blooming peonies I coaxed into existence, the bright orange nasturtiums spilling over the raised beds, and the citrus trees in the l’orangerie finally bouncing back with fragrant blossoms. She has twisted lemon balm into the napkin rings for our dinner tonight and arranged dogwood branches in a piece of driftwood for a centerpiece.
She’s healing the only way she knows how, by making beauty out of whatever hurts.
I know the feeling.
Except tonight, something is different.
Maybe it’s the way my hands shook a little while I sliced the chorizo at the thought of being near Gavin again. Or how I couldn’t stop remembering Gavin’s breath on my neck in that tiny closet, or the joy on his face when he was playing guitar.
I try to distract myself by thinking about microgreens and plating style, about anything but him, which works until he arrives.
Hair damp from a swim in the Sound, shirtsleeves rolled up to expose his forearms, carrying flowers and a warm loaf of hearth bread from Brown Bear Baking around the corner because he knows it’s my favorite.
Gavin moves through the garden like he belongs to it—like he belongs to this moment—and I hate the way my heart reacts before my head does. The way my pulse stumbles like it forgot its rhythm.
“This is really becoming a habit with you,” he says, glancing at the table as I slide the paella pan onto a trivet.
“What’s that?”
“Making dinners that look like something out of the pages of Bon Appétit for people experiencing heartache.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment,” I say.
“Good. Because it was one.”
Kiki slides in beside him, with a kiss on his cheek. “Hey, stranger. I’ve been hearing things.”
He grins at her. “And yet you came anyway.”
“Curiosity,” she says, then gestures to the paella. “And crustaceans.”
Olivia arrives overdressed in wide-legged linen trousers and a cream silk blouse that gleams under the string lights. Her gold earrings catch the last rays of the sun. She pauses just long enough to clock Kiki’s outfit: patterned culottes, rhinestone collar, satin bomber with ABSOLUTELY NOT embroidered across the back. Her face stays neutral, but the judgment might as well be a full monologue.
“Well,” she says, taking in the garden. “Someone’s been busy. This is... quaint.”
Kiki extends a hand. “You must be Olivia. I’d call it ‘intentional minimalism with vintage undertones,’ but sure, quaint works.”
I clear my throat. “Just a little paella.”
Then the gate creaks and we all turn.
Quinn enters like he’s dressed for date night on the French Riviera. Tousled hair, Chopard vintage shades, white linen shirt sleeves rolled to reveal corded forearms, tan and tattooed, and carrying a bottle of $500 Barolo like it’s a liter of Dr. Pepper.
He surveys the scene as he approaches, pausing on Kiki as she lights a candle, the rhinestones on her collar reflecting every bit of light.
He turns to Gavin: “Who’s the genderfluid disco ball?”
Kiki straightens. “The disco ball has ears. And a name. I’m Kiki.”
“She’s tonight’s guest of honor,” Gavin says.
Quinn’s expression shifts, less amused, more attentive. “Do you always dress like that?”
“Only on days that end in ‘why not,’” Kiki replies.
Gavin’s lips turn up, amused, as Kiki walks up to them.
“Chalk, meet Cheese,” Gavin says. “Kiki, this is Quinn.”
“You look like a walking art installation,” Quinn says.
Kiki stares at him. I can’t tell if she’s about to kiss him or kick him.
“Thank you. And you look like you could convince people to buy coastal real estate in the South of France or jump off a yacht naked.”
Olivia bristles, but Quinn laughs, genuinely, then turns to me as I lay grilled asparagus on the table. “And Ava, you’re just as beautiful with clothes on.”
My cheeks redden, and Gavin tenses next to me.
The scent of saffron, grilled lemon, and woodsmoke hangs in the air. Wine flows, candles flicker, and everything feels suspended in that golden hour between beginnings and endings.
Quinn takes one bite and makes a sound that borders on indecent. “I had a paella in Barcelona once that was so good it made me cry,” he says. “But this beats it. And I was sleeping with the chef of that one.”
Gavin nods. “This is the kind of food people think about when they’re old. Like—‘remember that paella we had on Orcas Island?’”
They’re all looking at me like I’ve conjured something. Like I’ve turned grief into gold.
I turn to Kiki, the guest of honor, for her reaction.
“Mel who?” Kiki says it like a joke, but I hear the truth in it—she wanted to keep the paella, not the pain. Mission accomplished.
Even Olivia is smiling. “Seriously, Ava. You’ve outdone yourself. At this rate, you’ll have proposals before dessert.”
Kiki leans in, syrupy sweet. “Isn’t that the saying? The way to a man’s heart is through his stomach. Or maybe it’s through his ego. Depends on the cutlery.”
Quinn nearly chokes on his wine. Gavin laughs out loud.
Olivia’s laugh carries across the garden—light, unselfconscious. I watch her with something like envy, but not the bitter kind. I am seeing what Gavin sees in her.
Quinn is a natural storyteller. He recalls a summer spent pressing olive oil as a teenager, before realizing he was working for the Italian Mafia and being adopted by a Sicilian vineyard family whose daughter he fell in love with. I can sense Kiki resisting the urge to roll her eyes until she’s halfway through her second glass of wine.
Then she leans toward me and murmurs, “Oh man. If I hadn’t given up sex.”
Quinn sputters. “Sorry—what?”
Kiki shrugs, serene. “I did.”
He looks vaguely panicked. “You gave up sex?”
Kiki points her fork at him. “I know. Hard to understand for someone whose pheromones arrive anywhere five minutes before he does.”
The table bursts into laughter.
Everyone but Olivia ladles seconds onto their plates, and when we’re done with the paella, I serve the nasturtium-topped panacotta I made with rose syrup and pistachios.
As the plates empty, Gavin leans back full and satisfied, “I know people who would pay a lot of money for this.”
“This definitely feels like it could be the start of something amazing,” Kiki adds.
“Healing people’s heartbreak through food. You did it for Isabel. You did it for Kiki tonight,” adds Gavin.
“Pop-up dinners by Ava,” Kiki says with excitement.
I feel the possibility unfurling in me like a bloom. A pop-up dinner garden.
“I event plan, you cook,” she adds. “We get Patricia to do florals.”
“The woman does have opinions about peonies the way most people have opinions about politics,” I laugh.
Gavin nods. “Isabel mentioned she’s ready to give up her lease.”
Olivia turns to Gavin, her smile strained. “What would Ava do with a café on Orcas Island?”
“Cook,” Gavin says. “Cure heartache.”
“Yeah, and apparently it’s easy to find a place to rent here, so long as you’re cool with living in someone’s converted tool shed for three grand a month,” I say.
“There’s a soon-to-be vacant apartment above Isabel’s café,” he replies. “You could live upstairs and cook downstairs.”
Kiki clasps her hands like she’s found religion. “Twenty-four-hour espresso access.”
“It sounds too perfect.”
“Then let’s make it real,” Kiki says.
Quinn holds his glass up. “To Ava not leaving us.”
Something flickers in Gavin’s jaw, a small shift, but enough that I notice.
And then I realize: Olivia hasn’t spoken in almost a full minute. Her glass is half-raised, her gaze steady on the rim, like she’s trying not to drop it.
The realization comes over me slowly, like surf dragging over sand: she doesn’t like this. Not the flirting. Not me glowing under the attention of two men she’s known longer, better.
Kiki sees it too and gives me the faintest warning glance.
As we finish the last of the wine and the dessert, the garden becomes quiet, until Olivia says, “Ava, that was amazing. I’d stay longer, but I have to pack for an early flight tomorrow. Would you like some help cleaning up before I head back to the house?”
“No worries, O, Gavin and I are on dish duty,” Quinn responds.
Kiki and Quinn grab plates and walk them back toward the café kitchen as I extinguish the candles. Gavin gives Olivia a peck on the cheek, then watches her go.
“She’s... really likable,” I mutter, surprised.
“She is,” Gavin says softly.
I don’t look at him, but I feel it—the gravity between us. The kind you pretend isn’t real because admitting it would make it impossible to ignore.
“You okay?” he asks, voice low, unreadable.
“Totally,” I say, too quickly. “This is peak normal. Just me, on a remote island, talking to my ex’s brother who is engaged to a literal swan.”
He almost smiles. Almost.
He disappears into the café kitchen with the wineglasses, and I trail after him with the bottles, suddenly very aware of the sound of my own footsteps on the gravel path.
As Quinn passes, he murmurs, “I think Dad may be sore with me,” like it’s gossip we’ll circle back to but never do.
Inside, the kitchen is warm from the oven’s residual heat. Gavin’s already at the sink, sleeves rolled, methodically rinsing glasses.
I take the towel from the hook, step beside him, and we fall into a rhythm that feels rehearsed, even though we’ve never done this before. When he passes me a glass, our fingers graze. It’s the softest touch—barely there—but it sets off a flutter behind my ribs, like something winged trying to escape. He goes still. Not dramatically. Just enough for me to know it wasn’t nothing.
The house is hushed, thick with the kind of quiet that only settles when everyone’s gone to bed or is pretending to. I pad into the kitchen for water but pause when I catch voices drifting from the living room. Gavin. And Quinn.
“She’s getting over a relationship with my brother. She’s off-limits,” I hear Gavin say.
“C’mon, mate. You can’t have all the beautiful women to yourself,” Quinn replies.
And then Gavin’s quiet response: “To be fair, Quinn, you had Olivia first.”