Chapter Thirty-Eight. Luna
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Luna
Considering I’ve never even turned on my own oven, I don’t know what made me think I was prepared to help out in Riley’s kitchen.
But she stepped out of her comfort zone to support me, so now it’s time for me to do the same.
I throw an apron over my dress and Riley assigns me what she swears is the easiest job: shelling lobsters.
“Just crack the claws, remove the meat from the claw and arm, then snap the back, and remove the tail. Clean off the guts and poop, and then put it in the meat bowl so I can season it for the pasta.”
I reach for the lobster, ready to try my hand at it, when I hear the most horrible noise from behind me. I turn and I’m looking at a giant tank. “Oh fuck. Are they screaming?”
“What?” Riley asks, distracted as she looks at the orders that just came in. She doesn’t even notice it.
“It’s just the air leaving the shells,” her dad Anthony says quickly. “Lobsters don’t have vocal cords.”
“Oh, okay…” I say, unconvinced. I wash my hands and pick up a freshly steamed lobster, then try to repeat what I just saw Riley do.
It’s about a million times harder than she made it look.
I can barely get the claw to crack, and even with the little stick tool she gave me, I’m basically shredding the meat as I pull it out.
“Try to keep it intact for presentation,” Riley says. She demonstrates on the other claw, but she does it so quickly that it’s hard to even tell what her technique is.
I crack the body in half next, and when I pull the tail away, the strands of meat sticking out of it are covered with the greenish guts she said are called the tomalley.
I start to get it off with the tap Riley pointed out to me, which brings strained ocean water into the sink.
She said they like to boil and wash them with ocean water to preserve the natural taste and salt.
But as I wash the guts off and pull at the tail to get the poop out, I almost gag.
“You’ll get used to it,” Riley says cheerfully. “You’re doing great.”
Twenty lobsters later, I still don’t know if I’m used to it, but I’m definitely faster.
I feel like I’m coated in a film of sweat and seafood from the hot air in the kitchen, and my apron, dress, and probably my hair have lobster juice and gunk stuck to them.
I had no idea how much work this was. Riley and her dads don’t slow down for a second, rushing to keep up with the constant flow of orders.
As I crack lobsters I sneak glances at Riley as she plates the food, and the care she puts into it is striking. It’s clear she wants every dish to not only taste amazing but look beautiful and be an experience for the guests.
And it’s obvious it’s paying off. Countless customers shower her with effusive praise whenever she steps outside, and while some do take pictures of me through the window, I think most of the people who peek in just want to see Riley working her magic.
Working in the kitchen is disgusting, and I know I look terrible and am not very good at it.
Riley has to step in multiple times to crack lobsters because I’m so slow, and I catch her checking the meat for shells multiple times, but I love supporting her.
Something about it feels more genuine than anything I’ve done in the past, because it’s not about mutually beneficial appearances.
It’s just for her. And I want to spend every day helping her if that’s what it takes to make her dreams come true.
But I think the restaurant will do just fine without my help.
When service is finally done for the night, Riley makes heaping plates of everything for her dads and me and we take them out to the one table that’s still set and sit down to try it.
I eye the lobster pasta skeptically. “It hits different now that I’ve heard them scream as you kill them all night.”
“Once you taste it,” Nick says, “that will be a very distant memory.”
I take a bite and groan as I chew. “Oh my god. I’m in heaven.”
“And you helped make it,” Anthony chimes in. “Now taste the next dish.”
I try everything as they brag about Riley’s amazing cooking, her natural lobster-shelling ability that they note was stronger, even, than mine, how carefully and expertly she developed the menu, how she redid their entire accounting system last summer, and on and on.
Riley tries to get them to stop, but I love every second of it and beg them to keep gushing.
I want to know every detail of what Riley’s life here is like.
And hearing them brag about her feels so normal.
It feels like something my mom would have done, and being surrounded by Riley’s family makes me miss having my own.
When her dads finally take the plates into the kitchen, she turns to me.
“Thank you for coming. I know this is risky for you. There are a million ways people can spin photos all the time, and going to the gayest town on Earth isn’t as palatable to Middle America as posing with me in white dresses while we shop at Saks, but I’m so happy you’re here.
Getting to have you be part of the dinner … it’s a dream.”
“I’m so proud of you,” I say softly. And I am.
I want Riley to be herself, all the publicity be damned.
“Seeing you in the kitchen, commanding everything like that … so hot, oh my god. And the food? You were made to do this. And this restaurant is so perfect. It’s like what you dreamed about when we were in Greece, but even better. ”
She nods and leans over to kiss me. “I know. I love it.”
“I love you,” I whisper between kisses. “So much.”