Chapter -2 #2
I restart the grinder and feed the meat through more carefully this time, watching the ground pork spiral into the waiting bowl.
The fat content is perfect. The seasoning is already prepped.
By noon I'll have two hundred pounds of breakfast sausage ready for my restaurant clients, and by tonight I'll have forgotten about the way Quinn Hayes looked standing in my freezer with fury in her eyes and sugar on her cheek.
Probably.
The morning progresses in its usual rhythm.
I finish the grind, portion the sausage, update my inventory spreadsheet, and start prepping for the afternoon's custom orders.
A regular client wants crown roast of pork for a dinner party.
Another needs duck breast, scored and ready to pan-sear.
I lose myself in the familiar motions, in the meditation of skilled work, and almost manage to stop checking the clock every fifteen minutes.
Almost.
At eight thirty, my phone buzzes. Unknown number. I wipe my hands on my apron and answer.
"Lanek's Butcher Shop."
Silence. Then, in a voice that drips with enough sugary venom to kill a lesser man: "What exactly is this?"
My pulse kicks. I lean against the steel prep table, suddenly grateful for the support. "Quinn."
"Don't 'Quinn' me. What is this?"
I could play dumb. Probably should. Instead, I find myself smiling at the walk-in door. "Did you get my gift?"
"Your—" She makes a sound somewhere between a laugh and a strangled gasp. "Your gift. You left a bloody steak on my welcome mat."
"Dry-aged tomahawk ribeye. Forty-five days. Prime grade."
"I don’t mind if it's blessed by the culinary gods themselves! You can't just leave raw meat on people's doorsteps!"
"It's wrapped properly. Food-safe paper. The bone is cleaned. It won't contaminate anything."
"That's not—" Another one of those strangled sounds. "That's not the point!"
I shift the phone to my other ear, warmth spreading through my chest. She's magnificent when she's angry. "What is the point?"
"The point is that normal people apologize with words! Or flowers! Or a fruit basket! Not with... with..."
"Premium cuts of beef?"
"Yes!"
"Noted." I'm fully grinning now, though she can't see it. "For future reference, you prefer flowers."
"There's not going to be a future reference because you're going to take this ridiculous slab of meat back and we're going to pretend this never happened."
"Can't do that."
"Why not?"
"Because you deserve an apology that matches the damage I caused. You spent six hours on that cake. I spent forty-five days on that steak. Seems fair."
The silence that follows is so complete I briefly wonder if she hung up. Then, in a voice that's lost some of its sharp edge: "You aged it for forty-five days?"
"Optimal flavor development. The enzymes break down the muscle fiber, concentrating the taste while tenderizing the texture. That particular cut would run you about ninety dollars at a high-end steakhouse, and they'd still overcook it."
"I'm a baker. I don't cook steaks."
"I could show you."
The words escape before I can help them, and the silence that follows makes my jaw clench. Too far. Too fast. I'm pushing into territory I have no business exploring with a woman who's currently furious with me.
"You," Quinn says slowly, "want to teach me how to cook the apology steak you left on my doorstep."
"If you want."
"After you destroyed my wedding cake with your bone saw. The one I spent hours constructing. The one that was supposed to feature hand-piped buttercream roses and a three-tier vanilla bean sponge with raspberry preserve filling."
"Accidentally."
"Right. Accidentally." She laughs, and it's not a friendly sound at all. It's sharp and brittle, like spun sugar cracking under pressure. "You're insane. Completely, utterly insane."
"Probably."
"I should report you for health code violations."
The threat doesn't land the way she likely intends it to. I shift my weight against the prep table, still fighting that grin that wants to split my face in half. "My permits are current. The inspector was here last week. Gave me top marks for cleanliness and proper temperature control."
"Of course they are." Another pause, longer this time.
I can practically hear her scrambling for ammunition, searching for some new angle of attack that might actually penetrate my defenses.
When she speaks again, her voice has taken on a different quality, something almost tentative beneath the lingering irritation. "What if I'm vegetarian?"
The question catches me off-guard, and genuine concern tightens my chest. "Are you?"
"No, but I could be!"
"But you're not."
"That's not the point!"
I'm definitely grinning now, leaning fully against the prep table like it's the only thing keeping me upright. "What is the point, Quinn?"
"The point is—" She stops. Takes an audible breath. "The point is you can't just... do things like this. We're neighbors. We have to coexist professionally. There are boundaries."
"I overstepped," I say finally, because even I can recognize when I've pushed too far, when enthusiasm has trampled over common sense and basic neighborly decorum.
"Massively," she confirms, and there's a grim satisfaction in her voice, like she's been waiting for this admission since the conversation started.
I drag a hand over my jaw, feeling the rasp of stubble against my palm. "I apologize."
There's a beat of silence, and then her voice comes back sharper than before, disbelief coloring every syllable. "By leaving meat at my doorstep."
"Yes," I say simply, because what else is there to say? In my mind, the logic remains sound even if the execution was flawed. The steak was a peace offering, a gesture of goodwill. That she sees it as anything else is a fundamental disconnect I'm not sure how to bridge.
She makes that strangled laugh-gasp sound again, and despite the phone line between us, despite the absurdity of this entire conversation, it shifts and settles. Something that recognizes this—the back and forth, the challenge, the complete refusal to back down—as what I've been missing.
"I have to go," Quinn says finally. "I have a bakery to run and a wedding cake to finish."
"Keep the steak."
"Lanek—"
"Please."
The word hangs between us, more genuine than anything I've said so far. I don't beg. I don't plead. But something about the thought of her refusing this, of throwing away forty-five days of careful aging because I pushed too hard, sits wrong in my gut.
"Fine," she says, and I can hear the surrender in her voice even as she tries to sound annoyed. "But this doesn't mean we're friends."
"Understood."
"And you're still a menace with terrible timing."
"Noted."
"And if you wake me up with that bone saw again, I'm filling your shop with glitter and frosting."
The threat should probably concern me more than it does. Instead, I'm picturing Quinn Hayes armed with industrial quantities of craft supplies, and the image is possibly more terrifying than it should be.
"I'll be more careful."
"You better be."
She hangs up without saying goodbye, and I'm left standing in my butcher shop, holding a phone and grinning like a fool at nothing in particular.
Worth it.
Completely, entirely worth it.