4. Hell’s Kitchen
Chapter 4
Hell’s Kitchen
Liam
I stared at the quarterly profit and loss statement on my laptop, but the numbers kept swimming together. Usually, I loved numbers and finding ways to make money, but something about these numbers always made me want to scream into the void.
It didn’t help that my mind kept drifting back to the lesson I’d taught earlier, and specifically to a certain student with an uncanny ability to make me laugh. She’d been cute in her little snowboarding outfit with her brown hair flowing out from under her helmet.
I rubbed my temples, needing to focus. The late afternoon sun streaming through my office window was mocking me, perfect powder conditions going to waste while I was stuck inside doing... whatever the hell this was supposed to be. I should have been shredding fresh lines down the black diamond and chasing that perfect rush.
Instead? I was chasing depreciation values and occupancy rates.
The framed photo on my desk caught my eye—four grinning idiots, arms slung around each other’s shoulders like we’d take on the world together. Gavin was in the middle, that infectious smile lighting up his whole face. God, when was the last time I’d seen him?
After our falling out senior year of college, here we were, stuck with his resort because of some twisted posthumous attempt to... what? Force us to be friends again? Fix what broke between us?
“Special delivery!” Evan’s voice cut through my brooding as he burst into my office, waving a stack of papers. “Customer feedback forms, hot off the presses!”
“Joy.” I didn’t bother hiding my lack of enthusiasm. “Don’t we have an online system for that?”
“Some people are old school.” He dropped into the chair across from my desk, spreading the forms out like he was dealing cards. “Oh, this one’s about you. ‘Instructor was cold and unprofessional. Seemed annoyed to be teaching beginners.’” He clicked his tongue. “Tsk tsk, Liam.”
“If you’re here to—” I started, but he cut me off, waving another form.
“Wait, wait! Here’s another one: ‘Best lesson ever! Liam managed to turn what could have been a terrifying experience into something empowering. Like life itself, snowboarding teaches us to look forward, not down… except when avoiding presents from furry friends, which is also an important life skill.’” Evan’s grin widened. “Signed, Tessa Callahan.”
I fought the smile tugging at my lips but lost. Her ridiculous metaphors were just as entertaining on paper.
“Well, well, well.” Evan leaned forward. “What’s this? Is our resident grump softening?”
“Shut up, and we both know that Archer wears that crown.” Although, I had to admit that at times, I gave him a run for his money.
“No, no, this is fascinating! Did she warm your frozen heart with her?—”
“Who’s warming what now?” Archer appeared in the doorway, immaculate as always in his designer suit. Because apparently, courtroom attire is appropriate for a mountain resort.
“Liam’s got a crush on?—”
“I do not have a crush,” I cut Evan off, probably too quickly judging by his shit-eating grin. “She’s a guest. And a student. And recently dumped, apparently.”
“Ah, the plot thickens!” Evan clutched the feedback form to his chest dramatically.
“Don’t you two have actual work to do?” I growled, turning back to my laptop. “Like, oh I don’t know, running this disaster?”
“Says the man who spent his morning teaching beginners instead of reviewing the maintenance budget.” Archer came in and shut the door. “We have had an alarming rate of complaints recently.”
I didn’t have a good response to that because I had volunteered to teach those lessons, needing a change of pace. “Most of the complaints are because of your changes.”
Archer sat down in the other chair across from my desk. “If you’re referring to the shuttle service, you know damn well that it was bleeding money. This is California, not Switzerland. People can drive cars in the snow, and if they can’t, they shouldn’t be visiting here when it snows.”
I wanted to scream because we’d been over accessibility for people from non-snow places at least once a week. “The shuttle service is an added perk of staying here. If we’d invested in?—”
“We can’t agree on what to invest in,” Archer cut me off, his lawyer voice in full effect. “The occupancy rates are declining, the reviews are getting worse by the day, and?—”
“People don’t want to stay in rooms that look like a tween decorated them.” I thought of Evan’s changes to the four honeymoon suites.
“The room designs are... unique,” Evan admitted, “but they have character!”
“Character?” Archer’s eyebrows shot up. “Is that what we’re calling those heart-shaped beds now?”
“At least the bathtubs have running water.” I knew that someone was bound to bring up my failed attempt at cleaning the jets, which led to them no longer working. We should have just paid a professional. “At least the restaurant still serves edible food.”
Was it the five-star dining experience previous guests had raved about in their glowing reviews? Not even close. The current situation was more like a college cafeteria during finals week—chaotic, unpredictable, and likely to give you regrets later. I should know; I’d made the mistake of trying the “catch of the day” for lunch, which tasted like frozen fish sticks. It was yet another horrible budgetary decision that didn’t even need to be made.
The resort was doing well and made plenty of profit. Somehow Evan and I had let Archer steamroll us into agreeing with cutting costs. If I cared more, I would have fought him tooth and nail.
“Don’t even get me started on that disaster,” Archer growled. “The food costs alone?—”
“Hey, hey!” Evan stood up, arms spread wide like he was directing traffic. “Let’s look at the bright side. At least we still have...” He trailed off, clearly struggling to find something positive.
“Snow?” I offered dryly.
A knock at the door saved Evan from having to come up with actual bright sides. Jenny, one of our waitresses, poked her head in, looking like she’d rather be anywhere else.
“Um, we have a situation...” She twisted her apron in her hands. “Marcus quit. And he took Katie and Steve with him.”
“Marcus the cook?” Archer was on his feet instantly. “What do you mean he quit?”
“His exact words were, ‘I’d rather flip burgers at McDonald’s than deal with this three-ring circus.’” Jenny winced. “That kind of started a chain reaction in the kitchen. Dinner service starts in...” She checked her watch. “Thirty minutes.”
“Perfect.” I slumped back in my chair because Marcus, Katie, and Steve were the entirety of our current kitchen staff for lunch and dinner. “Just perfect.”
“We could order pizzas?” Evan suggested brightly. “I know this great place in town that?—”
“This isn’t a college dorm party, Evan!” Archer snapped. “We can’t serve delivery pizza to guests!”
Evan, for once, looked defeated. “Well, what’s your suggestion then? Because unless you’ve been hiding some culinary skills under that suit?—”
“We’ll handle it.” I stood up, the familiar resignation settling over me like a heavy coat. “We’ve been rotating the breakfast shift anyway, right? Dinner can’t be that different.”
“Breakfast is easy!” Archer looked at me like I’d suggested we all go skydiving without parachutes. “Dinner is actual cooking!”
“Good thing I know how to cook.” I said it with a confidence I didn’t feel. If I manifested it hard enough, it would be true, right? That’s what all those self-help books claimed, though they probably hadn’t anticipated their methods being used to fake culinary expertise in the middle of a crisis.
I’d watched Hell’s Kitchen a time or two. How hard could it be?
I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. Of course, tonight’s menu couldn’t have been something simple like burgers or pasta. Instead, it was pan-seared salmon with lemon-dill sauce, braised short ribs with red wine reduction, and butternut squash ravioli with sage brown butter sauce.
I wiped sweat from my forehead with my sleeve, wondering how professional chefs did this every night without losing their minds. The kitchen looked like a war zone—if wars were fought with pots, pans, and various sauces that had somehow ended up on the ceiling.
“Is butter supposed to be black?” Evan called from his station, holding up a pan of what looked like tar. I could smell the burnt dairy from here, and it wasn’t the nutty, toasted aroma we were going for. “Because I think I might have overshot brown by... a lot.”
“Throw it out and start over,” Archer snapped, his perfectionist tendencies on full display as he arranged each element of the salmon with surgical precision. The fish looked decent—a small miracle considering our collective culinary expertise consisted mainly of takeout orders and microwave dinners. Thank God Marcus had prepped most of the proteins before his dramatic exit. “And try not to set anything on fire this time.”
“That was one time!” Evan protested, gesturing wildly with his scorched pan. I ducked instinctively, having learned the hard way about his enthusiasm in confined spaces. “And technically, flambé means it’s supposed to flame up.” Leave it to Evan to try and spin nearly burning down our kitchen into a planned culinary achievement. If we survived this dinner service without the fire department showing up, I’d consider it a win.
“Not when you’re making a salad!” I shot back, abandoning my post at the stove to rescue what remained of our innocent lettuce from Evan’s pyrotechnic tendencies.
The ravioli demanded my attention too. Who knew pasta could go from perfect to paste in approximately three seconds? I’d spent years analyzing complex financial data, but timing al dente pasta was apparently beyond my skill set. At least in finance, nothing ever literally melted into mush while you watched helplessly.
The night continued in a blur of Jenny running interference, Archer micromanaging everything within reach, and Evan... being Evan. But after three hours of hard work, we’d somehow managed to get food out to every table, though I wasn’t entirely sure all of it was what they’d ordered.
“Last table is finished.” Jenny poked her head through the door, her usually cheerful expression looking decidedly nervous. “But, um, there’s a guest who’d like to speak with you.” The way she lingered in the doorway, shifting from foot to foot, told me this wasn’t going to be one of those ‘compliments to the chef’ situations.
“They’ll have to wait.” I couldn’t deal with any disgruntled guests at the moment. Something about an angry diner critiquing food I’d helped massacre felt infinitely personal. Besides, my current state—sauce-splattered shirt, disheveled hair, and what I strongly suspected was butternut squash on my left shoe—wasn’t exactly the professional image I wanted to project.
Archer and Evan didn’t fare much better. We were a case study in how not to run a professional kitchen. An investment banker, an attorney, and a marketing guru should not be running a kitchen… or a resort.
Was this really what Gavin had wanted? Once upon a time, when we were young and stupid, we’d had grand plans of opening a resort together with Gavin in hopes of it turning into more. Those plans quickly fell apart, and we went our separate ways.
I still didn’t quite know what to make of the situation we were in. There had been very little explanation when Gavin’s lawyer had called each of us with the news that he’d left us the resort he’d renovated and made into the dream we’d all once had.
Of course, now it wasn’t any of our dreams to be stuck floundering with a multi-million dollar resort we couldn’t sell for one year and nine months. But who was counting?
Jenny disappeared again, leaving us to tackle the disaster zone that used to be our kitchen. An hour and several creative curse words later, we’d managed to restore some semblance of order.
“Never again,” Archer declared, hanging up his borrowed apron. The once-pristine white fabric now looked like modern art gone wrong. “First thing tomorrow, we’re calling every temp agency in a hundred-mile radius.”
“Agreed.” I followed him out of the kitchen, my muscles aching in places I didn’t know existed. Who knew cooking could be more exhausting than my most intense workout sessions?
Evan trailed behind us, still arguing that his black butter sauce wasn’t that bad. I was sure that the Titanic wasn’t that big of a navigation error either.
The dining room was empty except for... oh no.
Tessa sat at a corner table, completely absorbed in a book, one hand absently twirling a strand of hair. The soft lighting above her caught the hints of gold in her brown waves, and I stared longer than necessary.
She was like finding a rare bird in its natural habitat or catching the perfect sunset. Seeing her almost made me forget about the trauma I’d collected in the kitchen and apparently had turned me into a simpering romantic poet. Which was ridiculous because I had a strict ‘no distractions’ policy when it came to resort business. And Tessa? She was definitely a distraction.
Tessa had noticed us and was putting her book away. “Hi.” She stood up with an amused smile. “Interesting dinner service tonight.”
Archer yanked his tie out of his shirt where he’d tucked it for safekeeping, the expensive silk now sporting what looked suspiciously like a splash of butter despite his efforts to protect it. “We apologize. We had a slight staffing issue.” Slight was an understatement.
“I noticed.” Her eyes danced with barely contained laughter, and something about that sparkle made me want to explain exactly how three successful professionals had managed to turn a perfectly good kitchen into what looked like a Food Network blooper reel. “The salmon was... creative. I especially enjoyed the, um, artistic plating.”
“That was mine.” Evan proudly puffed up his chest like he’d closed a million-dollar marketing deal instead of mutilating perfectly good seafood. “I call it ‘Deconstructed Chaos.’” Coming from the guy who once tried to convince us that serving cereal for dinner in college was avant-garde cuisine, I shouldn’t have been surprised. Some things never changed, even after a decade of supposedly becoming responsible adults.
“I heard about your chef situation, and well... I might be able to help. I’m a trained chef; I mostly do personal clientele and parties now.” She waved her hand vaguely. “Anyway, if you need someone to get you through until you find a permanent replacement...”
“You’re a chef?” Archer asked, skepticism dripping from every word. He probably thought this was too convenient to be true. I’d seen that same dubious expression when I’d tried to convince him that skydiving was perfectly safe back in college.
Tessa’s chin lifted slightly, and there was a glint in her eye that suggested she’d faced down doubters before. “Would you like me to prove it?” The challenge in her voice reminded me of a boxer stepping into the ring, ready to show exactly what she was made of.
“Hell yes, I’m starving.” Evan rubbed his stomach with both hands like an overgrown kid. “I’d eat anything that isn’t covered in that black sauce I made.”
Tessa frowned, her nose crinkling slightly as she glanced between us. “You didn’t cook yourselves dinner?” She sounded like she’d discovered I’d been surviving on takeout for three months straight.
Archer cleared his throat. “It’s a liability issue to have a guest in the kitchen. Thank you for the offer, though.” He gestured toward the exit with a sweep of his hand.
I wanted to argue that he couldn’t make a unilateral decision without consulting us, but he’d been doing it for the past few months anyway. Plus, he was probably right. Tessa was a guest, and even without potential legal issues, she was here to enjoy her vacation.
“Oh, okay.” Tessa gave us a tight smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes. “Well, have a good night.”
She gave us a half-hearted wave before walking out, her shoulders slightly slumped in a way that made me want to call her back. Watching her leave felt like we were making a terrible decision.
I caught myself taking a step forward before forcing myself to stay put. No distractions. Even if the distraction happened to be a professional chef who could potentially save us.