Chapter 5
One Week Later
Kyla paused at the threshold, shifted her tote higher on her shoulder, and let the clang of cots and the thin edge of crying children sharpen her focus. The high school gym carried the smell of damp wool, industrial coffee, and nerves that never settled.
Wet sneakers slapped across the court as someone rushed past, leaving a streak of muddy water she stepped over without breaking stride. Rain tapped harder against the high windows, a steady buildup that blurred the outside into streaks of gray.
She pressed her tongue to her back teeth and counted through the reasons she was here. She could run a kitchen without thinking. No man, no matter how local or broad through the shoulders, would see her lose control.
Folding tables lined the walls, stacked with donations that leaned toward excess in some places and scarcity in others. Cans of beans, boxes of diapers, trays of cookies wrapped in plastic that had already begun to soften.
The court itself had disappeared beneath cots and borrowed blankets, bodies drawn close together as if proximity alone could keep everything from slipping further.
Tension showed in small movements: a cough pressed into a sleeve, a teenager staring too hard at a dark phone screen, two boys darting between rows until a woman reached out and caught one by the collar without looking.
Kyla kept moving, her boots striking the worn floor with a steady rhythm as she passed a makeshift desk set beneath a trophy case. Someone tried to hand her a clipboard. She declined with a single shake of her head that ended the exchange before it began.
The kitchen pass-through glowed on the far side, fluorescent light cutting through the softer tones of the gym. Through the smeared window above the counter, she caught a flash of a red bandana and a thick forearm working a ladle through a steel vat.
Titus. Of course.
A figure stepped out from near the snack bar, boots heavy, keys shifting with each step. Sheriff Mitchell tipped his chin and lifted two fingers toward the kitchen doors. No explanation, no instructions—just the look that said enough.
Kyla resisted the urge to react. Mitchell’s ideas about pairing people had never been subtle, but the whole town had shown up tonight. She wiped her palms against her jeans, squared her shoulders, and crossed the floor toward the kitchen.
The swing door pushed back with resistance as she drove through it, and the change in temperature struck immediately. Heat pressed in, thick with garlic and spice, the air dense with the work already underway.
For a second, Titus didn’t look up. His sleeves were rolled to the elbow, forearms streaked, wrist flexing as he stirred a pot large enough to feed most of the gym.
His posture gave away more than his expression did. Back straight. Jaw tight. Movement steady, though the fatigue at the edges of it showed if she let herself look long enough.
She didn’t.
Kyla set her bag down on a crate of potatoes, found an apron that passed for clean, and tied it at her waist with quick, practiced movements. She stepped into the space without waiting to be acknowledged, reached for a knife, and pulled an onion from the nearest bin.
“You got a plan, Brooks,” she said, setting the blade to the board, “or are you hoping brute strength solves dinner?”
Titus didn’t stop stirring. “Didn’t know you preferred it thin.”
She cut through the onion with clean, even strokes. “Didn’t know you could taste anything with that sense of humor.”
The exchange settled into place as if it had been waiting for them.
The radio near the sink pushed out a low country song that no one listened to closely.
Kyla moved into the prep rhythm, sliding skins aside, keeping her hands busy and her focus locked where it belonged.
Even so, she tracked him without meaning to: the shift of his stance, the way his grip changed on the spoon, the quiet tap of his boot against the floor.
The kitchen held the heat while rain struck the gym windows outside, the sound faint but persistent. She worked faster, letting the pace carry her through the first layer of tension.
A sharp clang cut through the space as Titus set a lid down harder than necessary. He turned, closing the distance by a step without crowding her outright. “If you’re talking, make it useful. That side needs garlic.”
She didn’t look up. “You like it, you chop it.”
The corner of his mouth shifted, brief and gone before it could settle into anything softer. For a second, something tightened in her chest that had nothing to do with the work in front of her. She ignored it.
“What’s your count,” she asked instead, keeping her tone even. “Because last time you called something done, it fed half the county.”
He reached past her for the cumin, his arm brushing her side as if the space between them didn’t require negotiation. The contact was brief, unavoidable, and not acknowledged.
“Enough,” he said.
“Not an answer.”
“It will be.”
She huffed once, low, and shifted to the garlic. The knife moved faster now, the scrape against the board sharper than she would have allowed anywhere else. He didn’t comment. He took what she slid toward him and added it to the pot without breaking rhythm.
The clock above the fridge advanced one minute at a time, each tick stretching longer than it should. Outside, voices rose and fell. Inside, the work settled into something that looked like cooperation if no one looked too closely.
Kyla kept her head down and her hands moving. She could get through the shift. She could get through him. It was just another kitchen, another long stretch of hours where nothing mattered except the next step. That thought held until she felt his attention shift.
It wasn’t obvious. No movement. No sound. Just the sense of it, the awareness that he had turned his focus in her direction without stepping closer. She straightened slightly, not enough to call attention, and adjusted the angle of her board.
“What,” she said, without looking up.
“Nothing,” he answered.
She didn’t believe him.
She also didn’t push it.
By hour six, the heat had settled into Kyla’s bones.
Chili and garlic clung to her hair, her clothes, the inside of her throat. Sweat tracked down the back of her neck, caught at her collar, and kept going. Her hand ached from repetition. The dull throb of too many cuts and too much force behind each one. The apron stuck to her in places she ignored.
The kitchen never quieted. Metal struck metal. Lids shifted. Someone swore when a pot boiled over and burned their hand. The noise didn’t overwhelm; it narrowed.
The space between her and Titus narrowed with it.
The galley forced them into the same lanes. Every pass meant contact: a shoulder, an elbow, the side of a hip that had no room to avoid another body moving the opposite direction. Neither of them apologized. Neither stepped aside unless they had to.
She reached for a stack of cans at the same time he did. Their arms collided, locked for a beat that stretched longer than it should have. He didn’t move first. Neither did she.
“You’re in my space,” Kyla said, pulling her arm free and reaching again.
“You call this space,” he replied, shifting just enough to let her grab what she needed while still standing too close. “You should see a branding line.”
She kept her eyes on the board. “I’m not interested.”
“Didn’t say you were.”
He moved behind her, close enough that she felt the change in the air before she felt him. His chest brushed her back for a second that could have passed as accidental if it hadn’t lingered a fraction too long.
“Need me to move, Chef,” he said, voice low, close to her ear.
Her knife didn’t slow. “Only if you plan to stop sweating into the food.”
His breath touched the edge of her jaw as he shifted away. “That’s where the flavor comes from.”
She stifled a laugh as the radio pushed through another verse. Somewhere outside the kitchen, a child cried and was hushed. Kyla focused on the rhythm of the knife, on the clean break of each cut, on the way the board felt steady beneath her hands.
By hour nine, fatigue showed in small cracks.
The overhead lights flickered once. A warning no one acknowledged. Titus stepped in beside her to reach the spice bin, his hip nudging her into the counter as if there were no other path.
“Move,” she said, sharper than before.
“Say please.”
He opened the tin without looking at her. His knuckles brushed her wrist. She tried to step away, but he didn’t give her space until he chose to.
Her grip slipped. The knife cut across her thumb.
Pain came quick and bright. Blood followed, rising in a thin line that spread faster than she wanted. She pulled her hand back, pressing it against her apron, already turning toward the sink.
His hand closed around her wrist before she got there. “Give it here.”
She didn’t argue.
He lifted her hand between them, eyes on her face for a second before dropping to the cut. His mouth closed over her thumb, pulling the blood away in a slow, deliberate draw that stopped her breath short.
For one second, everything else dropped out. She felt the warmth of his mouth, the pressure, the steady way he didn’t rush it. Her body reacted before her mind caught up—a tight pull low in her stomach that had nothing to do with the cut.
She yanked her hand back. “Keep your mouth to yourself,” she said, voice rougher than she intended.
He didn’t step away. He looked at her, then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand as if nothing about the moment required comment. “Wouldn’t want to offend you,” he said.
She grabbed a paper towel and wrapped it tight around her thumb. “You don’t have the range for that.”
He turned back to the pot, stirring as if the interruption hadn’t happened. Kyla forced her breathing to settle as she cleaned and bandaged her thumb. She reached for the peppers and cut faster than necessary, letting the speed cover the way her hand wanted to shake.
The shift wore on.