Chapter 2 #2
In his peripheral vision, Elise shifted position. She was moving slightly closer to the pass—not into the kitchen flow, not crossing any line, but edging forward to see down the preparation line.
Fine. Let her watch.
She was looking at the plating tray. Specifically at the rúgbraue course: the bread, the smoked butter in its small iron dish, and the moss-and-crowberry garnish. Her head tilted, very slightly, to the right.
He knew that tilt. He’d watched forty-seven episodes of her show. She made it when she was thinking about saying something, but hesitant.
“Go ahead,” he said, without looking up.
A pause. “The moss. Is that for flavor, texture, or aesthetics?”
“Narrative.”
“Narrative.” She stated it but there was a questioning tone.
“It tells the guest where they are. They’re in a volcanic cave eating bread cooked by the earth’s own heat. The moss is the annotation.”
“Like a footnote.”
“Like a declaration,” he corrected. It was important that she understood his purpose.
She was quiet for a moment. He dragged the smoked butter across the bread with the particular wrist motion he had perfected—slow, deliberate. “It works,” she said finally. “I wasn’t arguing. I was asking. ”
He said nothing. He delivered the tray to Bragi and turned back to the line, and the warmth under his ribs flared once, specific and warm, and he turned it firmly toward the fermentation rack.
Then Torfi came through the kitchen door.
Stenrik did not swear aloud. He had made a decision, years ago, about professionalism in front of staff.
“Evening, Chef Bro-tisserie,” Torfi said, with the energy of someone who had slept for twelve hours and was delighted about it.
He beamed at the room—at her, specifically—with the expression of a golden retriever who had arrived at a party and found everyone happy to see it.
“Thought I’d help with the front of house. ”
“We are not short-staffed.”
“Sigrid said?—”
“Sigrid is going to receive a very detailed conversation.” Stenrik pointed with the handle of his plating spoon. “If you touch anything on the pass, I will render your apron strings into a noose.”
Torfi had already spotted Elise. Of course he had. His grin shifted in a way that Stenrik found immediately, and disproportionately irritating.
“You must be the journalist.” He crossed the kitchen in several long strides, hand extended. “Torfi. The better-looking brother.”
Elise shook his hand with the poise of someone who had been handed business cards in professional kitchens across four continents. “Elise Moreau. Beyond the Plate.”
“I know exactly who you are. I watched your Lisbon episode three times.” Torfi leaned on the counter beside her. “The bit with the pasteis—you have a gift for describing texture, did anyone ever tell you?—”
“Table nine,” Stenrik said. “Amuse-bouche. Now.”
Torfi sighed theatrically. “He’s always like this during service. Don’t take it personally.” He collected the tray, winked at Elise, and added, “Save me a glass of the aquavit.”
The door swung shut.
Stenrik was fine.
He was fine.
Torfi had leaned toward her like a plant toward the sunlight and Stenrik was completely fine about that.
He picked up his knife and returned to the line with the full force of his professionalism, which lasted approximately forty seconds until Torfi came back through the door and said, casually, to no one in particular, “Table nine wants to know about the chef. His background, his inspiration. I told them I’d ask.
” He glanced toward Elise with visible meaning. “I thought maybe?—”
“I’ll speak to table nine myself,” Stenrik said.
Marta looked up from the fish station. She was physically restraining a smile.
He was aware of that too.
He was aware of everything tonight—the range temperature, the sound of the dining room, the exact position of every person in the kitchen, and specifically, persistently, irrationally, the fact that Elise Moreau was now looking at the crowberry garnish on the bread course with the attention she usually reserved for chefs she found genuinely interesting.
He was simply noting it. In a kitchen, you noted things.
Torfi drifted past him on the way back out and murmured, too quietly for anyone else to hear, “She smells like sea air and trouble, brother. You’re going to make this very complicated.”
“Go run the amuse-bouche,” Stenrik said through gritted teeth.
The door swung shut again.
Then he looked down .
She was wearing leather ankle boots. Low heel, clean sole, the kind of footwear one might select for a day involving a car rental return and a first professional engagement. Entirely appropriate for everything except a working kitchen.
He had told Sigrid to brief her.
“Those,” he said, pointing at her boots with the handle of his plating spoon, “are not appropriate for this kitchen.”
Elise looked at her feet, then up at him, with an arched eyebrow. “I wasn’t told there was a dress code for observation.”
“The dress code for any kitchen is: don’t bleed on my floor. Closed toe. Non-slip sole.”
“They’re leather. They’re closed-toe?—”
“The heel is two and a half centimeters. In my kitchen, we do not do heels. We stand. We move. We do not teeter.”
Torfi, still inexplicably in the kitchen, had pressed his lips together and was studying the ceiling with the intense fascination of a man trying to locate a structural fault.
“I’m not teetering,” Elise said, with great composure.
“You would, if the floor were wet. The floor will be wet.” He turned back to the pass. “Sigrid will find you clogs. Kitchen issue. They are not attractive, but they will not send you to a hospital. Which is several hours away.”
“I’ll be fine.”
“Ms. Moreau.” He looked at her directly, which he had been not doing, and which he immediately regretted—because she was looking back at him with that assessing attention, and something went wrong with his chest, warm and sudden and poorly timed.
“You will wear the clogs or you will leave. Those are your choices.”
She held his gaze for three full seconds.
“Yes, chef,” she said. “Clogs.”
There was something in the set of her mouth—not offense, precisely. Something that looked like suppressed amusement. Which was worse, he realized. Considerably worse. It was harder to dislike than outrage, and he was running very low on valid reasons to maintain professional distance.
The warmth under his ribs flared again.
He turned it firmly toward the fermentation rack, where the shark had done nothing to deserve it.
But neither had he.