Page 21 of Accidental Doctor Daddy

This morning, everything felt off. I couldn’t explain it.

The lunch team was on fire, rushing orders, running plates, getting the job done better than any kitchen I’d ever worked before. Me, Miguel, Sam, Ricardo, Yvette, and Lisa had the place hopping. But every few minutes, I fell behind. It wasn’t like me.

As assistant head chef at one of New York City's most esteemed eateries, my days were a whirlwind of activity, each service a dance of precision and creativity. I loved every moment—the heat, the pressure, the satisfaction of a perfectly executed dish. A slash of herbed reduction here, a sliver of almond brûlée there. Ice-white dishes painted with every color in the rainbow.

It was a world I controlled with ease, a world far removed from the complications of so-called real life.

What good had real life ever done for me anyway? Not much, that was for sure. It had been almost two months since I ran away from home for a break and three months since mybreakup, and I had been doing well enough that Carrie had stopped giving me shit about moping around.

But the vacation had been an escape from real life, not an embrace of it.

I’d found an old bottle of Leo’s cologne in the back of my medicine cabinet the other day, and it didn’t even faze me. I just tossed it out and kept trucking. It shouldn’t have been so easy to let him go after two years. We should have been more attached to each other than that, shouldn’t we?

But Carrie always warned me about “should.” “Should is someone else’s expectation,” she’d say. And damn it, she was always right.

At least I had her in my corner.

Still, Leo had been my longest relationship, so I’d expected something more than… nothing. But apparently, I had a quick turnaround time even for heartbreak.

So why was I still so distracted?

In the middle of the lunch rush, I bent over a meticulous plating of our smoked sausage and white balsamic glaze special, a wave of nausea hit me so suddenly that I had to pause and steady myself against the stainless steel counter.

The scent of garlic and seared meat hit like a punch to the gut, turning my stomach inside out. Even the sweet tang of balsamic glaze felt like it clawed at my throat.

The smells of the kitchen, usually so appetizing, were suddenly overpowering.

"Everything okay, Ella?" Carrie's voice cut through the noise, tinged with concern. She had an uncanny ability to notice whenever something was amiss, even from the front of the house. Her red pixie cut made her easy to spot in the busy kitchen. She wore all black—everyone at Suivante did—and a worried expression.

"Just a bit off, I think," I managed to say, forcing a smile as I straightened up and resumed my task.

Carrie watched me for a moment longer, and her brows knit together in concern. Professional or personal, I never knew with her. The two overlapped in every kitchen I had worked before, and here, the lines were blurred further by our friendship. "You know, you've been 'off' quite a bit lately," she said, her tone light but probing. "Are you sure there isn’t a mini-Ella floating around in there?”

“A what?”

“Are you pregnant? You’d tell me, right?”

I laughed once hard and rolled my eyes. "Oh, sure, that's exactly it."

“Hey, you’re the one who said she hooked up on vacation. I’m just checking in.”

I shook my head. “There’s no chance. I’m on the shot, remember?”

“Right, right. I forgot. Maybe it’s that bug that’s going around.”

“I’ll be fine. Probably just turned around too fast.”

“Carrie,” Emily called out from the door. “Someone wants to speak to the owner.” The hostess was too new to know how to handle customer requests.

“Be right there.” She turned to me. “You’re sure you’re good?”

“We have crackers and ginger ale. I’ll be fine. Go on.”

She bobbed her head and left me in the sweltering kitchen. Why was it so hot back here?

“Miguel, hit the A/C again?—”

“Already got it as low as possible, chef.”

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