Page 139 of Only Mine
“You don’t know shit about what went on between us.”
“Don’t I?” He shifts, and I catch the scent of hay and leather that follows him everywhere. “I know you’ve been in here every morning this week, destroying perfectly good ingredients because you can’t sleep. I know you’ve been snapping at your staff like they personally killed your dog. And I know that woman deleted a video worth more money than most people make in a year to protect you.”
“She made her choice,” I say, but it sounds hollow even to me.
“Bullshit.” Rome steps closer, hat shadowing his eyes. “She made a sacrifice. There’s a difference.”
Lyle clears his throat from across the kitchen. “Should I ... should I come back later?”
“No,” I bark, not taking my eyes off Rome.
“Stay,” Rome says, giving Lyle a reassuring nod. “I’m done here, anyway.”
Rome grabs another apple, polishes it on his shirt, and tosses it to me. I catch it reflexively.
“You know what your problem is?” He adjusts his hat, stepping back. “You think you’re doing her a favor. But what you’re really doing is only protecting yourself.”
“And what do you know about it? You’ve met heronce.”
Rome shrugs. “It was enough to like her. And I was there all day with you two. I can’t unsee what I saw, and that was two people who were happy together.” He hooks his thumbs in the pockets of his jeans, voice softening. “Look, I get it. You built walls for a reason. But those walls aren’t just keeping people out anymore. They’re keeping you trapped.”
I respond with a dismissive grunt. “You don’t have a child. You don’t know what it’s like.”
“Maybe not.” He straightens, gathering his invoices. “But I know what loneliness looks like. And it’s staring back at me right now.”
Rome turns to leave, pausing at the kitchen door. “For what it’s worth, she didn’t just delete that video for you. You know she did it for Ivy, too.”
He walks out, boots scuffing against the tile, leaving me with an apple in my hand and a sour taste in my mouth.
I spend the rest of the morning in a fog, delegating tasks with minimal words and maximum intensity. The staff scatters when I approach, a choreography of avoidance I’veperfected over the years. Usually, it satisfies me. Today, it just annoys me.
By six o’clock, the dining room is at capacity. Every table is full, and the waitlist is thirty names deep. The servers weave through the dining room with trained professionalism, but their faces are tight with strain.
I turn my attention to the plate in front of me, wiping a smudge of sauce from the rim with a towel. Something feels off tonight. The energy is wrong. Too many cell phones out, too many heads turning toward the kitchen instead of focusing on their food.
“Table twelve wants to know if you’ll come out and talk to them,” Mags says, sliding a ticket to the expediter. “They specifically asked for the chef.”
I stop the expediter with a hand up before he can read out the order.
“I’m busy,” I reply, not looking up from the plate. “Tell them I’m in the middle of service.”
“They said they’re food vloggers from New York. They want to discuss a feature.”
I set down my spoon. “I don’t do features.”
Mags hesitates. “They’re being persistent.”
“Then tell them I am persistently unavailable.”
She nods and retreats. I return to plating, but my concentration is fucked. Food vloggers. From New York. And I thought it was bad when it was just random fans wanting to see a dish “made by the hands.”
The kitchen suddenly feels too hot, too crowded. I scan the dining room again, noticing how many phones are pointed in my direction, how many eyes flick toward the pass when they think I’m not looking.
“Table nine wants to know if you’ll come out and take apicture with them,” Eddie pipes up from the pass. “And table twelve is asking if we have merchandise.”
I stare at him. “Merchandise?”
“T-shirts. Mugs.” Eddie shifts uncomfortably. “Something about ‘Chef Daddy.’“
