Page 12 of Don't Remind Me
“So what do I do?” I asked, finally meeting Dr. Ohara’s gaze through the screen.
“Well,” he said, adjusting his narrow glasses, “you’ve got two options. The first is you can keep existing within these rigid boxes you’ve drawn around yourself as Alec’s brother, and around Dani as his ex, and keep your interactions defined by those roles.”
So basically what happened yesterday, but on repeat for the next three months. I’d rather shuck oysters all day, every day from now until the symposium.
“Or you can try loosening the lines a bit. Be open to the possibility that more than one thing can be true. That Dani can both have once loved your brotherandvalue and respect you for your work now. That one doesn’t lessen the other or even have anything to do with the other.”
I nodded, liking the sound of that a lot. I just wasn’t sure I could do it.
“An apology might be nice too,” he added.
A weak smile pulled at my lips. “Yeah.”
That was probably a good idea.
“Ow, fuck.”I snapped my hand back from the pan sitting on the stove and grabbed a rag, ignoring the throbbing in my finger.
“You good, Chef?” Zach asked.
“Yeah.” I hadn’t burned myself that carelessly in years, which made it pretty fucking clear where my head was at. My staff noticed.
“He’s just nervous because he fucked up last week, and now Jillian’s on his ass to play nice,” Luis said, getting a snicker from Zach.
The two young guys were across the small kitchen from me with their cutting boards. Zach’s tall, thin pale frame, pierced and tatted from head to toe, made Luis’s light brown baby face and smaller stature look practically angelic in comparison.
It was true that Jillian had been especially frosty toward me since the Dani debacle last week. The guys had heard bits of the tense conversation from the kitchen and gossiped about it like a bunch of teenagers until word reached Jillian. She didn’t know what the root of the issue had been, and I had no intention of telling her. All she cared about was that I fixed it.
It’s just an apology. Simple.
Except I had no clue how to go about it. Just say I’m sorry? Was that enough? Somehow, I’d managed to have three different long-term relationships over the course of my adult life and had never once been in the position of making a formal apology.
I was well aware that wasn’t in fact a good sign regarding the quality of those relationships.
“What happened with the nonprofit girl anyway?” Luis asked.
“She probably demanded Chef serve raw cherry tomatoes. You know how much he hates those,” Zach said.
Aubrey snorted from the prep bench beside me, the bright colors of her tattoos visible in my periphery.
“It’s the texture,” I said in defense. “I don’t like things exploding in my mouth when I bite into them.”
“Guess we should warn Chef’s next girlfriend not to expect him to go down on her, then,” Luis joked. Zach chuckled, and I shook my head.
“Little tip for you, Luis,” Aubrey cut in. “If you’re biting something down there hard enough that it explodes, the only thing she should expect is a trip to the hospital.”
Luis turned to Zach as if searching for confirmation.
“What are you looking at him for?” Aubrey teased. “He only goes down on dudes.”
“Yeah,” Zach said. “I like things exploding in my mouth.”
Luis howled with laughter as I fought my own grin.
“All right, let’s reel it back in, please,” I said. “Where are you two at with your prep?”
The laughter cut out immediately as the two young cooks lowered their heads back to their tasks.
“Yes, Chef.”
