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“Why the hell are you still here?”
“Uh-uh. Don’t play that game. I’m here because the light lunch service gave me extra time to dry-brine the ducks for tomorrow.”
“Oh, right. The duck confit hash.” Molly nodded woodenly, completely forgetting she had bought the poultry to begin with.
“And the spicy duck tacos at lunch.”
“Yes. Of course.”
“I hear they’re going to be on fire!”
Molly leveled a glare at him. “You did not just go there.”
“Oh, I did,” he said with a satisfied smirk, then rubbed his chest. “Couldn’t help myself. With everyone losing their minds over a smoking dumpster, not knowing how many times us cooks have literally seared off our fingertips or eyebrows, I figured I deserved some of the comedic irony as well. Those people have probably been chomping on my scorched skin cells all morning without even knowing it, and yet they freak out over a barely there fire that was completely controlled, contained, and in no way threatened their safety.”
A slight chuckle lifted her shoulders briefly before they sagged right back down under the weight of the day. “You’re not wrong, but they don’t care.”
And wasn’t that the freaking truth? It was yet another stark reality of the restaurant industry that she hadn’t considered when she bartered her good credit in exchange for her dream.
Being right didn’t matter, she was coming to learn. Not nearly as much as perception, anyhow. Others’ perceptions. And, God, she did not want to peel back that particular curtain just yet.
Molly leaned forward, clasped her fists together, and stretched out her arms in front of her. “Good night, Benny. Oh, and just make sure you temp the duck thoroughly tomorrow.”
The outrage on his face was enough to incite a Senate filibuster. “I know you did not just imply that I don’t know the proper doneness temperature for a duck.”
She held her palm to her chest. “I would never, but I got a call from a guest earlier. She ate here a few days ago and got sick. Something parasitic, which just skeeves me out in all the ways.” Molly shuddered. “She wasn’t entirely sure it was our food that did it, but her doctor told her to make the rounds and notify any places she ate at over the past five days in case there were others. Lucky us, we made the list.”
“Yeah, I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear any of that,” he said before pumping his fist on the doorframe by way of goodbye and turning to go.
“Wish I could, too,” she muttered to herself.
Outside in the dining room, a concerto of chairs being softly stacked reminded her she wasn’t alone. Not so much reminded her, really, as poked at an uneasy awareness she’d been skirting around ever since the fire.
God, what did Brass think of her? Of this whole insane situation? He’d been here one day, and already he had to deal with emergency services, irate customers, and a spastic businesswoman whose only redeeming quality as a property owner was that she knew where the fire extinguisher was. She didn’t want to think about what would have happened if he hadn’t been there to put the fire out. Did he think she was an unsafe employer? That not only did she suck at putting out proverbial fires with customers but now real ones followed her around like she had some cartoon fuse attached to the bottom of her butt?
Through the whole ordeal, Brass had been . . . Well, she didn’t have the words to describe him, at least not any that did him justice. The phrase godsend had briefly popped into her mind, but it had been quickly shoved out by the mob of customers and bystanders who had started to batter her incessantly with questions.
Questions that kept including her restaurant’s name, and not in a good way.
Did Suerte and Honeysuckles not dispose of something correctly?
What did your employee drop in the dumpster?
Was something not up to code?
They’d grabbed her by the elbow and huddled her into a circle of concern and accusations before she’d been able to come up for air. By the time she did, the literal smoke had settled, and she braced herself for yet more questions from the fire department . . .
Except there weren’t any, because Brass had already spoken to them. Somehow, he’d engaged every fire official and answered any question they’d thrown at him, even providing details about the combustible contents of the dumpster and when the thing had been emptied last. At one point, Brass had retreated into the restaurant, only to return with the proper business receipts for their garbage and recycling disposal contract, along with the numerous complaints Molly had filed about the dumpster not lying correctly on the cement pad. She hadn’t even realized he knew where those documents were, yet he handed them over with calm authority.
Every time she tried to pull away from whoever commanded her attention, Brass had been there, talking to another firefighter or issuing a sharp glare to onlookers who dared to get too close to the scene in question. A handful of times, when her back started to ache and she found herself answering the same question for the fourth time in a row, she’d cast a worried gaze out for him without even realizing it.
Always, his amber eyes had found hers but not in the way one searched for a friend in a crowd. It was different. Every time, his connection hadn’t just been a beacon in a storm but an anchor, one that had him immediately pulling her out of the crowd and rescuing her to the safe shores of her quiet office.
And then, once he settled her with water and a few chocolate rugelach from her hidden stash below the register, he’d be off to put himself in front of whoever was looking for her.
She’d be lying if she said she didn’t appreciate it, and lying even more if she confessed that the acts didn’t make her want to stay close to him in other ways.
They’d hardly spoken throughout the day, and yet there was a natural rhythm to their strange dance, if she could even call it that. It was as if he knew exactly when she needed to take the lead in certain circumstances but also when it wasn’t necessary and he’d step in. It reminded her of being on the line in the kitchen, where all the chefs came together to get the dishes out, whether through prep done hours before or a sharp sear achieved at the last second.
