On the Steamy Side - Louisa Edwards [38]
“Is this about the bar?” Devon demanded. “If your precious waitstaff can’t manage to shake a few martinis . . .”
“No, no.” Grant shook his head. “I mean, yes, that’s been a . . . challenge tonight, and if we could think of anyone to call in for the second half of service, we should do it, but this is actually personal.”
“Christ, Holloway, I don’t give a shit about your personal life,” Devon said. Not entirely true, a voice in his head whispered. Wouldn’t you like to know exactly what Lilah is to him? Whirling, he held up the same ticket he’d been staring at for thirty minutes. Way too long. “How long on table six? One book trout, one roast chicken, two rib-eye, one rare, one normal?”
Nothing but panicked glances.
Devon wanted to tear his hair out. “How long?” he bellowed. “Answer me.”
“I need five more minutes, Chef,” Frankie called after a peek at the fish station. The tall sous chef was a blur at the grill station, flipping and checking meat, turning and cross-hatching the marks on the steaks.
“Christ on a cracker,” Devon muttered. “You’re ready to go with the rib-eyes, aren’t you, you fucker. It’s the goddamn fish holding everything up.”
The guy on fish was young. Holy God, Devon thought, watching him. There was raw talent there, for sure, but not a lot of experience. “I’m sorry, Chef,” the kid gasped out now. “I’ve never done celery foam before, and it keeps separating on me.”
“His name’s Wes. He’s an extern from the Academy of Culinary Arts,” Grant said, making Devon jump. He hadn’t noticed the other man coming into the kitchen, but he was here now, standing at Devon’s side and looking extremely unhappy about something.
“I don’t care if he’s the Pope on loan from the fucking Vatican,” Devon gritted between clenched teeth. “Somebody get on fish and help him with that sauce!”
Quentin spun away from sauté and wordlessly grabbed the whisk out of Wes’s hand. Satisfied that the situation was dealt with, Devon turned his attention to Grant.
“You’d better be back here because the dining room is out of clean forks, and not because you’re about to plead some bullshit personal issue that’s going to take you out of commission.”
“There’s someone here . . . maybe we should go down to the office.”
“You’re insane. I can’t leave the line in the middle of service. Oh, for the love of—Spit it out, Grant! What, are you having a kid, too?”
The restaurant manager winced. “Funny you should ask . . .”
Even through the chaos of the worst case of weeds Frankie’d ever battled, he caught the sound of Grant’s flat, unhappy voice. It made Frankie look up and take notice in time to see, at the other end of the kitchen, the back door leading to the alley open to admit a tall woman holding a small boy by the hand. The woman wore the navy blue uniform of a police officer.
The little boy was skinny, all dark hair and big blue eyes. His solemn mouth was pulled into a thin line, as if he was afraid but unwilling to show it with so much as a tremble.
Frankie stared down the line, through the smoke and leaping flames from the grill and the scuttling bodies of hustling cooks, and wondered what else could possibly go wrong tonight.
“What the hell is going on?” Devon asked, motionless at the pass. Frankie’s attention was caught by the intense stare Devon had leveled on the child wearing a ratty Justice League T-shirt and a wary expression. A faded green backpack dragged on the floor beside the boy, strap clutched tight in one white-knuckled fist.
Grant stepped close to Devon the Tosser. “Your assistant told them you were here. Apparently they tried to call from the station house but couldn’t reach you. I guess in all the, um, excitement tonight, no one was bothering to answer the kitchen phone?” Grant tried to keep his voice down, but Frankie was close enough to hear.
He vaguely recalled an annoying ringing at intervals throughout the evening, but on some level he’d thought it was a ringing in his ears caused by extreme stress and volcanic rage, so he’d ignored it. Frankie couldn’t remember ever being buried as deep in the