On the Steamy Side - Louisa Edwards [59]
With that, Devon was out the door. Lilah didn’t want to read defeat in the slope of his departing shoulders, but she couldn’t help but wonder if the first step of Operation Fatherhood had done more harm than good.
Luckily, family breakfast was only the beginning.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
The Tosser was on a right tear this morning. Frankie watched as Devon hissed a few choice words to Milo that nearly had the tough young buck in tears.
Their absent and much-lamented boss, Adam Temple, knew how to skin a man with the sharp side of his tongue, no question, but there was an underlying sweetness of temper to the man that Devon Sparks absolutely lacked.
Frankie knew they were in the shit from the moment he arrived at Market, yawning and cursing the breaking dawn, to find Devon already there, hassling the jolly old geezer who delivered the whole ducklings from up the Hudson River Valley. It weren’t the executive chef’s bailiwick to check in produce deliveries—that was one of Frankie’s despised souschef jobs—but there the Tosser was, waving a clipboard around and looking incensed.
Maybe the arse didn’t think forty pound of duck breast would see them through the night’s service; maybe he didn’t like the cut of the poor delivery knob’s trousers. Either way, he was making a right git of himself.
Frankie shook his head and went inside. After all, if the visiting exec chef wanted to check in deliveries, that was his lookout. Frankie was happy enough to ditch the chore.
He hung up his battered black denim jacket in the employee locker room and took the stairs to the kitchen two at a time.
Nodding to Violet, who was rolling out what looked like a nice pâte brisée at the pastry station, Frankie bounded over to his beloved wood-fired grill and ducked his head into the lowboy to check his prep. He had plenty of the hand-mixed spice rub for the rib-eye, but he needed to chop and blanch buckets of watercress to be tempuraed later and then plated beside. He also seemed to be low on chopped rosemary and mint.
Ticking off tasks in his mind, Frankie nearly didn’t notice Grant doing his stress dance on the other side of the open pass into the dining room. Grant had been on a hair-trigger ever since Devon Sparks showed up. Not that Frankie was elated to be back under the Tosser’s thumb, but Grant looked close to nervous collapse.
Frankie suppressed an eye roll. Grant was a good mate, and a better manager, but the man could whip himself into a strop faster than anyone Frankie knew. As it usually all came to nothing, Frankie debated whether or not to put his oar in, but a particularly vigorous hand-wring from Grant decided the issue.
“Oi there, Grant. What’s the crack?”
Turning an aggrieved face on Frankie, Grant ground out, “That . . . that . . . overbearing, arrogant, unfeeling bastard of an executive chef hired a new bartender.”
Frankie blinked. “Well. How sodding dare he? That’s just not on.”
“Oh, shut it,” Grant said disgustedly. “I know I’m being ridiculous. It’s more about who he hired.” Grant blew out a sigh that ruffled the wheat-colored hair lying across his forehead. With his cornflower-blue eyes and clear-skinned good looks, Grant was the poster boy for clean living and personal responsibility. It was amazing he and Frankie were such good mates, when you came to think about it.
“Who’d he hire, then?” Frankie asked soothingly.
Everything about Grant’s expression and tone conveyed deepest tragedy. “Christian Colby.”
“Chris?” Frankie was surprised. “From Chapel?” The Lower East Side pub was a favored late-night hangout with their crew, partly due to the grotty appeal of its hardcore punk music scene, and partly due to Christian Colby’s undeniably fantastic cocktails.
“Yes,” cried Grant. “And the worst part is, I know he’s going to be brilliant, and when Adam gets back he’ll want him to stay on, and then . . .”
“What?” Bloody hell, but this was fascinating.
“Then,” Grant intoned solemnly, “he’ll always be around. Where I work. Every day.”
Frankie started to point out that Grant saw Chris nearly every day after work, when