by Aubrey Irons
There’s a silence as Oliver stands in the middle of the kitchen, blinking and swallowing thickly. He finally looks up and around at everyone, his face stony. His eyes catch mine, and for a second I think about giving him some sort of encouraging word or gesture. A nod, a smile; anything I guess.
But then the back door opens and Marco and Delia scurry guiltily inside, and that second passes.
Yeah, no, screw him.
Oliver nods sharply at the silent kitchen staff, “Alright, stations; let’s do this.”
We fall into the rhythm of a working kitchen, everyone lost in their own jobs and their own tasks as orders come in. But this time, it’s different. This time, there is silence aside from the sounds of knives chopping or grills sizzling or whisks whipping. The whole place is standing on this knife edge, just waiting for that order to come through.
It does, finally. And from then on, the whole place goes into overdrive. Ian is hovering at the service window, making sure each and every thing that goes out looks perfect, even if it’s only going to be walking past the reviewer’s table. And Oliver is a freaking mess. He’s sweating, his eyes darting all over the place as he starts to get more and more agitated at the window. I can see his movements getting more erratic, his muttered swears getting louder and louder.
Finally, I manage to find some sort of excuse to move past the front line right by him. I tap his arm, “Hey, are you gonna be okay?”
“I’m fine.”
“Oliver,” I hiss, “You’re a mess-”
“I said, I’M FINE, cook!” I flinch as he turns, roaring at me loudly. Loud enough that Ian jumps back from the service window and that half the kitchen looks up quickly. I clench my jaw, my eyes seething as I see the fire in his.
“Get back to your fucking station, Chloe,” He growls, glaring at me and all business now. All cocky, arrogant, firing-on-all-cylinders Chef Oliver.
“Fine,” I sneer, and turn sharply on my heel to head back to my station.
“Fine WHAT?!” He roars.
Oh you’ve gotta be kidding me. He’s going to pull this NOW?
I grit my teeth and turn back, glaring at him defiantly, “I said fine-”
“I heard what you said!” He roars again. He suddenly snatches up a plate and hurls it against the wall, shattering the plate, scattering broken shards and an array of radicchio salad everywhere; “It’s YES CHEF; do you fucking understand?”
It’s like a slug to the gut, and I can feel my whole body start to tremble, and I’m furious at myself when I feel the sting of tears in my eyes.
Do NOT cry; do NOT fucking cry in front of him.
“Are we clear, Chloe?”
I’m shaking my head at him slowly, the tears stinging my eyes and my pulse thundering in my ears. I’m thinking of the way he made me feel, the things I let him do, and the things we should have said yesterday, or this morning; things I can’t imagine saying to him now.
The charming, rough-and-tumble boy I knew from before is gone, and it’s so stupidly obvious to me now that I’m suddenly ashamed at myself for not seeing it before. The boy whose charming and quirky antics, whose bold and cocky bravado swept me off my feet all those years ago - the boy I thought I was finding all over again - is gone.
The arrogant, pig-headed, prick of man he’s grown into has buried him completely.
“Chloe-”
“Yes, chef.” I say it quietly in a voice not my own; a voice distant and forced.
Yes, you fucking prick.
“Good, now get back to your station.”
What the hell happened to you, Oliver Beckett, and where did you go?
We don’t speak a word through the rest of the shift, or through closing. And at this point, I don’t even give a shit what happens with the Times table.
Who cares? Fuck Oliver and his little temper tantrum. Fuck him getting his reviews and his groupies and his Michelin stars. And fuck him especially for doing cocaine outside with Delia, like he’s some sort of actual rock star or something.
What a joke.
I’m lost in my own little ball of negativity, scrubbing down my station, when I suddenly feel a presence behind me.
“Hey.”
I whirl, and Oliver’s just standing there with his arms crossed, just grinning that incessant fucking smirk on his face at me, as if nothing’s happened between us since the previous night.
“Oh what now?”
He frowns, “Could I talk to you in the office?
I drop my jaw at him, “What am I, fired?!”
He wrinkles his brow, “What? No, Jesus. Just come talk.”
“I’m still closing up, chef.”
I turn on my heel to go back to scrubbing the counter down, but I gasp as I feel him pull close behind me. His hand pushes my hair back from my ear as he leans in, “Look, you know what that was.”
“Yeah, you being a royal asshole,” I toss back.
“I can’t play favorites, Chlo-”
“Well you can play fucking fair!” I hiss, whirling back to him jabbing my finger into his chest, “That was fucking ridiculous, and you know it.”
“You were out of line.”
“Says the man doing drugs off the blade of a knife with his, what, eighteen year old staff?” I sneer at him. “So what, five years later you’re still into high school girls?”
I narrows his eyes at me; “She’s nineteen, and trying to get into college.”
“Oh, Oxford?” I smile sweetly at him, and he grins.
“Look, you looked like you were going nuts and I just wanted to see how you were doing, dick.”
He shakes his head, “You can’t do that, not in here.”
“What, show emotion?” I say hastily, pushing my hair back from my face pursing my lips at him.
“You know what I mean.”
“No, Oliver, you’re right, I know exactly what you mean. You mean you don’t want me getting attached or something, like one of your ‘girls’.”
He scowls, “Jesus, Chloe, that’s not what I fucking said-”
“Listen, chef,” I spit out, stabbing him in the chest with my finger, “Get over yourself.” And then it all pours out; everything I should’ve said the second I walked off the plane at Heathrow. “You know, this little thing between us should have happened a long time ago. But it didn’t, and then we made up for it last night, badly. End of story.”
Oliver looks away before he shakes his head turns his gaze back to me, his eyes burning into mine, “You’re not letting me-”
“Listen, chef, we’re good, okay?” I shake my head, and pinch the bridge of my nose before I look up at him. Then I’m saying the words and believing them, because I have to. Because I can’t have feelings for Oliver Beckett, not with who we are now.
“I know what you’re looking for here and I’m looking for the same thing. We’re done, okay? No more games, no more back and forth. You be you, I’ll be me. In a few months I’ll be out of your hair and we’ll maybe have to see each other on Christmas or something, okay?”
He tightens his jaw and glares at me, but he’s silent.
“Look, I need to finish here.” I look up at him, “Please.”
Oliver nods and holds my stare a second longer before he steps aside and I storm away.
19
Oliver
Well, shit; fucked that up about as royal as possible.
She’s out the door before I can even change that night. When I finally slump my way through the front door to our house like some sort of marathon runner tumbling over the finish line after the thirty-odd hours I’ve just had, the house is quiet and dark.
I shower alone that night; her door shut and my mind on the activities of the previous night. “What I was looking for there?” I mean what the fuck is that supposed to mean? I angrily grab the soap, growling at my reflection in the mirror - a reflection sans a jaw-droppingly-naked Chloe this time - and think about it long and hard. Really, what am I looking for with Chloe? Feelings? A damn
relationship? I mean, Christ, She’s my- she’s-
Fuck, no; it’s not even possible, even if I wanted it. And I don’t, of course. I mean, this is me we’re talking about; I don’t do clingy, messy, dramatic relationships. Hell no. But - shit, I don’t know, something's different with Chloe. The sort of different that I can’t get out of my head; the kind of different that’s imbedded itself in my skin like a tattoo.
I was denied by this girl five years ago. Denied. I mean, that never happens to me. I’ve basically never been shot down, never been told “no” to. When I see a girl, and I want her, I can basically bet that I’m going to be hearing her screaming my name later. So, there, that’s it; that has to be why I’m obsessing over this. Chloe’s the one girl that said no, and I can’t deal with that. She’s the prize I was denied five years ago that I’m still fucking chasing.
Fuck. That.
There are literally a million other girls in the city of London I could be out fucking the hell out of right now. A million other lays to get Chloe out of my head; a million other faceless women to replace her.
I look up and meet my own eyes in the mirror through the steam of the shower, tightening my jaw in resolve. Fuck it, that’s the move; leave this shower, get changed, drink an espresso or something and just go fuck something.
Except all I can think about is how different this shower is to the one last night; the one where I had her pressed against this glass, my cock slick and hot, nestled against her pussy and her lips wrapped tight around my finger. Fuckin’ hell, I mean I didn’t even fuck her and I’m this twisted up about it.
And then I’m just imagining the feel of that heat between her legs against my cock. I’m imagining her soft, plump lips wrapped sensually around my finger, her finger teasing the digit, and all I can picture is her on her knees with those lips wrapped sweetly around my cock.
I shake my head from the daydream as the water starts to get cold, grunting as I turn to shut it off.
And I’m rock hard; as hard as I was when I made her come against me last night.
I don’t even realize what I’m doing until I’m standing, naked and dripping wet, in front of her bedroom door. I’m rock hard and just fucking hungry for her. I want to wrap her legs around my waist, or drape them over my shoulders and bury every single fucking inch inside this girl until I explode I want to bend her over on her hands and knees and shove my tongue as deep into that honeyed pussy of hers as I can.
The door is locked - I check - and I almost, almost knock before I’m suddenly shaking myself out of my delirium and realize fully what I’m doing.
I’m naked, and hard, and standing outside my stepsister’s room thinking about fucking her bare and taking and claiming her in every possible way.
Yep, it is time to fucking sleep.
I shake my head again as I turn away from her door and stumble back to my own room. “Go out?” “Find someone new to pick up?” I could almost laugh, except I’m pretty sure I’m too tired to. Fuck, I’m too tired to do anything but crash into my bed and slowly let the darkness drag me down, as I fall asleep with the world’s most confused erection of all time.
Sleep is a wondrous thing. Or at least, it can be.
I’m hoping as I wake up late the next morning that somehow actually turning my body and my mind off for a solid nine hours will fix things. I’m hoping to wake to clarity and the sudden epiphany that I’m being a solid wanker and that I need to go drop Chloe Caulfield right out of my head.
Hope is another wondrous thing.
And a waste of time, apparently.
She’s off someplace before I even struggle downstairs to make myself some breakfast, and even though I want to scowl at her ducking out like that, I’m still in no place to even start to talk to her on a normal level.
“Oy, look who’s roused himself, eh?”
I blink as I step into the kitchen to find my dad slumped over the racetrack score paper by the window, smoking chesterfields.
Jesus, you can take the bum out of the East End and put him in a nice house, but you can’t take the East End out of the bum.
Laura smiles at me from the counter, where it looks like she’s mangling a pan of scrambled eggs something wicked. Hey, at least she’s trying. I can’t honestly remember a single thing my father’s ever cooked.
“There’s coffee, Oliver.”
I smile at her before I see my dad roll his eyes and glance down at his watch, “Tick-tock, Ollie. Restaurant going to run itself today is it?”
“It’s nine-thirty, dad.”
“So?” He scowls at me, “I’m up, and I went five rounds of five-card with the lads last night.” He snorts, shaking his head as he glances back to his betting paper. It’s as if somehow his being out playing fucking poker is anything remotely like the night I had last night; even without the whole Chloe debacle.
“Had a bit of a rough night last night, pop. I don’t know if you know.”
Dad just shrugs and turns to a new page of his sports paper.
“Your father called Ian this morning and heard,” Laura says.
The idea of poor Ian being roused by my father’s poking and prodding phone call at whatever ungodly hour he called is half amusing, half cringe-worthy, but I grin to myself nonetheless.
She scrapes the eggs around the pan in a way that has me wincing before she looks up again, smiling, “So exciting about the Times, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, well, a bit of a shitshow it was.”
Dad shrugs as he scans down a list of greyhound track results, “Eh, the lot of those greedy fucks can sod right off. Who needs ‘em, yeah?”
I roll my eyes as I pour coffee. “Everyone needs them, Dad. It’s a bit of a big deal to get a write up.”
“Bunch of lazy twats looking for a free meal is what that is.”
I swear to Christ, you couldn’t make this up if you tried. This is literally how my father speaks and thinks about the world. And I’d like to think I’m wise enough to know when to just shut up and let him think whatever he wants.
“So, a little nancy with a notebook gets his knickers twisted and you get the day off, eh?”
I clench my jaw, and want to say something a bit more choice, but I decide not to in front of Laura. I realize that I barely know her, but she seems nice enough; probably too nice for a pisser like my dad, really.
“Guess I’ll be going then,” I say thinly. My dad doesn’t say a thing.
Chloe ignores me from the second I walk in the door.
Of course.
But where I should just roll my eyes and let it be, for some reason, I can’t. Instead I glare at her from across the kitchen, sipping my espresso and growling to myself. Because for some reason, being ignored by this girl somehow gets to me in ways that stupid games like this never do.
It takes me a second, but when it hits me, it sticks with me. Because that’s when it clicks. What annoys me the most about her standing over there with headphones in her ears and pretending she didn’t see me walk in - pretending she didn’t see me make myself an espresso three meters away from her, glaring at her the whole time - is that games like this are totally beneath a girl like her. Because she’s not just ignoring me, she’s making a game of it. She’s making it obvious she is, which sort of dilutes the whole purpose ignoring someone.
A girl like Chloe Caulfield is way above playing games with a knucklehead like me, and that’s what gets under my skin like a splinter.
I nod at Ian when he pokes his head into the kitchen, and grin when he glares at me. Yeah, there’s the face of a six a.m. Barney Beckett wake-up call if I ever saw one. He coughs and makes a nodding gesture for me to follow him back out to the empty dining room.
“Oy, heard you got a call from room service bright and early this morning,” I grin, sipping at my espresso as I step around the tables stacked with chairs, “Sorry about that.”
He glares at me before he snorts and shakes his head. “Eh, no worries. I make Jerry take just about every ca
ll I get from your old man, I don’t think he can actually tell us apart.”
I laugh.
“Listen though, there’s another call I got just now you should know about.”
“Oh? What’s it now?” I roll my eyes, “Barney changing the whole theme of the place to a topless chips shop?”
“Your pastry cook is putting out feelers.”
I freeze, espresso cup midway to my lips, “Huh?”
Ian nods. “Got a call from Sean over at Maxwell, checking out her references.” He glares at me, “Ollie, I don’t have to tell you how hard it is to find a decent pastry cook right now.”
She wants to quit? Over one fucking argument? I can feel my teeth grinding together as I glare into my coffee cup.
“Look, make nice, okay?” We can’t be changing over staff in between Times reviews; you know that.” Ian shrugs, “Besides, I like her.”
“Oh, well, in that case-” I roll my eyes at Ian, “And why is she so high on the Ian Johnson opinion meter?”
“Because she serves your shit right back to you, that’s why,” Ian says with grin and a raised eyebrow.
Cocky git.
“I’ll handle it.”
“Nicely, Ollie.”
“Oy, you want me to tell you how to manage your fucking wait staff?”
Ian laughs as he heads towards his office, “Play nice!” He calls back over his shoulder.
I stand amongst the empty tables of the dining room for another minute, stewing things over. She’s looking for another job? Already?
Let her, the voice inside says with a shrug; Why not? Weren’t you bitching about how living AND working with her was messing with your head?
And the voice is right; I should just let her do what she wants. I should call Sean back right now, give her a glowing recommendation, send her on her merry fucking way, and then go fuck half the waitresses on Ian’s staff.
That’s what I should do, when it comes to Chloe.
