Saturday night started bad and got worse.
By seven the tickets were already spilling off the rails. The dining room was packed wall to wall. Every table wanted something different. The heat from the open grill made the whole kitchen feel like it was sweating. Mateo was moving so fast he almost took out a server. I stayed on the pass, calling orders, plating, wiping, spinning back for the next ticket before the ink was even dry.
Leo worked the grill like the chaos didn’t touch him. Sweat darkened the collar of his black shirt. His jaw stayed tight. Every time our eyes met across the line something sharp and unspoken passed between us. We hadn’t talked about the shirts. We hadn’t talked about the couch. We hadn’t talked about the way his fingers had closed around my wrist in the dark. We j
