The Rideshare Driver Drove Me Home Four Nights in a Row novel · Chapter 11 of 24

Chapter 11: The Pass

I let him in through the alley door at twelve-forty, and the kitchen was mine.

The line had been scrubbed and the floor squeegeed toward the drain, and every burner was cold.

The big dish machine was still running its last cycle at the back, hissing and thudding.

Under it, far away through the pass window, I could hear the porter's vacuum going back and forth across the dining room carpet.

I had changed in the office into a black skirt and a clean shirt.

Mateo stood in the doorway in his gray sweatshirt and looked at everything.

"This is where you are all day," he said.

"This is where I've been for nine years."

"Show me."

I took his hand and walked him down the line.

I showed him the flat-top where I'd burned myself, and the walk-in.

The long steel prep table where we broke down fish at six every morning.

I turned off the overhead lights.

That left only the pass, the long steel shelf where the plates went out.

The heat lamps over it burned orange and low, and the whole kitchen glowed copper.

"I wanted you to see it," I said, "when nobody's in it."

He said nothing.

I had never let anyone watch me stand in my own kitchen and want something.

I put my hand flat on his chest and walked him backward until his hips met the steel table.

Then I kissed him.

I kissed him with my back to the rows of clean pans.

My hand gripping his sweatshirt, and the vacuum droning in the next room.

"Chef," Mateo said against my mouth, grinning.

"Don't," I said.

"Chef, I..."

"I said don't."

I pushed him back, hard, and he laughed and sat on the edge of the table.

I stood between his knees and took off his sweatshirt, and his shirt after it, and dropped them on a milk crate.

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