Ruined By My Stepbrother novel · Chapter 3 of 32

Chapter 3: The Line

Barrett proves he can cook, Dane gloats at close, and Hattie holds Barrett's burned wrist under the cold tap until he reminds her who their parents just married.

I didn't wave back.

I walked to the front windows and dropped the blind.

When I turned around, Barrett had already found my apron hooks and taken the last clean one.

"That's mine," Frankie said.

"It's mine now," he said.

"Dish pit first," I told him. "I want to see if you can follow orders."

He looked at the stack of sheet pans in the sink from the lunch I'd cooked alone.

Then he tied the apron and turned on the hot water without a word.

Frankie leaned on the pass and watched him scrub.

"Where did you find the hot dishwasher?"

"Behind a tent."

"Is he single?"

"He's my brother."

"Since when do you have a brother?"

"Since six o'clock last night."

She looked at me over her glasses for a very long time.

"We'll talk," she said.

We had forty covers on the book for Sunday dinner.

On a normal June Sunday we'd do ninety.

The first tickets came in at five, and by five-twenty I had eleven of them on the rail.

I was searing scallops, plating chowder and dropping fries with one pair of hands.

Barrett dried his hands and stood at my shoulder.

"Put me on sauté," he said.

"You're on dish."

"Your clams are about to boil over."

They were.

"Sauté," I said. "Don't touch my scallops."

He moved.

He read a ticket once and didn't look at it again.

He called his own times without being asked.

"Two linguine, four minutes. Mussels up in two."

"Did I ask you?"

"You were going to."

By six he was running sauté and fry and half my garnish, and he hadn't burned a thing.

By seven he was cocky about it.

"Behind," he said, reaching past me for the chives, close enough that I felt his breath on my ear.

"You don't have to say behind when I can see you."

"You weren't looking at me."

"I was looking at my scallops."

"You were looking at my hands."

I slid a plate onto the pass so hard the corn jumped.

"Order up. Table six. And stop talking."

Frankie took the plate and looked straight at Barrett.

"The hot dishwasher has a mouth on him," she said.

"I was promoted," Barrett said.

"Not to my section, you weren't."

At nine-fifteen the last table paid.

They left a note on the receipt in blue pen. "The chowder is NOT from a can. Who wrote that review?"

Frankie pinned it on the corkboard by the walk-in.

I didn't look at Barrett, and he didn't look at the corkboard.

We were breaking down when the front door opened.

I knew the walk before I saw the face.

Dane strolled through my dining room in a white linen shirt.

"Hats," he said.

Nobody had called me that since I threw his ring at him.

"We're closed, Dane."

"I know. I saw your dining room from up there. Gorgeous. Very peaceful."

Frankie stepped between him and the kitchen door with a full bus tub.

"Out."

He ignored her and leaned on my pass.

"I read the review this morning," he said. "Honestly, I thought it was a little harsh. The scallops part."

"That's sweet."

"I'm being a friend. Cold Plate doesn't miss. When he says you're done, people listen."

Behind me, Barrett had the flat-top scraper in both hands.

He was working the grease off the steel in long, even strokes.

He didn't turn around.

"What do you want?" I said.

Dane nodded at the walk-in.

"That cooler. I picked it out, remember? I'll give you a fair price for it when you're done."

"When I'm done."

"Labor Day. September. Whenever the landlord stops being sentimental." He smiled with all his teeth. "I'm just saying, don't sell it to anybody else. I'll need it for the expansion."

Scrape. Scrape. Scrape.

Dane glanced at Barrett's back for the first time.

"Who's this?"

"My brother," I said.

Dane laughed.

"Sure. Hey, brother. Nice work on the grill. She's a lot, huh?"

Barrett lifted the scraper, knocked the grease into the trough, and kept going.

He didn't say a word.

Dane waited for an answer that didn't come, and his smile lost a little air.

"Night, Hats," he said. "Get some sleep. You look tired."

The door shut behind him.

Frankie banged the bus tub down on the counter.

"I'm going to key his Range Rover," she said. "I'm going to do it with a lobster pick."

"Go home, Frankie."

Then it was just me and Barrett and the hum of the hood fans.

"You could have said something," I said.

"If I open my mouth around that man," Barrett said, "I'll say something I can't take back."

He reached over the salamander to pull down the last plate warmer.

The steel was still blazing hot.

He hissed and jerked his right hand back.

There was an angry red line across the inside of his wrist.

I had him at the hand sink before he could swear.

I turned the cold tap on full and held his wrist under it with both hands.

"Don't move."

"It's fine."

"It's a second-degree burn on a man who's cooking tomorrow. Don't move."

He stopped moving.

The water ran over my fingers and his.

I could feel his pulse going fast under my thumb.

When I looked up, his face was right there.

An inch away, maybe less.

His eyes dropped to my mouth and stayed.

I didn't let go of his wrist.

He didn't pull it away.

"Hattie," he said, very low.

"What?"

"Your mother married my father yesterday."

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