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The man stared at me. Sourced. I’d known this. All the servers were trained to know where our fish was caught, what kind of drinks paired well with them, and all sorts of other random information, but right now I just couldn’t bring any of that to mind.

“Well, it’s… fresh caught… uh, today. From the Atlantic Ocean. Very fresh, very good stuff. Would you like to order a plate of it?”

He cleared his throat, not looking impressed. “No, thank you. That will be all.”

“Thank you,” I said, and headed back to the kitchen to drop off the orders.

Fuck, I need to concentrate.

I stuffed my hand into my pocket to check my cell phone for the time, and my fingers brushed against a piece of paper. The flier. I pulled it out and looked over it.

“Art, live music, and drinks,” it said. “Celebrate this year’s class of Beasley illustrators.”

It started an hour before I got off work. I could go, if I wanted to.

If I wanted to.

But I didn’t.

Right?

“Order,” I said, and handed off my order sheet to Preston, that night’s head cook.

“How wa

s Miyaguchi?” he asked. “Heard he’s intense.”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I must’ve missed him.”

“The hell are you talking about?” He waved the sheet in front of me. “This is his order, ain’t it?”

My heart tumbled out of my ribcage and dropped all the way down to my feet. “What?” I spun around and saw the man I’d just served saying something to his wife while scribbling in a little notebook. She nodded and looked over my way. I clenched up and quickly looked back at Preston. “That’s Brandon Miyaguchi?”

“Yeah. Didn’t you recognize him?”

I felt the storm clouds rumbling overhead. Fuck my life.

“No, obviously. Shit. Shit, shit, shit.”

Preston eyed me and then handed the order sheet back. “You wanna double check this and make sure it’s right?”

I looked over the order sheet. Fuck, why didn’t I read the order back to them? I always read the order back! “One order of spicy tonkotsu ramen, one maximum miso with extra…” I flinched and quickly scribbled out “Melany” and wrote “chashu.” Had he ordered something else? The creamy tuna croquette? Or had he said he didn’t want one? No, he had wanted the croquette.

I scribbled an order for a creamy tuna croquette and handed the sheet to Preston. “There.”

He gave me a look and retreated back to the line. When I went back out to the floor, I made sure to be as attentive as I could. I hurried around, grinning so stupidly it felt like my mouth was going to come off, making sure to loudly recall all the menu recommendations and pairing information so that Brandon Miyaguchi could hear just how on point I was.

“Alright, folks,” I said, returning with their order, my stupid smile still plastered on my face. “I’ve got a spicy tonkotsu ramen for the gentleman, a maximum miso with extra chashu for the lady, and an order of the creamy tuna croquette.”

“Tuna croquette,” he repeated, looking at it.

“Yes, sir,” I said.

He looked up at me and smiled. “Okay. Thank you.”

“Anything else for you both?”

“That will be all.”