Page 39 of Best Laid Plans (Rock Harbor #1)

CHAPTER TWENTY

CAM

C am was adjusting to working in the Pierce’s Lobster Co. kitchen with other people around. It was Thursday, and after a full day yesterday managing the crowd that was–thankfully–still enthusiastic after the chowder fest, he was settling back into a rhythm.

The kitchen was smaller than any he’d ever worked in professionally, but Mr. Pierce had always taken thought and care making the space as efficient as possible.

With a pair of tongs that had a home on a hook bracketed to the back wall, Cam grabbed a bright red lobster, cooked to perfection, and placed it to the side of the still-boiling pot of water to cool.

“Boiled lobster ready in three,” Cam said toward the walk-in refrigerator, where Luke, the part-dishwasher, part-prep assistant had disappeared into for another box of clams.

Luke appeared in the doorway, carrying the box he’d gone to retrieve along with a tray of scallops. “Yes, chef.”

By all accounts, they were a skeleton crew, but when he’d come in for his first day managing the kitchen while Mr. Pierce took another week to recuperate, Luke had shown up about thirty minutes before opening.

Sasha, who was working the counter, had shown up only minutes after that.

They were both hard workers, which he appreciated, even if they were a little green when it came to actual kitchen experience.

So far, Luke was doing an adequate job. They’d worked around one another yesterday–Cam figuring out his rhythm again. It was like riding a bicycle, though, as muscle memory had taken over. Especially at Pierce’s, where he’d already spent thousands of hours before.

Today, he was fully focused. He pulled up the clam strips and french fries that were cooking in the bubbling fryer vats, tipping them upward to get any excess oil cleared. Then, he threw them into the holding station and liberally sprinkled salt.

He turned around, barely blinking when he saw two additional orders in the ticket holder. Pierce’s still took orders by hand, and he had to give Sasha credit for her excellent penmanship. He couldn’t say the same for Mrs. Pierce, though that was a thought he’d take to his grave.

On autopilot, he quickly scanned the items. A lobster tail, of which he still had a dozen or so pre-prepped in the fridge.

Onion rings and french fries. Another order of clam strips.

He could do this in his sleep. ‘Mini lobster roll? Special sauce?’ was written in bold and underlined, which is when he noticed that Sasha was staring at him.

“They specifically requested that I ask,” she said, resisting the urge to roll her eyes even if the customer couldn’t see her. They’d been getting a lot of requests for menu items from chowder fest over the last two days.

“Unfortunately not. Normal menu, as usual,” he said gruffly past Sasha and directly to the customer, a middle aged guy with salt-and-pepper hair who absolutely looked like the kind of person who was used to getting what he wanted.

All he got was a dour look in response and what he thought were the words “false advertising” coming from the man, though it was too loud in the kitchen to fully hear him. Not that he really cared what he had to say anyway.

Cam was proud as hell of the menu that he’d created for the chowder fest, but this wasn’t his restaurant.

He’d never go off-script on a normal day without Mr. Pierce’s permission, which he hadn’t asked for–nor had he been given.

So today, it was the standard fare, which was still the best seafood in New England as far as Cam was concerned.

Mr. Pierce made his own breading for all the fried seafood, a special blend for which Cam still didn’t quite know the recipe.

He’d tried for years, dabbing bits of the breading on his tongue to try and work out the flavors.

Still, he knew that he was missing something whenever he tried to recreate it on his own.

And the seafood itself was so laughably sea to table that one good storm could probably push a lobster right up on their doorstep.

The market at the water’s edge delivered every morning, and Cam made a mental note to bump up the order volume for the rest of the week.

If the last two days were any indication, he was not prepared for the weekend.

The lunch rush moved quickly over the next two hours, with a steady stream of orders finally tapering off around three p.m., signaling the lull between the lunch and dinner rushes when Cam would need to prep again.

Cam signaled to Luke, who was dutifully butterflying more lobster tails, a task he’d been assigned thirty minutes ago. “Cover for Sasha so she can take a break, then you can go.”

Restaurants, like all businesses, had labor laws, but a lot of chefs and managers felt like they were flexible instead of requirements.

Cam was not of the same mindset. The bullshit idea that someone needed to be pushed, broken down, or bullied into submission had never sat right with him.

He’d grown up in a kitchen with Jim Pierce, whose cooking and management style was antithetical to every single kitchen he’d worked in since then .

The kitchen wasn’t war, regardless of what pretentious chefs wanted people to think. It was serving food to locals and tourists who’d gotten comfortable in the twenty-first century with never waiting more than ten minutes for anything in their lives.

When Cam had been watching Elle play tennis which… he still couldn’t think about too deeply without heat flooding his body, he’d heard her say, “play goes at the server’s pace.”

In this kitchen, he was the server. It was his pace to set, and his expectation of what was appropriate. Chefs who pretended that making the day-to-day bearable for the staff was out of their control were either lazy, entitled, or incompetent.

Truly, everyone needed to chill the fuck out and smell the roses, as far as he was concerned.

“Order up,” Cam said into the window separating the kitchen and the dining room.

Luke turned quickly to grab the tray before calling out the order number and setting it on the counter.

The solace in being so busy was that he thought about Elle less frequently.

Which was still a problem, at least as far as he was concerned.

Cooking had always been all-consuming, but no matter what he did, he still couldn’t wipe her completely from his thoughts.

Even when he was locked in and pushing out orders like his life depended on it.

Like he’d already done multiple times today, he tried unsuccessfully to push her away.

He focused on the prep station underneath his hands, the shiny metal reflecting his unsmiling face back at him.

He threw his towel down on the station. That was enough of that.

He checked the accoutrements instead of looking at his steely reflection, assessing what he’d need to cut up before the dinner rush.

After he took a mental inventory of the garnishes, he moved over to the walk-in refrigerator, welcoming the cold burst of air on his body .

But still, Elle was there, persistent and unabating when he had even a minute to think.

What was most important though, was that Cam didn’t have the luxury of letting himself get caught up in possibilities . And that’s what Elle Pierce was trying to make him do.

Cam spent his life looking at what was right in front of him.

It was the only way he’d made it this long and this far.

Which is why he didn’t think about the possibility of Elle getting the job in Boston tomorrow, her interview looming over him like a black cloud.

Or the possibility that Wyatt found out about them and slugged him hard enough to crack his jaw.

And he definitely didn’t let himself think about Elle bringing up the idea that they could keep seeing one another when they were both back in Boston.

He hadn’t wanted to be dismissive when she’d brought it up, but judging from how Elle had been keeping her distance since Tuesday, it seemed like a real possibility that she hadn’t liked his answer.

He’d been shocked, mostly. And he’d blurted out the truth–that his career in Boston was very likely over–before he’d considered any other options. At this point, his honesty felt like a character flaw because there were about a million other ways in retrospect that he could have handled things.

He took a deep inhale in the refrigerator and let the cold air rush through his lungs.

But what was he supposed to say? Nothing that could make the reality of his situation any more palatable for a woman like Elle–someone whose plans had plans. She was slumming it while she got back on her feet, and Cam should just be grateful for the few weeks he’d had with her.

Elle was the epitome of the kind of woman who shouldn’t wait for a man like him to get his shit together.

He had nothing to offer her, of that he felt sure.

He shared an apartment with three roommates.

He was currently unemployed. And he couldn’t even sac up enough to consider Wyatt finding out about them.

But he looked at that last one as a favor to both Elle and him.

So maybe this is how it was all supposed to end–not with a bang, but with a whimper. And not even one of the little self-satisfied ones that he could tease out of Elle when he fucked her just right, hitting the spot inside that made her legs go all wobbly while they were wrapped around him.

“Fuck,” he breathed into the silent room, bracing his hand against one of the cool metal racks, his fingers wrapping around it so forcefully that he was leaving indents in his skin.

He couldn’t even remember why he’d walked in here a minute ago.

His phone buzzed in his pocket, providing a much needed distraction.

Mr. Pierce

Dinner tonight at the house? Wanted to check in and see how everything at the restaurant is going.

Or maybe not.