Addicted: A Bad Boy Stepbrother Romance(117)

Around seven o'clock though, things got busy, and I ran into trouble. Tickets started to pour in, and I was falling behind. It was the little things that were getting me in trouble, and I knew it. I wasn't coordinating my tickets so that if a table ordered a steak and two lamb chops, all of them came off at the same time so they'd hit the customer's table at the perfect temperature. I was leaving one side down a bit too long, turning caramelization into scorching. By eight, I already had four plates come back to me from Shannon for redoing. She was getting on my ass, nothing I didn't deserve, but I couldn't take it anymore.

The straw that broke the camel's back was double thick pork chops. You have to understand, cooking pork chops is different from cooking steak or lamb. Pork has to be cooked through, or else the risk of food poisoning is a lot higher. You can't have rare pork chops, in fact in the United States there are very strict laws on it. However, because the chops are double thick, you can't have your fire too hot, or else you end up with a chop that is cooked in the middle and a hockey puck on the outside, or perfect on the outside and dangerously raw in the middle.

It was this second sin that I was guilty of. I'd put the pork chops on the section of the grill reserved for beef and lamb, not even thinking about it. Going by instinct, I flipped it to a beautiful golden brown crust, and then finished off the other side. Instead of checking the interior temperature, I plated the chops and sent them off with the rest of the order, already forgetting about it to focus on the next ticket.

Shannon came by herself a minute later. "What the hell are you doing?" she asked me, quietly seething. "Sending me underdone chops? Are you trying to get us shut down by the health department, or are you really that fucking stupid?"

Before you think that Shannon was out of place for cursing and yelling the way she was, remember where I worked. Alinea is a fine dining restaurant, and high class chefs have always been tin pot dictators. While Gordon Ramsay might garner ratings and shock value with his rants on his shows, the fact is, he's nowhere near the worst. I've seen hardened chefs reduced to tears by some of the masters, and in fact had been reduced to tears myself. The most frustrating of all was when I did two weeks of summer internship in college at a camp run by Marco Pierre White. He's Ramsay's mentor, and in fact made Ramsay cry when he was a young chef. The thing about Marco is that he doesn't yell at you, he's grown beyond that. He just keeps up the pressure, and won't accept less than perfection. He's unrelenting, uncompromising, and has a way of looking at you that leaves you shattered on the inside. The thing was, after the cook, he'd be your biggest supporter, and show you how to gain strength from the shattering.

Shannon though wasn't trying to get me to become stronger. She was pissed off, I was pissed off, and I was not in the place to get cursed at. "Fuck off Shannon, I'm sorry about the chops. I'll get another one ready for you."

I saw the change in Shannon's face as soon as the first sentence left my lips. She was the executive chef of a Michelin starred restaurant, one of the few women to do so. She was brought up in the old school, where the executive chef was never, and I mean never referred to by their first name while at work. As for telling her to fuck off? You can imagine how I'd crossed the line with that one. "No, you won't," she said, reaching over and snapping down the lever that controlled the gas to my grill. The flames went out, and the whole kitchen went momentarily silent. "You think your problems matter? No. Get out. You're fired."

I had a set of tongs in my hand, and I wanted to grab Shannon by her nose with the hot grease covered metal and twist. I wanted to scream at her I didn't need her job or her patronage to become a great chef. I wanted to cry. I wanted to run away. What I did, however, was set my tongs down, take my apron off, and set it in her hands. While I made my way towards the tiny changing area where our bags were kept, I worked at the buttons on my top, to the point that by the time I reached my locker, I was standing in just my pants and my white undershirt. I opened my locker and pulled on the light jacket I'd worn for covering up, and grabbed my bag. There was nothing else inside.

Turning around, I saw Horst looking at me, his face a blend of compassion and disappointment. "I'm sorry," he said, holding his hand out. "Chef wants me to get your top."

I handed it over silently, my eyes brimming with tightly held back tears. "I'm sorry too Horst."

"I shouldn't have put you on the meat station after seeing the way you were walking in. Do you want to talk about it?"

I shook my head, the first tear falling down my cheek. "What is there to talk about? Just, thank you. You were good to work with, and I'm sorry I let you down."