Just Like This (Albin Academy #2) - Cole McCade Page 0,142

eaten at another restaurant in ages. Most of my meals consisted of late-night affairs conjured up after the final guests left for the night. I’d developed the bad habit of burrowing into my own life so deep I sometimes forgot a world outside of The Yellow House existed.

The angry-looking man, whose name I’d promptly forgotten, glared at the cottage behind me like it had single-handedly murdered his entire family. “So, the Williams Award, huh? Pretty big deal. How are you guys handling the attention? I bet you’re getting a lot more customers than you’re used to.”

He was talking to me like I was a child running a lemonade stand with her parents’ money.

I shrugged and smoothed my apron, letting the pleasant texture of the coarse linen distract me from the unpleasantness of this man’s voice. “It’s been a wild few months, that’s for sure. Lots of folks from away coming to eat here. But it’s amazing to build a community of people who really care about good food.” The sun inched higher in the sky. I needed to get back inside, put the first loaves of sourdough in the oven, and start prepping the berries for the tarts.

A long, tense silence stretched between us. Normally, I would have invited them in for coffee and a few fat slices of peach cake left over from last night’s dessert service. But something about the three of them unsettled me. The fancy suit, the rough demeanor, the...well, I didn’t have time to think about why Adah had me all out of alignment.

“I read your interview in Bread & Wine. Sounds like you take the whole ‘farm-to-table’ thing pretty seriously.” Mr. Jerkface said farm-to-table like a particularly foul swearword.

“Sure do.” I plastered a smile on my face. I felt like a politician when all I wanted to do was stop talking and start working. “My dad’s a lobsterman and my mom ran this place as a coffee shop my whole life. This is my home. I want the food to reflect that. To taste both familiar and exciting.” As much as I meant it, it was a canned response. One I’d given a dozen or so times since people started asking me silly questions about my culinary philosophy. Whatever in the world that meant.

“What’s your staff situation look like?” I half expected this guy to pull out his phone and start recording. Adah and the fancy suit dude exchanged a meaningful look.

“Well...” I trailed off for a long moment, letting the irritation creep up my throat just a little more. I didn’t owe these people anything. And they still hadn’t told me what they wanted. Was this a thing big shot restaurant people did? Drive out to small-town eateries and pester the owners with weird questions? I sighed. “It’s just me, my best friend Nina, and my brother, Andrew, in the kitchen. Plus Ahmed, our front of house superstar, and our two servers.” I left out the fact that one of said servers spent most of his time on shift getting stoned and that I was desperately in need of about five more people I could not possibly afford to pay a decent wage, which meant I was a living, breathing poster child for overwork. I rolled my neck and inhaled deeply.

“That’s a pretty lean operation.” Adah shot me an unreadable expression.

Usually, I could get a sense of a person’s energy within the first few minutes of meeting them, understand who they were and what they were looking for. My mom called it empathy. My brother called me a psychic. Really, people just made sense to me. But not this woman.

Adah squinted back at the cottage, shielding her eyes with her elegant hand. Smoke poured from the stone chimney. Fuck. I’d forgotten to adjust the flue before rushing outside and the fire had gotten too hot. In all likelihood the kitchen temperature had climbed from hot as hell to face-meltingly sweltering, meaning my dough would be trash. This little conversation had cost me a good thirty minutes of work. Now instead of slipping the breads into the oven, I’d have to tamp the flames, start over on my choux pastry, and recalibrate my entire morning. No way in hell was I getting around to the job posting today.

“Looks like your oven’s burning too hot.” Adah nodded, a sharp definitive motion.

Suddenly, rage engulfed me, whole and scalding. Maybe it was the exhaustion. Maybe it was the ache in my lower back. Maybe it was the