It’s opening night, and if I stop to think about it I might just seize up and require smelling salts to reawaken. If I didn’t feel like the success of Chow was riding on this opening before, then I certainly do now, in no small part due to Tony acting as if we’ll go out of business unless it’s a massive, blowout success.

It doesn’t help that Tony forced me to read an interview with Cole where he was asked about ‘upstart restaurants with a mission statement of fresh, simply prepared cuisine’. His response that such restaurants ‘had their place’ but ‘didn’t value the artistry of food’ as much as he did and rarely lasted—in reality and in memory—stung. It was tamer than his usual, tamer than I would have expected, and I could tell he was thinking of Chow when he answered, but the dismissive judgment only added to my already anxious state. My nerves reach stratospheric levels when I overhear people talking about ‘that new place on the corner opening soon’ in a coffee line.

I spend the morning with Ellie, Greg, and their two girls, picking them up from LAX and having an all-too-brief brunch with them during which I try to sit still and act like a normal person despite my skin tingling with electricity and my mind buzzing with to-do lists and worst case scenarios.

After eating, I leave my sister and her family with Asha for a whistle-stop tour of L.A. and head back to Chow, checking my watch every twenty seconds, lamenting the fact that I only have five hours until opening at seven-thirty. The kitchen staff are already there, laughing and joking their nerves away, a camaraderie built up over the past few weeks of hard training I gave them. Five chefs, three waiters. Ideally, we had wanted seven chefs, a dish washer, and four waiters, but a combination of high standards, trepidation about initial business, and a lack of time to interview meant that we had to make do for now. With Tony and I doubling up on all tasks, we figured we could get by.

When I arrive at Chow just before three pm, Tony’s already zipping between his roles as organizer, table setter, and cook. I blast through the front toward the kitchen and immediately start helping the overwhelmed chefs.

I hear the click of a gas lighter repeat too many times behind me and turn to find Helen frowning at the stove.

“What’s the matter?” I say, without stopping my washing of salad greens.

“This stove…it’s not coming on.”

I finish rinsing and dry my hands quickly as I move toward it, inspecting under the cap and trying it myself.

“The guy told me this happens sometimes,” I say, frustrated as I look at the piping behind it, “and that it would clear itself up soon.”

I slam the cap back and try again, feeling a release of endorphins as it fires up.

“Thanks, chef,” Helen says as I check the clock and see that we’re only two and a half hours away now.

I get back to the veggie rinsing, so on edge now that it sounds like there are a hundred people chattering in my head, willing the minute hand on the clock to move a little slower. In the rush to prepare stations, check sauces, and ready ingredients, the time disappears…

“Uh…Willow?”

I turn to look in the direction of the trembling voice.

“Yes, Shane?”

“Are you sure we have enough squid?” he says, as he glances in the ice box uncertainly.

“Of course. We had a delivery just this morning.”

I hear Jack’s rhythmic knife-chopping stop suddenly, and look up again to find Shane and Jack looking nervously at each other.

“Uh…no. We didn’t,” Shane says.

“Yes we did,” I say, trying to stop the feeling of my heart plunging into my gut. “It would have come before nine-thirty.”

“I was here at eight,” Jack says. “And we haven’t gotten any deliveries today.”

I stare at them for a few seconds, mouth going dry, babbling voices in my head getting louder, then drop the salad and push past them on a desperate march toward the storage area at the back.

Nothing.

I yank open the industrial freezer, slimly hoping there was a mistake in storage, but find only the meager supplies left over from training last week.

“Fuck!” I yell. A primal scream that serves only to keep me from combusting with my own anger. I grab the door frame for support and breathe deep, not even the coldness of the refrigerated air able to cool off the lava of my furious blood.

I scramble to pull my phone from my pocket and call the distributor, about ready to tear him limb from limb over the connection, cursing out his entire lineage with every ringtone that he doesn’t answer, until it clicks over to his voicemail and I unleash a tirade of war-mongering proportions, gripping the phone as tight as if it were his neck.

The noise in my head is almost unbearable now, a background whine that sets my nerves jangling, my muscles taut. I march back through the kitchen to Tony, who’s hurriedly directing the waiters as he rearranges napkins and place settings.

“Tony!” I say, while I’m still crossing the room. “We have a problem.”

“You’re telling me,” he says, rising as I get near.

“The fucking seafood delivery is— Wait. What are you talking about?”

Tony’s face is a picture of rare concern.

“Well…remember when I said we didn’t have to worry about overbooking, because it’s not like every single person would show up for their reservation anyway?”

Suddenly it hits me. The voices in my head aren’t actually in my head. The thrum and chatter of a crowd…is coming from outside my restaurant. I can see a few people milling about through the glass, but now I move purposefully to the door.

“I honestly didn’t expect this kind of turnout, Willow!” Tony says apologetically as he follows me.

I slam through the entrance doors and step out onto the sidewalk, the scene stretching out before me like a punch in the gut.

“Holy shit…”

The crowd is thick, and stretches off down the entire block. It’s the sort of crowd that would have been an effort to handle even on a good night at Knife, more like a political protest than a line for a restaurant.

“What the hell, Tony?” I say, hands on my head as I struggle to find where the line ends. “Did you offer people free meals or something?”

“Of course not,” he says, shrugging diffidently. “I guess I just underestimated how good I am at promotion.”

I peel my eyes from the scene to direct my frustration at my business partner.

“It’s not going to be good promotion when we have to turn away two thirds of these people, and the other third has to wait over an hour for their food. We can only seat eighty people, for God’s sake!”

“A hundred,” Tony corrects me. “At a push…”

“We’ve got five cooks, and I must be looking at about two hundred and fifty customers.” I check my watch. “And it’s ten-to-seven. Shit. This is not good, Tony.”

I look at him for a moment, with a glint of hope that he might come up with an answer. Some batshit crazy idea for how this could work, the kind of thing he’s always been good at, the kind of thing that got us to this point in the first place.

But it doesn’t come. And for some weird reason I remember what Cole told me that day at the beach, about trusting only yourself. A slight sadness coloring my frustration as I realize how much I miss him, even in the midst of all of this.

“Open the doors,” I say, suddenly purposeful. “Start letting people in.”

“What?” Tony gapes, following me back inside the restaurant. “But we still have time—”

“No we don’t,” I cut him off. “If we’re gonna get through this many people we need to start turning them over quickly. You!” I point at the waiters. “Push people toward anything that isn’t the seafood. Recommend the paprika chicken, or the kimchi steak.”

The waiters nod and stiffen. I pull my phone out and start looking for seafood distributors, dialing the first one as I push past the doors into the kitchen.

“Showtime!” I call out to the chefs as I tuck the phone between ear and shoulder to start readying the counter. “Orders coming in thick and fast and very soon! Show me what you’ve learned. Chow is open for business.”

What follows is without doubt the hardest shift of my life. Enough orders come in to occupy a kitchen twice our size, and all the while I glue my face to my phone as I call every seafood distributor in town looking for an emergency package. Most just laugh off the request, and others don’t even answer at this time of night. The best I get is a box of crab that’s good for about three orders.

But even though every member of the kitchen works hard enough to win a medal, proving all my hiring instincts right, and even though Tony puts in a star-quality performance as maître d’, head waiter, and occasional dish washer, we’re a sinking cruise ship with nothing but buckets to bail.

I don’t give up, but a million tiny heartbreaks stretch my hope to its limit. The stove breaks—and this time no amount of cap slamming brings it back to life, leaving us with two burners when even four wouldn’t be enough for this hungry mob. Then, in the manic frenzy of the kitchen, the last crate of our most popular craft beer smashes to the ground, causing us to lose precious time cleaning up, and to run dangerously low on alcohol. The seafood dishes have to be reduced to artisanal-small portions, and I overhear the waiters fret constantly over the customers complaining about how long the food is taking.

Even the constant stream of happy diners who pass through to the kitchen to compliment the food only frustrate me, taking up my time and forcing me to be ruder than I’d ever normally be, just to get them out of my hair. When Tony pops back for a moment to happily tell me that some of the customers are ordering multiple entrees, and that a couple of tables seem to be working their way through half the menu, I shriek at the ceiling. The last thing I need is customers staying for hours at our already limited tables. Having folks love our food is great for the long term, but it isn’t helping me tonight.

At nine-fifteen I go outside to check the crowd, and see that word seems to be getting around—the line is no smaller than it was before we opened, but now the mood is substantially different. Impatient faces roll eyes at each other, or stare into the distance with glazed expressions due to the length of time it’s taking to move forward in the line. I see a few people break off from the middle and walk away, shaking their heads, already mentally composing their bad Yelp reviews.

My breaking point comes soon after, however.

“Uh…Willow.”

“Yes, Shane?”

“The seafood’s here,” he says, and I immediately drop the soup spoon into the boil. “Watch this, Jack,” I say, as I march angrily out to the delivery entrance with Shane.

It’s the same leathery guy as last time, staring at his folded paper in the same way, while the same companion I remember unloads the ice boxes beside the door.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” I yell, the second I see him.

He looks up and smiles, as if surprised. “Is there a problem here?”

I stare at him open-mouthed until I overcome my dumbfounded anger.

“Yes there’s a fucking problem! What time do you call this? I’m halfway through my opening night!”

He looks at me as if listening attentively, then checks his paper again.

“You sure? I have before nine-thirty written here.” He checks his watch. “And it’s only a couple minutes past.”

“Nine-thirty in the morning,” I say, my voice low, hard, and steely with rage now. “Who the fuck has their orders delivered at nine-thirty on a Friday night?”

He continues to look at his paper, brows furrowing.

“Ah, I see the problem. My ‘am’ looks like a ‘pm.’” He holds out the paper to his companion who dumps a box and looks. “Doesn’t that ‘a’ look like a ‘p’ to you?”

“It does,” the guy agrees.

“See,” leather-face says, smiling at me as if everything is ok now. “Anyway, delivery’s here now, so the way I see it, no harm no foul.”

“No foul? I’m not serving my customers fish that’s been sitting around in your truck all day!”

I launch myself toward him but find myself constricted, Shane grabbing at my hands to hold me back from doing something stupid, or possibly worthy of pressed charges.

“It’s fresh enough,” the man says, pointing his pencil at the box sitting on the ground.

I shake out of Shane’s grip and pry the lid open, stumbling backward as the smell hits me hard. I throw my hand over my nose and glare at the man. “This is not fresh. It’s not even edible.”

He laughs gently. “Easy now. Squid doesn’t smell like roses when it comes out of the sea, you know.”

“I know what fresh smells like, and this smells like it’s been out in the sun all day.”

The guy gives his companion a ‘women-don’t-get-it’ look, then shrugs back at me, already backing away to retreat to his van.

“Smells fresh to me,” he says. “And you paid in advance, so sorry—no refunds.”

I launch myself again, but Shane gets there just in time, holding me back even as I flail in his grasp. The two men get into the van and slam the doors and finally Shane’s grip loosens, allowing me to kick the bumper as the van revs away.

“You think anybody I know is ever going to use you again when I tell them this?!” I yell at the departing van. “I’ll ruin you! You just lost a whole load of business!”

I stand there, panting as the vehicle turns the corner. The unmistakable sound of a pile of dishes smashing to the floor tears at the edges of my sanity, forcing me to release my grip on reality, threatening to make my entire being crumble. I bury my head in my hands, consciously struggling to inhale shaky breaths, willing my body to not just give up right here, right now.

“Uh…Willow? Should I—”

“Yeah, just go,” I say, sending Shane back into the kitchen with a wave.

I stagger back to the door, struggling to hold it all together.

“Fuck!” I yell, and kick one of the boxes aside, sending rotting cod and melting ice sliding into the alley.

“A real chef’s temper you’ve got there,” a voice says.

It’s him. Cole. Standing with his hands in his pockets in the darkening alley like some kind of comic book supervillain.

“Oh, great,” I say, looking up at the night and laughing. “As if it couldn’t get any worse. If you came to gloat, do me a favor and make it quick.”

“I didn’t come here to gloat,” he says, taking a few steps closer.

“Sure you did. This is a fucking disaster,” I say, gesturing at the fish, the restaurant, the sound of the impatient crowd rumbling just around the corner of the building. “You got exactly what you wanted.”

“No I didn’t,” he says, looking deeply into my eyes. “I didn’t get what I wanted at all.”

I tear my gaze from his and point at him angrily.

“If you think this is it, that a bad opening night is going to do me in and have me crawling back to Knife, as if this proves anything, then you’ve got another thing coming. I’m going to make this place work if it kills me.”

Cole laughs gently and holds his palms up. “I believe it.”

The words draw my eyes deeper into his, wrong-footing me with his sincerity.

“So…what do you want?” I say, confused by his presence now more than anything.

Cole looks down and takes a deep breath.

“That’s a hell of a big question. Took me a long time to figure it out for myself.”

“And?”

He looks up at me, eyes as open as those days in Vegas, as the night by his pool. Even tangled up in the mass of conflicting emotions that the night has brought on, I feel my heart jump a little at all the warm memories I have of me and Cole connecting.

“What I really want,” he says, slow and serious, “is for you to be happy. With or without me.”

My lips part, but I can think of no answer. He doesn’t need one, however. Instead he pulls his phone from his pocket and dials, bringing it to his ear and looking at me as he talks.

“Charles? Are the premiere guests there yet? Tell them to leave…I don’t care. Exactly what I just said. Shut the place down. Give them a bottle of wine and tell them to beat it. Tell them there’s a fire hazard, or a health risk…difficult or not, I’m sure you can manage it, Charles…yes. Once that’s done I want you to tell all the chefs and waiters to come on over to Chow…right, Willow’s place… pack up the vans and bring some tables and chairs, also—”

Cole offers me the phone and says, “Tell him what you need. All of it.”

I take the phone, my eyes still on Cole, wishing I could pinch myself without looking stupid. Then I give Charles the long list of ingredients, cutlery, and drinks that we’re short of, before handing the cell back to Cole.

“Did you get that? Good. Tell the staff they’re getting double overtime for this—and a bonus if they can get here within twenty minutes.”

Cole hangs up and puts his phone away, looking at me as I gawp and struggle to come up with words to express what I’m feeling.

“I…thanks…I don’t really know what to say, or how to repay you—”

Cole steps toward me, close enough now to put a hand on my arm. He shakes his head. “I’m not asking anything of you—you already gave me enough.”

I glance back at the kitchen, take in the sound of desperate chefs fighting over a stove. I let out a sigh.

“To be honest, I’m not even sure it’ll be enough to save this. People have already been waiting all evening. And we haven’t been able to serve half of what’s on the menu.”

Cole puts his other hand on my opposite arm, and I realize I’m falling into him again, the hard determination that’s made my body tight and wound-up melting at his touch.

“Don’t worry about a thing,” Cole says. “Nobody remembers the wait when the dish is good enough. And I know your dishes are good enough. Besides, whatever they couldn’t order tonight? It’s just gonna be one more thing that brings them back next time. ‘Cause one taste of you is never enough.”

His strong hands move up to squeeze my shoulders as he stares into my eyes, his expression warm and reassuring.

And just like that, I suddenly feel like everything is going to be ok.

Knife’s staff arrives like the cavalry, a crack squad rescuing the night from spectacular failure in dramatic fashion. His waiters set tables and chairs up on the sidewalk outside, cheers from the line going up as they shift and find seats, while his chefs lug desperately-needed boxes of seafood and supplies inside. There’s even enough alcohol to offer the people who waited in that long line a round of free drinks. Cole even manages to fix the stove, recognizing the problem as a common one with that model, and recommending a superior replacement.

As quickly as the evening descended into chaos, it starts to lift, the atmosphere gathering momentum as tensions seep away both in and out of the kitchen. Soon the anxiously low volume of chatter from the restaurant is a loud, dynamic music of clanging plates and excited voices and the panic-ridden kitchen turns into a smoothly oiled machine, with my rookie staff now ordering Cole’s international team about as if there weren’t decades of experience between them. When a cop comes past to check that our street side tables and chairs are legal I almost feel it going off the rails again, but a quick conversation with Cole makes everything ok.

By midnight, the restaurant opening is more like the end point of a carnival parade, spilling out onto the street as many diners who couldn’t find tables settle for Tony’s impromptu idea to serve them takeout. Even the kitchen staff and waiters find a moment to laugh now that we’re overstaffed, and I finally get the chance to leave the kitchen and join Ellie and Asha outside, my nieces still tucking into desserts with Chloe.

“I’m so proud of you, Willow,” Ellie says, her eyes misting up a little.

“So am I,” Asha says. “Though I didn’t doubt this place for a second.”

“Me too,” Chloe says. “The gelato is awesome!”

“You guys really thought I had everything under control?” I say. “Even when there was a line down the block big enough to make the DMV proud?”

Asha laughs. “Especially then. Crises bring out the best in you.”

“It’s true,” Ellie adds.

“Well, I didn’t do it all myself,” I say, looking around to find Cole. “I had a little help.”

Taking my glance as an invitation to come over, Cole moves away from a conversation with Tony and comes up beside me.

“Oh my God,” Ellie says, looking around. “Where is Greg? I can’t believe it’s Cole Chambers himself! In person!”

“Well hello again,” Asha says, shooting Cole a warning glance.

“This is my sister Ellie, and this is Asha, who you’ve already met, of course,” I say to Cole. “I was just telling them about how you helped me out tonight.”

I barely notice the hand Cole places on my back, it feels so natural.

“It was nothing,” Cole says, “compared to the help she’s given me.”

Ellie and Asha beam, on the verge of giggling like schoolgirls.

“Actually,” Cole says, looking at me a little seriously, “there was one thing I needed to clear up with you. You ladies don’t mind if I steal her for a minute, do you?”

“Really?” Ellie says, a pained expression on her face. “I’ve got so much stuff I wanted to ask you, though.”

“Don’t worry,” Cole says, glancing at me before looking back at her, “I’m sure we’ll be seeing each other again soon.”

He turns away, taking my hand and leading me back through the packed tables of happy diners, back through the waiters swinging plates of food through the hallway, through the cooks and smells of the kitchen, out into the alleyway again. It’s dark now, and cool, the sounds of my restaurant fading into a distant chorus as the exit door shuts behind us.

“What’s up?” I say. “Is this about—”

Before I can finish, Cole spins me around and clutches me to him, pressing his lips to mine. A slow, savored kiss that makes us recognize the hunger we’ve had to hold back for so long. A kiss that tastes better than any other.

When we finally pull apart, Cole says, “I lied.”

“About what?” I reply, a little dazed in the afterglow of the moment.

“When I said I just wanted you to be happy…I meant with me.”

“Oh really?”

“Really.”

We look into each other until it feels like we’re falling, lips closing in so we can come back together again.

“It’ll be the last lie I ever tell you, though. I promise,” he says, and then our lips meet, and I finally feel complete.

The future’s looking up for both of us—I can almost taste it.

* * *