24 - Idle Hands

REBECCA had plenty to keep her busy in the wake of cutting things short with Zane. She pulled her semi-new crew together, putting them through their paces in the fully loaded Lounge kitchen. Her friend Raoul bounced around like a kid in a candy story. Trey’s choice of equipment—and his willingness to buy more

—made him her head chef’s new hero.

“Finally!” he crowed. “Everything is how you like it. We’ll throw mud in the faces of those culos at Wilde’s Bistro.”

Rebecca secretly hoped so but merely smiled when he said this.

She and the crew tinkered with her recipes: cooking times, temperatures, this ingredient or that. The results Rebecca achieved by herself, with every detail under her control, weren’t the same as what a busy brigade of line cooks produced. Rebecca’s crew was skilled and proud of it. Nonetheless, some needed coaching to reach her high standards. Those who weren’t used to her methods tried her patience, but they worked through it. They all knew consistency was key. They