He blinks, his face shuttering briefly before he shakes it off, gives me a disarming smile, and says, “Bollocks, I’ve forgotten to bring your invoice. I’ll drop it in on my way home. That okay?”
“Sure. That’s great. If it’s at dinner service, send me a text and I’ll come out and grab it from you.”
Simon touches the side of his brow with a two-fingered salute. “Will do. Catch you later, Ellis. Don’t work too hard.” And because he can’t help but flirt, even if I’m not very receptive, he winks before leaving.
“Damn, that man has a great arse. You could bounce bottle caps off it. Did you try that when you, you know…?”
“Nice to see you’ve arrived on time today, Iris.” I don’t bother turning to greet my little cousin. Instead, I grab the top box of fresh seafood and carry it into the walk-in chiller. “Make yourself useful and grab the other one,” I call over my shoulder, stifling a smile at the muttered, “Yes boss, right away, boss,” I hear from behind me.
“Did you swap your shift with Alice again?” I enquire as Iris slips her box next to the one I placed on the metal shelf unit.
“Yeah, she needed the day off again. Little Charlie has an inset day at school and his father”—she spits the word like a curse—“hasn’t been seen for days. Not since he took her last pay packet and did a runner.”
I shake my head, a curse of my own on the tip of my tongue for the feckless waste of skin that is Dennis Higgs.
“Let’s hope she doesn’t take him back this time. They’d be better off without him. Maybe we can get the town council to take out an ASBO and have him banned from coming within twenty miles of Lily Bay.”
“I could get behind that,” Iris agrees. “We always told her she could do better, but young love never listens.”
I chuckle, hip checking her as I walk back into the kitchen. “Listen to you, wise old Iris Probert. Been in love a lot, have you?”
“Nope.” She pops the word with a smack of her lips. “Not interested in finding any, either. Especially not with any of the types Lily Bay has to offer.”
I laugh when she gives an exaggerated shiver.
“What? You don’t fancy your chances with Mrs Pritchard’s son? What’s his name again? Oh yeah, Ch—”
“Chester.” Iris gags as if she’s swallowed something particularly shitty. “Chester, eight-arms, Pester. No thanks. The bloke thinks women like having their arses grabbed. He told me it ‘boosts our confidence’. Utter cockwomble.” She mimes sticking her fingers down her throat.
Chester is your stereotypical misogynistic pig. He thinks his family’s money and long history with Lily Bay give him the right to treat local girls like crap—that they are ‘gagging to nab themselves a Pritchard’. When, in fact, I can’t think of a female in town who would touch him with a ten-foot fishing pole.
“What about Huw Morris? He’s a sweetheart. And he’s cute. Comes in here and smiles at you as if you hung the moon in the night sky just for him.”
Iris glares at me.
“Shut-up, Ell.”
“What?” I chuckle, loving the blush that spreads across her cheeks. “He is sweet.”
She rolls her eyes. “And I’m not sweet. In fact, if you put me on the menu, I’d be as far away from sweet as you could get.”
“Like a curry?”
She huffs.
“Or chilli?”
“Get lost.”
“Okay, okay, but you wouldn’t have to date a local. Hell, for six to eight months of the year Lily Bay is bursting at the seams with more eligible men than you can poke a stick at.”
Iris slips on an apron, picks up a knife and begins slicing the veg I’ve laid out on the counter ready for lunch prep.
“Oh, yeah, right,” she says while twirling the sharp implement in my direction. “I forgot about all those eligible men who visit here. You know, the husbands, and fathers, and over-seventies. It’s hardly Ibiza, Ell.”
“We get single guys here,” I counteract.
She snorts, “Yeah, on stag dos. No, thank you very much. I’d rather cut my toenails with a rusty axe. In fact, I may become a nun or one of those old ladies who keeps cats or budgerigars.”
She waves her knife around as she speaks before using it to roll a potato in my direction and turning back to continue her attack on the carrots. “You can peel those and chop the onions. I hate onions. Evil little poisoned bulbs of doom.”
“What did an onion ever do to you?” It’s the same thing I ask her every time she talks trash about one of the most useful vegetables ever.
“Made me cry.” And that’s the same answer she always throws back. It never fails to make us both laugh and not because it’s funny, but because it’s our thing. Well, one of them. We have many. Consequences of growing up together more like siblings than cousins.
We fall into a comfortable silence while we work until Tomos, the young lad who works as my kitchen porter, comes in and takes over the basic prep. He’s followed a few minutes later by Llinos, my sous chef. Then the hustle and bustle of a busy kitchen takes over. We have little time for chat and small talk, and I’m lucky we’re a tight team who seem to know exactly what each other’s roles are and where they fit in. It makes for a productive kitchen, and zero stress—unlike some of the places I trained at before taking over here.
When I’m no longer needed, I head out into the almost ready to open pub and check on the bar.
We open lunchtime to midnight every day during the holiday season, with shorter opening hours during the winter. Daytime sees two people working the bar, with three servers looking after the tables, and me, Llinos, and Tomos in the kitchen.
“All good out here?” I ask Tal, who has not only changed the kegs but has the entire bar up and running and ready to go.
“Yeah, I’m about to open the doors, unless you want to do the honours?” He nods his head to the still bolted front entry, and adds, “Unless you’re still riding that rollercoaster from earlier?”
Sarky bugger.
I glare at him, but it’s weakened by the twitch of my mouth as I suppress a grin. The truth is, I still feel off, but the organised chaos of working in the kitchen all morning, blunts the sharpness that still scratches at my bones and digs at the pit of my belly.
“I’ll get the door. Wouldn’t want you to overexert yourself now, would we?”
I slide the bolt across and undo the deadlock as Tal deadpans, “God, no. What would the ladies of Lily Bay do if I was out of action for a few days?”
“Probably throw a party with confetti cannons and everything,” Iris sasses as she walks out of the swing door to the kitchen, pulling a clean apron over her head and tucking her order pad into the front pouch pocket.
Tal spins slack-jawed to stare at her, his mouth opening and closing like a gasping fish washed up on the shore.
“Go easy on him, Iris. I don’t want him licking his wounds his entire shift. Say something to boost his massive ego, not deflate it. He works better then.”
She smirks, looks at Tal from top to toe and then, with a broad smile, offers, “You look nice today, Taliesin.” Tal preens—dull bugger. As the first customer strolls in out of the midday heat, I hear Iris finish sweetly with, “Had a wash, have you?”