I close my eyes and let my head drop back. More than anything I want to take my hair out of this bonnet and rip the buttons open on this jacket. I’m hot and tired and frustrated. I just want this night to be over.

But it’s only 8pm. We have at least two more hours of service left. Chastened, I go out to what was formerly table 8 and let them know their risotto is on its way. I comp the plate when I get back to the kitchen.

After a quick inventory of the rest of the team, everyone seems to have pulled themselves out of the weeds. It’s me, just me, dragging this team down. I slip into the freezer. The cold prickles at the sweat at the base of my neck. I fight the urge to pull my hands into the sleeves of my coat and walk deeper into the freezer, all the way to the back. It’s not even that much colder back here. It just seems that way. The cool air makes its way into my lungs, burns at the tip of my nose and lips.

The walk-in is my safe haven. The perfect place to collect my thoughts, hit reset. I need a reset tonight.

Carly is right. Amy did tell me about the changes to the seating chart. She told me that the servers have been upselling the crab cakes and our second most expensive bottle of red wine all week. And she told me about her new social media schedule: daily photos and videos that require her to walk into my kitchen and hover over me while I work. She’s giving me Pop-Up Kitchen flashbacks when the cameras would get in close during a stressful cook. It’s what she was doing this morning when she told me about the new two-tops, taking photos, styling the photo and me, yammering excitedly about the email we found in our inbox this morning, informing rather than asking about location scouting.

That was enough to make me feel sick to my stomach. Until she’d tucked some of my hair behind my ear.

“So we can see your face,” she’d said, and my heart had exploded; one touch from her and suddenly I couldn’t control my beats per minute. Her fingertip slid along the length of my hairline, over my temple, and I felt it everywhere. Along my jaw, against the pulse point in my throat. My nipples, between my legs.

Forget emails, forget dinner services.

“You’re a mess,” I say, my breath a cloud in front of me.

“Hollywood.”

I whip around. Amy stands in the doorway.

“What are you doing?”

“We need to talk,” I say.

She steps farther into the freezer but keeps the door open, her arm stretched out behind her. The sounds of the kitchen filter into my quiet, cold hiding place. I wish she’d let the door close behind her. If we were alone in here together, I could unleash on her. All this frustration with her changes, not a single one that she’s run by me. She only tells me about them after the fact. But my biggest frustration is with myself, not her; she’s just the trigger. I’m frustrated that I’m a mess of hormones and panic around her. I’m a little scared, too. If I unleashed on her would I yell? Or would I do something else?