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i.
It has been one hell of a week.
Sydney’s back hurts, and her feet have blisters, and on Friday morning she woke up with her hands going through the motions of slicing the carrots she’d seen on a chopping board in front of her in her dream, something that hasn’t happened to her since her time at the CIA. Finally, though, it’s Sunday evening, and Mondays are their day off, so a few of the remaining crew – her, Richie, Carm and Tina – find themselves sprawled over one of the booth tables, sharing a bottle of Polish cherry schnapps that they use for one of their desserts, letting the looseness of the alcohol unwind them.
“Shit,” Tina says, rubbing her neck, “please tell me we made some money so I can tell myself all this aching is actually good for something.”
Richie snorts, takes a sip from the bottle and hands it to her. “Packed every night, that oughta count for something, right, cousin?”
“Yeah, it does,” Carmy says, the corners of his lips twitching upwards to form a tired, but genuine smile. He’s leaning back in the booth, one arm on the back rest, the other fiddling with one of the shot glasses they have long abandoned for drinking straight from the bottle. He almost looks relaxed, for once, his curls mussed up even more than usually but his shoulders visibly less tense. It’s a good look on him, Sydney thinks absentmindedly, then blames the thought on the cherry schnapps.
In an attempt to make her mind go somewhere else than the way Carmy’s shoulders stretch against the fabric of his white t-shirt, she digs her fingers into the back of her neck, trying to loosen some of the knots there as she pretends to listen to Carmy’s quick summary of their finances. It’s not that she’s not interested in the future of their business, generally, but she really couldn’t care less tonight.
She feels Richie’s eyes on her and moves her head to glare back, quietly asking him what’s up.
“You work too much. You need to find someone to give you massages when you come home from work.” He wiggles his eyebrows at the word massage, and it’s a testament to how far their begrudging friendship has come (and, probably, to the Polish cherry schnapps) that Sydney doesn’t insult him or tell him to fuck off but just huffs in amusement.
“Yeah, like that’s gonna happen,” she says morosely, but not morosely enough that Richie won’t be able to tell she’s mostly pretend-annoyed about being perpetually single.
“What, no hot, six-feet-three, soft-spoken hunks waiting to jump into your bed?”
Sydney pulls a face. “Maybe I don’t like six-foot-three, soft-spoken hunks, ever thought about that, fuckface?”
At this, Richie leans forward, a curious look on his face. “Oh, so what do you like, Sydney Adamu?”
Sydney shrugs. “The last person I dated was at the CIA, and she definitely wasn’t six-foot-three.”
No matter how many times she does it, it’s still nerve-wracking, talking about this topic for the first time with people she’s not sure how they’ll react, even if she’s pretty certain at this point that Richie is all bark and no bite and that Carmy and Tina can be trusted with personal information. She pretends her heart isn’t beating a bit faster than before and reaches across the table to grab the bottle out of Tina’s grasp, taking a sip and wincing at the sting of the alcohol. A drop of it gets stuck on her lower lip and she darts her tongue out to catch it before it falls.
When she looks up, she finds Carmy watching her, cheeks flushed from the alcohol and the warmth and the closeness of the four of them, probably. Sydney ignores the way her cheeks feel hot all of a sudden and tries to focus back on Richie, who wolf-whistles.
“Don’t be a dick, cous,” Carmy says, his eyes still on Sydney, clearly deliberating something.
Richie sputters, placing a hand on his chest in an appalled gesture. “Excuse me, I’ll have you know that I am a lesbian ally.”
He sounds so mortally offended and when Sydney meets Tina’s gaze across the table, she can’t help but burst out laughing, Tina following her into her fit of giggles.
“Thank you, Richie,” Sydney coughs out. “I’m actually bisexual, but thank you.”
Across form her, Carmy’s lips form an inaudible, oh, and she’s not sure what the oh is about, in this conversation, exactly, but then his foot taps against hers under the table and she shelves it away to dissect later.
“Okay, so, twice the dating pool, fantastic.” Richie’s eyes are gleaming in the low light of the booth. “So, all we need to find you is somebody shorter than... six feet?”
“If you’re taking requests, I'd like someone who’s five seven,” Sydney blurts out, remembering a moment early on in her time at the Beef when she’d realised that Carmy only has about half an inch on her, and that moment when they passed their final fire inspection and Carmy had, surprisingly, hugged her in a moment of elation and she’d noted, passingly, that he could bury his face against her neck without having to stoop down to her height and that if they were to kiss -
Next to her, Richie and Tina are listing of any actor or singer or otherwise famous person they can think of that is roughly within her height requirement and Sydney slumps back against the booth, letting their voices wash over her. She’s smiling into the warmth of this, this little family of theirs that they’ve forged in fire. Carmy’s foot is still touching hers under the table, and she lets hers tap against it once, sending him a silly wink, private, just for the two of them.
A smile grows on his face, and then he interrupts Richie with, “well, Johnny who brings the produce on Thursdays is roughly five-seven,” which has them all in stitches, because Johnny is at least sixty.
Sydney tries to ignore the way her stomach flips at the rare sound of Carmy’s laughter and the proud look on his face at having made everyone else crack up, and she fails miserably, because it’s the last thing she thinks of before she falls asleep that night.
ii.
Sydney is right in the middle of a comparatively relaxed evening service one Wednesday when Richie comes through the doors from the front of house and heads straight to her.
“There’s someone out there who says he knows you from the CIA,” he tells her quietly, but loud enough that she can hear him over the usual chaos of their kitchen. “Maybe go say hi, if you have a moment? I can take over expo, if you want.”
“Uh, thanks,” she says, her mind already running a mile a second trying to figure out who this mysterious friend of hers could be.
Richie nods at her and slides right in next to her, hip-checking her out of the way, his hands already hovering over the tickets coming in as he gets himself an overview of the state of their orders, and Sydney has no choice but to leave him to call out dishes and numbers and head out front, herself.
As she walks through the doors, her hands flit up to make sure her headscarf sits neatly over her hair, smooths over her apron while giving the dining area a cursory glance, trying to see whoever has popped by to say hello. It’s nice, she absentmindedly observes, getting to see the front of house in a way she rarely does from her place at the kitchen, filled with people and their chatter.
Then, she spots him. Josh Wilson, her brain supplies, same class at the CIA as her, only ever a few points behind her in any exam and assessment. Vaguely nice, a bit full of himself. Taking a deep breath, she heads over, slides into the chair across from him.
“Hi, Josh,” she says, watches his grin grow across his face. He’s having the rosemary veal, she notices, because of course that’s what she notices.
“Sydney, hello,” he replies, his voice warm. His hand touches hers where she has put it down onto the tablecloth, a brief greeting, before picking up his fork again. “I heard about your new place and just had to come check it out. This is amazing.”
She feels her cheeks flush against her will, glowing under his praise. “Thanks. My, uh, partner and I have been putting a lot of work into it.” She doesn’t know why it’s important to her to let him know that she has a partner, or that she doesn’t explicitly call Carmy a business partner, letting the single word hang over the table to be interpreted however Josh wants. Clears her throat, ploughs on. “How have you been?”
“Oh good, good, you know, working over in LA.”
Sydney nods, feeling herself at a loss of word of how to continue their conversation.
Josh chuckles. “Alright, this is awkward. Don’t let me keep you from your job, I really just wanted to say hi and tell you how good this is,” gesturing at his plate with his fork. “And congrats to your partner, too.”
Sydney laughs, somewhat awkwardly, and says, “Thank you, really,” and she means it. She gestures towards the kitchen. “I really should, uh, but, enjoy the rest of your meal.”
“Bye, Sydney,” Josh tells her, and Sydney sends him one last smile before standing up, heading back to somewhere where she feels safer than in whatever that was.
The doors swing closed behind her, the noises of pans sizzling and oven doors closing and knifes chopping immediately calming her down more than any meditation app or calming-rain-on-pavement-10-hour-loop YouTube video ever could – and she should know, she has tried. She takes a deep breath.
Carmy, because he is Carmy, notices her as soon as she walks in, his eyes zoning in on her where he’s plating some pumpkin ricotta mousse appetisers. “Yo, you good, chef?” he calls over to her.
Sydney nods in his direction, then glances over at the expo stand and seizes up the orders, deciding that they should have a dip in orders for a few minutes and that the kitchen can do without her for just a bit longer. “I’m taking my five,” she calls out, getting a series of yes, chefs back.
It’s not too cold yet, September just days before turning into October but autumn not really settling in yet, the last warmth of summer desperately clinging to the night air, making it feel as warm as the yellow streetlights do in the remaining light of the day.
She squats down to the ground, takes a few deep breaths, inhaling the lingering scent of late summer flowers, dried-out grass, mosquitoes.
The door from the kitchen opens, letting a brief moment of noise fill the quiet of the back alley before closing again. She doesn’t have to look up to see who it is, smiling at the ground when she hears the click of Carmy’s lighter, his deep inhale as he takes the first drag of his cigarette. He’s been trying to cut down on his smoking, she knows, smoking one instead of three cigarettes while on break, so he tries to enjoy it all the more. That part, he hasn’t actually told her, but when she looks up, it’s clear in the way he tilts his head back, his eyes closed as he exhales the smoke into the night.
Then, his head tilts back down, looking at her with that intensity behind his eyes that makes her stomach flutter whenever it doesn’t piss her off. And even then, usually, if she’s being entirely honest with herself.
“Syd.”
“Carm.”
Acknowledging each other, taking a moment to silently check in with each other in the chaos that is their life. Then,
“What was that about?”
Sydney pulls a face. “Old acquaintance from the CIA.”
Carmy widens his eyes exaggeratedly. “A secret agent was here tonight?”
Despite her weird mood, Sydney giggles, because she always giggles at Carmy’s stupid fucking jokes, no matter how stupid they are. She can’t help herself with how terribly endeared she is by him and his visible pride at his stupid fucking jokes.
“It was just kind of, awkward, you know? I didn’t even know him that well, and he was here tonight, and, well, I don’t know.” She trails off, unsatisfied by her own words, but Carmy nods like he gets her, because of course he does. He takes another drag, the cherry of his cigarette glowing red, and Sydney doesn’t know what has come over her that she’d breach this topic with him, but she says, “I called you my partner and I’m pretty sure he thought I meant, like, a boyfriend.”
She watches Carmy blow out the smoke of his cigarette, his eyebrow twitching but his expression remaining unreadable otherwise.
“You have a crush on him at the CIA?” he asks, his voice as unreadable as his face.
It’s completely out of the blue and not remotely close to what Sydney is being weird about, and it surprises her in the very best way, making her snort. “Yeah, right.”
Carmy throws his hands up, a tiny grin on his face. “I don’t know, you seem bummed that he thought you were taken!”
“Nah, I’m not interested in him.”
Carmy nods, and she nods back at him, unsure on what they’re silently agreeing on, exactly, but following Carmy anyway, wherever he takes her.
Speaking of following Carmy. “We should get back inside,” she says, watches him nod his head repeatedly as he puts out his cigarette in the little ashtray that she put next to the back door a few weeks ago – she found it at a thrift store and it has roses painted on its base and she loves the way the faded reds and pinks peek out from under the cigarette ash and all the stubs he and Richie and the line cooks and the dishwashers leave there.
He holds the door open for her and she gets a good look at his biceps straining against his t-shirt, and she’s proud of herself for only staring half a moment too long.
iii.
The last days of summer leave quicker than anyone expects them to - except, maybe, for some meteorologists, but those don’t count -, and before Sydney knows it, it’s below 50 degrees when she leaves the house in the morning and the cold air bites against her skin and she regrets ever taking a job that has her still living in this freezing hellhole of a city just because she was impressed by some stupid cook who had been in some stupid magazines.
She doesn’t regret it, she tells herself once she gets on the train and feels at least somewhat warm, and then she makes a mental note to grab her warmer jacket tomorrow. She’s not on her normal morning commute, instead getting out on the stop that’s closest to Carmy’s apartment block, making the by now familiar trek through the morning chill, reaching her location just at the same time as Carmy does. His arms are full of grocery bags and after a brief hello, she takes some of his load off him so he can unlock the door and let them inside, leading the way up the stairs to his apartment.
They don’t talk yet, both of them falling into a familiar, comfortable silence that comes with early mornings and days off after long weeks and cold autumn mornings. Sydney takes the ascent as an opportunity to check out the contents of the bags she’s carrying, spotting squash and beetroot and sweet potatoes.
Carmy lets her into his place and it’s as empty as it is every time she’s here to cook and work on a new menu, his sparse furniture and his piles of books on the floor the same as last time she was here. They drop the food off in the kitchen and Sydney walks back into the hall to hang up her jacket when she spots something new on the wall next to the entrance door and her heart skips a beat.
It’s a page ripped from a sketchbook, from Carmy’s sketchbook, and she remembers the dish she had thrown together when it was her turn on family last week, pasta and eggplant and leek and chopped Andouille, and here it is, sketched out and shaded and even some added colour.
It makes her feel all weird and fuzzy just to know that one of her dishes was important enough to him to hang up in his apartment, but in the corner of the page there’s also a little doodle she had made the last time they were here to riff on some ideas for daily specials. He’d left the room briefly and she’d flipped forward to a blank page in his sketchbook and drawn a little cartoonish dog with wild curly fur and had given him a speech bubble proclaiming hi carm, your hair’s a mess! Because his hair is always a mess, so the text would be true no matter when he would read it.
Carmy must have seen the doodle and decided to sketch her family dish right there on the page, and then hang the thing up in his hallway, the two of them on one page, hanging there, at his place, where he must see it every morning when he leaves for work and every night when he gets home. It’s proof of something, and even she doesn’t quite know what it is proof of, her chest feels warm.
She finds Carmy in the kitchen unpacking groceries and goes for the easy route this time, which is, always, joking about it.
“Just so you know, my dog’s, like, actually a much better piece of work than that weird food you drew.” She nudges his shoulder with hers as she sidles in next to him at the counter.
Carmy’s lips twitch, and if she’s not mistaken, his cheeks flush a bit. It might just be because they just came in from the cold, though.
“That’s why I hung it up,” he says. “It’s part of my art collection, along with my Picasso in the bathroom.”
And Sydney, God help her, giggles at his stupid joke as she always giggles at his stupid jokes.
They set to cooking, a well-oiled machine working side by side, trying each other’s work, nudging each other out of the way wherever necessary in the tiny kitchen, squabbling over the best burner on his stove.
Finally, after noting down about a hundred recipes and two hundred ideas and washing about a thousand dishes, they fall onto his sofa side by side. They’re just waiting on her savoury lemon and rosemary custard pie to finish baking, now, so there’s not really anything to be done except to turn on the TV and watch whatever stupid show is playing.
Sydney grabs the remote first and is delighted to find the TV on the Food Network channel, replaying some old episodes from some kids cooking competition.
“Really?” she asks Carmy incredulously, “You can’t even switch off when you try to switch off?”
Carmy shrugs, not ashamed in the least. It’s adorable. “Hey, it’s fun. Those kids have great ideas sometimes.”
“Oh, I see how it is. You just steal your fantastic, star-worthy ideas from some poor kids without telling or paying them.”
“Yeah, that’s how it is,” Carmy says, sending a mischievous smirk her way that involuntarily makes her shiver. “Shit, you cold?” he misinterprets it.
Sydney considers her options for a moment, thinks of their joint drawing hanging in the hallway. It is pretty chilly at his apartment, now that she’s not by the stove and just in an old flannel.
“I mean, it’s gotten pretty cold. I wouldn’t say no to, like, wearing a boyfriend’s oversized hoodie,” she says, her heart beating faster at her own words, hoping Carmy picks up on her hint even though he’s in a long-sleeved black shirt (and damn, doesn’t it just make his arms look delectable?) and not a hoodie. She’s been close to him all day in the kitchen, brushing up against each other, his hand hovering at the small of her back to guide her out of his way. The smell of his laundry detergent and his cologne and something that’s just Carmy is still lingering in nose, and she would love to linger in it for a while longer.
Carmy blinks for a moment at her words, then gets up in a flurry, heading over to the thermostat and fiddling with that, first, then leaving the room and returning shortly after with, to her disappointment, not a hoodie but a fluffy blanket.
“Here you go,” he says, handing her the blanket. “Sorry you got cold.”
It’s incredibly charming, this apologising-bumbling-fool act of his, and Sydney can’t even be mad at him for not letting her steal one of his hoodies. Carmy stands there for a few more moments, his hands clenching and unclenching at his sides, then says,
“I’m gonna check on the pie,” moving over to the kitchen, leaving her alone on the couch, wondering about what just happened.
He does bring a plate with a fresh piece of the pie and two forks and they sit facing each other with their legs drawn up onto the couch as they share the piece, meticulously taking apart what does and doesn’t work about it. Sydney drapes the blanket over both their feet and calves and figures that that’s almost better than sharing a hoodie.
iv.
Carmy is clearly losing his mind today, and quite frankly, it’s pissing Sydney off. He’s been losing it for a few days now, getting more and more sharp around the edges, annoyingly perfectionistic to heights previously unknown even for him, barking at people more than usual, raising his voice easily. It’s fine, somewhat, for Richie and Sydney and Nat because they give as good as they get and don’t take his shit, but the vibes in the kitchen are rancid and the new dishwasher looks so very tense every time Carmy walks past them, and somebody needs to do something soon, before it all comes crashing down on them.
So, it’s almost the end of an incredibly tense service, with Richie and Carmy spitting insults at each other and Carmy shouting all of them because some meat isn’t perfectly cooked, and then the new dishwasher brushes past him too closely and Carmy snaps at them and that, in turn, makes Sydney snap.
“Right, okay, that’s it. Richie, take over, please. Chef, with me.”
Carmy sputters in protest but she just grabs his sleeve and drags him out of there and into the back alley, ignoring the autumn chill hitting her face as soon as they step outside.
“You need to get a grip on yourself,” she hisses at Carmy.
“What the fuck are you talking about, we can’t have fucking standards anymore or what?” he retorts, and Sydney can just see the next five minutes in her head, the hissing escalating to shouting escalating to insults they’ll both regret in the morning, and she feels weary down to her bones, all of a sudden.
Taking a deep breath, she tries to collect herself. “You’re being an asshole to everyone,” she says, her voice as calm as she manages to get it. “Get over your shit, please.”
Instead of shouting at her, Carmy follows her example, takes a deep breath, lets the cold air wash over him. Runs a hand through his already messed up curls, impossibly messing them up even more in the process. He clears his throat. “I’m, um. Heard, chef.” It’s proof of how far he’s come, how far they’ve come as partners that they can deescalate situations like this, both of them.
Carmy rubs his fist over his heart, and Sydney returns the gesture. Once again, she takes note of how calming the motion is, both the meaning and the actual physicality of it, the grounding effect it has on her heartbeat.
And Sydney, she’s, well, she’s annoyed and kind of angry, too, but mostly, she’s worried about him because she’s always worried about him, and that kind of oversteers all her anger and her annoyance.
“What’s happening, Carm?” she asks, gently, insistently, trying to get him to hear her.
Carmy, to her surprise, doesn’t brush her off, just sighs, deep and sad.
“I’m having a bad week, and I’m taking it out on everyone, and that sucks. I’m working on it with my therapist.” It’s a lot to take in all at once, only to be followed by the non-sequitur that is, “Wanna grab dinner after service?”
The question is so out of the blue that it startles Sydney, and she blinks for a moment, trying to collect herself. Could he mean -
“I think us business partners should, like, get a moment together away from our business, for once. Might be a healthy thing to do, you know?”
Of course he didn’t mean what she hoped he did. It’s fine either way, she tells herself, and replies, “since when are we known to do the healthy thing?”
Carmy chuckles, his breath forming a cloud in the chilly end-of-October night. “Seriously, though,” he continues, “let’s go grab some jjamppong, or something. Get away from all this.”
Sydney finds herself smiling before she knows it. “Sure, sounds good.”
Carmy nods, more to himself than at her response. He makes a movement towards the door but Sydney is quicker, placing a hand on his arm and stopping him in his tracks.
Searching his face, she asks, “will you be okay in there?” Will you not shout at the poor dishwasher, and will you stop insulting Richie just because he’s being a dick like always, and will you not lose your fucking mind more and more with every second you spend in that kitchen? She hopes he picks up on all the silent questions. She believes that he does.
“Yes,” Carmy says, his voice firmer now than just minutes ago. “Thank you, Syd.”
Sydney nods at him, and he nods back. She lets her hand slide off his shoulder and watches him walk back inside, taking a moment to breathe by herself before heading back into the chaos, too. When she enters, she takes stock of everything with a quick glance; Richie at expo, sure and steady and only somewhat crazy, Tina sending her a small smile from her spot by the stove. Carmy’s already back at his station, plating food with calm, steady hands, perfectly placing a leaf of basil here, a drop of sauce there. It might be Sydney’s imagination, but she thinks his shoulders are a little less tense than they were just half an hour ago.
They get through the rest of service smoothly and without any incidents. Usually, her and Carmy are some of the last to leave the restaurant after closing but tonight, she has only just finished cleaning her own station when Carmy calls out,
“Tina, Sydney and I are heading out for the night, you okay here?”
“Yes, Jeff,” Tina calls back, sending Sydney a wink behind Carmy’s back that Sydney, adult as she is, responds to by sticking her tongue out at her.
Sydney makes her way to the lockers, takes off her apron, changes into a shirt that isn’t completely soaked through, reties her braids up into a neat knot. By the time she’s finished, she goes looking for Carmy and finds him talking to the new dishwasher. She doesn’t want to eavesdrop but stays close, anyway, her bag dangling from her fingers as she slips her coat on.
“And I’m sorry I got mad, that was out of line,” Carmy is saying. “I’m not saying it won’t happen again, but I’m working on it.”
The dishwasher, Alex doesn’t seem to know what to do with themselves now that they have Carmy’s full attention on them, and Sydney, who has felt the effect of those big, genuine, apologetic eyes on her more times than she can count, almost feels bad for them for a moment when she hears them stumble over their own words, “oh, don’t uh, worry about it, chef.”
“I’m sorry, still,” Carmy says, and hearing him working on breaking the cycles of aggression and resentment that has always been so very present in the kitchens they have worked at makes Sydney’s heart swell with pride and with fondness for him, always him.
“Thank you, chef,” Alex stutters out.
Sydney takes pity on the two of them, then, and sticks her head around the corner. “Let’s go, Carm.”
Carmy smiles at her, that small, private, dazzlingly beautiful smile, and Sydney likes him so much.
“Night, chefs,” he calls out, getting his words echoed back at him before he drags Sydney out the back door and into the night, zipping his jacket up as he does so.
"You know, I haven’t been taken out by a gentleman such as yourself in a long time,” Sydney quips as they walk down the street side by side in the direction of a Korean restaurant they both like that serves fantastically delicious food and is still open this late.
“Well, my lady, let me treat you tonight,” Carmy matches her joking tone and offers an arm for Sydney to loop hers through, and Sydney only briefly wishes it wasn’t just a joke before banishing the thought.
Her skin tingles where their arms link together, even through several layers of fabric. Beside her, Carmy is smiling.
v.
Her dad forwards Sydney the invitation without any additional comments. It’s not unlike him, and she’s probably reading too much into this when most of their text conversation is just him replying to whatever stupid shit she sends him with a thumbs up emoji or the classic dad ok.
Still, Sydney stares at the message for a moment to long when she checks her phone during family, tuning out the animated conversations around her.
Richie notices, because of course he notices, never far away when there’s a chance to mildly embarrass someone.
“Who’s got your attention, lovergirl?” he asks, leaning into her personal space from where he’s sitting at her side, her at the head of the table with him in the chair closest to her, like a king’s most trusted advisor or, in this case, the king’s sometime-favourite, sometime-amusing jester.
Sydney pulls a face. “Fuck off, Richie.” Then, because she doesn’t want to let his comment slide, adds, “Family reunion thing at my distant aunt’s next weekend.”
“Oh shit, we gotta get you there!” Richie exclaims. “I’m sure I can find someone to cover for you.”
“I’m not even sure I wanna go. It’s gonna be all,” - pitching her voice up into a shrill imitation of her great-great-something-cousin-aunt - “oh, Sydney, when are you gonna settle down! When are you gonna have kids!”
Richie winces, and so does Carmy from the windowsill behind him. Sydney hadn’t even noticed him listening to their conversation, writing Carmy’s attention off for the next twenty minutes, at least, as she always does when he hangs back against the window during family, observing, obsessively going over preparations for the evening service in his head, his brow furrowed adorably.
He seems to have been tuning in, though, because he asks, “what about starting a successful restaurant? That’s got to count for something, right?”
Sydney huffs out a laugh that doesn’t sound amused to her ears and probably doesn’t to Carmy’s or Richie’s, either. “Yeah, you haven’t met my extended family. According to them, marriage and babies are the highest goal a woman can achieve in life.”
“You should pull up with a hot date, pretend it’s your spouse,” Alex, who is sitting across from Richie at her other side, pipes up. They have been quiet for most of the meal, as they are always mostly quiet, and it’s nice to hear them speak for once, even if it’s just to make a comment about Sydney’s non-existent dating life.
She bites back the annoyed fuck off that she would’ve given Richie and just pulls a face. “Not sure that my dad would like lying to his family all evening just because I'm too chickenshit to tell them to leave me alone with their old-fashioned patriarchal bullshit.”
Behind Richie, she can vaguely see Carmy’s shoulders untensing at her words, and she’s not sure why they were tense in the first place, exactly, but it’s nice to see them relax, to see the small smile playing on his face.
“So what are you gonna do?” Alex digs further.
Sydney shrugs. “Probably just gonna tell them about my business that I opened with my partner. Let them infer whatever they want from that.”
Richie snorts at her side, incomprehensibly, turning in his seat to send some kind of look at Carmy that Sydney can’t decipher.
Carmy’s face twitches. He coughs. “Don’t worry, Syd, we’re gonna make sure you can go to the thing Saturday, if only to brag about the Bear. I’ll take over Expo.”
Sydney wonders if he realises that she would much rather also brag about him, but she sends him a small smile in thanks anyway.
When she mentions her partner that Saturday, omitting any mention of it being business only, she ignores the pointed look her dad gives her and lets her aunts coo over her for a while.
+i.
“Business meeting,” Carmy calls out to the crew that still remains cleaning up after service, just as he has been doing every Thursday now for the past month or so.
Sydney heaves herself up from where she was kneeling to clean out an oven, heading over to the lockers to change out of her apron and grab her jacket, quickly retying her headscarf – it’s a warm, burnt orange today because she was in a good mood when she left the house that morning and wanted to carry some sunshine with her through the dreary November air.
Carmy pops up behind her in the mirror just as she’s finishing.
“Good to go?” he asks, and Sydney nods, letting him guide her out of the back door as they call out their goodnights and following his lead down the sidewalk, comfortably matching his pace.
They’ve been taking turns choosing the location for their weekly business meeting slash decompression meal slash palate cleanser and it has been fun to find spots that are still open after The Bear closes at night.
They take the train for a few stops, then rush through the cold to a small Turkish hole-in-the-wall that is filled by warm light and a few crammed tables and, according to Carmy, who always seems to know the most curious places and people, is only ever open when the owner feels like it, which usually happens to be from around eight pm until long after midnight.
“It normally depends on how much raki you’re willing to drink with Ayaz,” Carmy explains with a fond look on his face, right as the man in question – friendly face, around fifty, eyes sparkling in the low light – walks up to their table.
“Carm!” he exclaims, boisterously clapping Carmy’s shoulder, then zeroing in on Sydney. “And who is this lovely lady you bring to my humble establishment?”
Sydney giggles. “I’m Sydney, hi.”
Ayaz shakes her hand enthusiastically and compliments her on her beautiful headscarf and scolds Carmy for not bringing around this fantastic madam sooner. Sydney laughs along to his theatrics, and watches Carmy practically glow under the attention of this uncle-type figure, watches the tiny smile of his grow, clearly pleased as a punch that Ayaz likes Sydney, and that Sydney is terribly amused by Ayaz. Carmy’s cheeks are flushed and she is so, so fond of him.
“Alright,” Ayaz says, clapping his hands together theatrically. “What can I get you, one of everything?”
Carmy nods. “One of everything. Çay for me, please, and for Sydney –“ he trails off and Sydney adds,
“And for me, too, please.”
Ayaz nods and disappears through a tiny door into what must be a tiny kitchen, clapping on shoulders of other guests at tiny tables on his way.
Sydney laughs as she watches him leave and, when she turns back to Carmy, finds him staring at her with a small smile on his face.
“He sure is something. How’d you find this place?”
Carmy shrugs. “Was craving baklava one evening and walked around until I found a place that was still open and had baklava. It’s really fucking good, too.”
“We have to get some, at the end,” Sydney says, sensing that there’s probably more to the story but not prying yet.
Ayaz brings them their Çays and tells them that Deniz is almost ready with the food. He leaves again and Sydney crooks an eyebrow.
“Who’s Deniz, then?” she asks.
“Oh,” Carmy exhales. “He’s Ayaz’ partner. They’ve run this place together for like, two decades now. No clue how they keep it open, they definitely don’t make any money from it.”
“Partner, huh.”
Carmy scratches the back of his neck. “I, uh, discovered this place when I was back home for a few days for the first time after starting culinary school. Got too overwhelming at the house, you know? So I had to leave for a few hours, and ended up here.”
Sydney doesn’t know all the details about the Berzatto family yet but from what she’s picked up, walking through the city for hours to get away from it all is about what she figures as normal for them. She takes a sip from her tea, and Carmy continues.
“Anyway, I was having a bit of a crisis, hanging over my baklava, and then Deniz and Ayaz pulled me out of it.” He rubs his chest the same way he always does when he gets worried about something, or remembers something distressing. “Uh, I was,” now, he’s almost smiling now, self-deprecating, “there was this guy in my classes, and I, uh, well, I kind of liked him. Had a crush on him.”
He's staring at the tablecloth, his cheeks flushed, and it’s slowly dawning on Sydney what he’s trying to tell him, so she reaches out for his hand where it’s laying on the tablecloth, covering it with hers. His hand twitches, almost as if he wants to clasp it around hers, but doesn’t actually go through with the motion.
“Anyway,” he proceeds, “so, I didn’t know you could like girls and guys, and I sure as hell didn’t think I could ask Mikey or Richie about it. But then Ayan interrogated me about what was bothering me and then spent an hour explaining bisexuality to me, so finding this place was… it was nice.”
Sydney snorts. “Oh, sure, it was nice. What a way with words you have, Carm.”
“Shut up,” Carmy grins.
They sit there in silence for a moment until Sydney says, “So, bisexual, huh?”
“Something we have in common.” Carmy’s curls are messy as always, his cheeks flushed from the hot drink and the conversation, his hand now twisted around to fit his palm against hers, even if their fingers aren’t interlaced. The touch is making Sydney crazy in the very best kind of way.
“Did you ever do anything about the guy you had a crush on?”
It’s Carmy’s turn to snort. “In what free time, exactly?”
Sydney joins him in laughter at the joke that is the idea of them having any free time, ever.
They get interrupted by Ayaz bringing them dozens of tiny mezze bowls on a huge tray, crowding them onto their table, and their conversation changes to their favourite topic: food.
Halfway through the meal, Carmy pulls out his sketchbook to take notes on some of their ideas and the dishes they like most – there’s a delicious carrot hummus, and a Muhammara that has Sydney moaning when she dips her flatbread into it, and crunchy kibbeh, and when by the time the bowls are empty, three pages of the sketchbook are full with their scribbles, Carmy’s artsy sketches, the doodles that Sydney can’t help but add. She wonders if one of the pages will make its way to Carmy’s wall. Under the table, their feet brush together, and neither of them pulls away.
Ayaz brings them each a glass of raki – and one for himself –, but when Carmy enquires about dessert, he pulls a face.
“Not tonight, Carm, my dear. I fear we’re about to close, so you two will have to get on your way. But I’ll give you some baklava for the way. It’s just as good when you share it at home on a couch late at night, you know?”
So, they drink their raki, pull on their coats, and object accordingly when Ayaz refuses to hand them a bill because our Carm and his lovely friend shouldn’t have to pay us for gracing us with their presence, which would sound pretentious or sarcastic from anyone else but somehow seems genuine, coming from Ayaz. Finally, he hands Sydney a bag with a takeout container and winks at her.
“For your late-night couch date,” he whispers to her, and grins when Sydney’s cheeks flush.
They find themselves in the cold November night, both clearly unsure of what to do with themselves now. Sydney tugs on one of her braids under her headscarf, straightening it out.
Carmy makes an aborted motion with his hand, almost as if wanting to reach out, up, to touch the scarf.
“I like that colour on you,” he says, then pulls a face like he regrets saying his thought out loud.
Sydney decides to make a choice for the both of them.
“You gonna sleep any time soon?” she asks, already knowing the answer.
“Nope.” Carmy grins at her. “What do you have in mind?”
“You live close, right?” At his nod, she continues, “wanna invite me over for a nightcap and dessert?”
She lifts up the bag in her hand and Carmy nods enthusiastically.
“Sounds fire, Syd,” he says, his voice soft. Sydney notes that he never calls her chef anymore when they’re in private, always opting for Sydney or, more often, Syd. It makes her stomach flutter, to have him opt for something unprofessional, something personal, when it’s just the two of them.
They hurry through the night down the street and towards his apartment. Sydney has been there often enough by now, routinely hanging up her coat by the door and toeing off her boots, looking at the single sketchbook page still presiding on the wall.
Carmy pushes past her with a hand hovering by the small of her back and moves to the kitchen, calling out, “tea? Coffee?”
Instead of answering, Sydney follows him, takes him in where he stands in the warm glow of the light above his stove with his locks mussed up from the beanie he just pulled off, his cheeks flushed from the cold, his eyes gleaming with joy about their late-night excursion, or the good food, or the thought of dessert, or, what Sydney hopes, most of all, the good company.
He smiles at her when she sidles up to his side, that little, private smile of his that she thinks he’s reserved just for her, and she decides, fuck it, to just go for it.
“Hey, Carm,” she says, the space between them seeming smaller with every breath she takes, the two of them swaying closer and closer together.
“Yeah, Syd?” his voice is low, matching the dim light form the stove that is colouring everything in a soft glow.
“When I was talking about a nightcap, I wasn’t thinking about tea or coffee.”
They’re close enough that when his eyes widen at her words, she can count the speckles in his irises.
“Well, Syd, what were you thinking about, then?”
Sydney isn’t sure if he’s really that unaware of all her hints or if he just wants absolute confirmation that she’s thinking of what he’s thinking and doesn’t want to overstep any lines, but she decides that she’s had enough of this either way.
Leaning even closer, she whispers, “something like this,” and then her eyes are closed, and her lips meet his, just for a brief moment, barely even lingering before she pulls back again to look at Carmy.
His eyelashes flutter open just as hers do and his lips shape a silent, oh, and his curls are framed in the gold light from the lamp behind him and he looks so, so beautiful it takes her breath away.
Then, a smile grows on his face and before she knows it, he’s beaming at her. “I can get behind that kind of nightcap, too.”
Sydney is halfway between two giggles when he pulls her in by her waist, kissing her again with utmost gentleness, and she entangles her fingers into his locks and forgets about the rest of the world for a while.
In the morning, they find out that baklava tastes good when you share it on a couch for breakfast, too.