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Carmy is trying not to be a shitty person. He really is.
Since the launch of The Bear, there has been so much outreach, so much support. Emails from colleagues in New York and Napa and Copenhagen and France congratulating him on his efforts, messages from professionals he’d left behind years ago, mentors from CIA that he had forgotten existed, reminding him they always knew he had it in him. Whatever
it
is. Social media posts everywhere about his restaurant being the place you
needed
to get a reservation at. Requests for interviews from the Sun-Times and the Tribune and Time Out and Bon Appetit and Eater and the student-affiliated magazines and more he could name off of the top of his head, because he could never forget this reaction, because he needs to respond to them but hasn’t because why, on top of everything else, is that his job?
His job is to cook. His job is to keep his head down, yell at people, burn himself by accident, make people eat good food. He’s meant to drive home past midnight, come home to a PB&J for dinner and a Tums and Pepto cocktail for dessert, and when he finally steps into the shower to lift the weight of the day from his body, the water rolls off his skin in neat little beads like someone has mixed it with oil, because somebody has, because he is covered in a layer of grease that is thicker and somehow more permanent than the layer of sweat.
But he’s trying to be a good person, and so now he’s sitting in a private room at a two-star New-American farm-to-table restaurant in West Loop, dressed in (god-forbid) business casual, at a dinner hosted (and funded) by a magazine agent and part-time owner of one of the more prominent Chicago restaurant groups to congratulate Carmy and Sydney and everyone else on their success. It’s Monday, and The Bear is closed. Therefore Carmy–on the one day he has away from a restaurant–is sitting at a restaurant. A pretty middle-aged waitress in all-black is serving him sea grape pancakes and Dom Perignon and he keeps putting his elbows on the table and then remembering not to do that and then putting his elbows back on the table again.
Pete is toasting. It’s the second time he’s toasted, and Carmy thinks he’s stupid. His arm is wrapped around Sugar, and as he raises his free hand everybody turns to look at him, lifting his tawny glass towards the center of the table and then he’s saying: “To food and those who cook it.” Carmy thinks that’s stupid.
“Hear hear” says everyone, and then Carmy raises his glass in the air and drinks a big sip from it. “Hear hear,” he echoes.
It’s his livelihood, Carmy knows that, but he’s never had a thing for fine dining. It’s a beast he admires from far away. Delicate and sprawling, he lives for it: this art, this craft, it’s everything to him when he’s behind it all, experiencing it from behind a semi-soundproof wall, his face hot from the stove. Too many rules, he thinks. Too demanding. Too stuffy. If I was back there , he thinks, I’d be doing something . Out here, he’s caged, limited to sitting on his ass in thousand-dollar farmhouse chic salvaged wood chairs, waiting expectantly for the poor fuckers at his beck-and-call to fetch him some plate the size of a dollar coin slathered with something that he knows is food but also thinks might not be food, might be some uncanny bastardized cousin of food that is called some other thing. Then, the poor waiter–scared because they think Carmy knows everything there is to know about food–has to shakily explain what food in front of him–even though Carmy already knows everything there is to know about food–and the waiter explains that he’s about to eat foie gras with rice porridge and dandelion stems and Carmy says thank you and then puts his elbows on the table and asks for another Negroni and thinks about adding foie gras with tapioca porridge and chive stems to The Bear’s summer menu.
He looks up at Sugar, where she's sitting across from him, kissing Pete on the cheek and then scrubbing her fork across her plate to catch the last bits of food before sticking her fork back in her mouth. He catches her eye, and they widen in response.
“Mikey’d hate this,” Carmy tells her.
She nods in agreement. “Mikey wouldn’t go to this,” she smiles.
“Actually, Mikey would die before going to this,” Carmy chuckles weakly, and Sugar’s face drops for a second before she lets out a pained laugh. Carmy continues “Hate for him to miss it.” He says it because it’s true, but thinks that maybe somewhere Mikey isn’t missing this, somehow.
“Bear…” Sugar grasps his hand from across the table, rubs the back of his hand with her thumb. He smiles at her, shaking his head, I’m alright , he’s trying to tell her, and he means it. Tips his head back and closes his eyes and listens to Fak talking too loudly about something that’s not important.
“Oh my god, I missed it!” Carmy hears an approaching voice. Sydney’s. He snaps his head back up. Looks at her.
He doesn’t think he’ll ever get tired of looking at her. This is something he doesn’t tell anyone, doesn’t write down, used to try not to think about, except that he couldn’t help but think about it, and so then he gave up on trying.
There’s something about her tonight. There’s something about her every night that he sees her, which is every night except Mondays. But now it’s Monday and she’s there, in front of him, and for a split second he finds himself so grateful to be sitting on his goddamn ass instead of anywhere else in the world he thinks that maybe he doesn’t hate fine dining. Dining staff sits them across from each other, right in the middle of the long dining table, with Sugar to Sydney’s right and Tina to her left, and she places a sturdy hand on Tina’s shoulder as she bends to sit down. She is so beautiful, Carmy thinks, under the milky dining room lighting, wearing a long dress, all white silk except for the black lace that lines the bust and finger-wide straps and contrasts with the white of the dress, which contrasts with the brown of her skin. Carmy can see the faint line of where her stomach becomes her bellybutton under the thin, taut fabric, can see every line of her body: strong from years of carrying pans, of standing on her feet all day, sturdy from years of eating. A body that tells him exactly who she is, a body that’s had to build itself around her, that’s made itself capable of doing everything she’s capable of–which is a remarkable amount. He’s in awe of her, how opaque she is, like she shouldn’t really be in front of him right now with her big dangly earrings and blue eyeshadow that makes the brown of her eyes so deep he wants to put the color and taste it. He’s hungry, ravenous. He wants to put the world in his mouth and chew and swallow. Instead he watches as Tina laughs kindly to her: “It’s not going anywhere, Chef.”
Sydney’s fork is in her hand before she’s sitting. She smiles at Tina and then looks up at Carmy who looks down at his half-eaten plate and back up at her. He’s scared he’s being weird. She’s like the sun, he thinks, I can’t look at her like I want to. And then he thinks, stupid, Carmy. Jesus Christ, stupid.
Stupid.
His breath catches in his throat, trying to talk to her like he hasn’t talked to her more times than he remembers. “You didn’t miss much.”
She picks up a forkful of the ambiguous white substance and stabs it in his direction, bearing her gorgeous teeth, “Elbows off the table, Carmy.”
And he’s moving fast, folding his hands back into his lap. He feels hot, embarrassed. Over his lack of manners but also over everything else. Over existing, really, when he’s in her presence. Feels so rough around the edges, his pants rolled up three times beneath the table because they’re too long for him, the sweat stains he’s accumulated throughout the fabric of his button-up, the constant fidgeting of his fingers, yearning for a cigarette or five. And here she is, smelling familiar like expensive botanical perfume and leaving a coral-pink lipstick stain on the edge of her wine glass. Carmy wants to press his lips to that stain.
“Holy shit,” Syd says, making a breathy sound at the back of her throat. Her eyes widen as she motions towards the plate. “This is real .”
“It sure isn’t bad,” Pete chuckles. Carmy clears his throat.
“How don’t you like this, Carmy?” She asks, and pops the rest of the less-than-morsel of food into her mouth, covering her lips with her hand as she chews and Carmy wants to tell her to take her hand away so he can watch her as she eats.
Stupid.
“No,” he responds. “I do- uh- I do like it.”
Syd eyes him for a second, in that way that she does. His tie feels like a noose, and to alleviate the feeling he tries rubbing the back of his neck, to no avail.
“Are you gonna finish?” She points to his plate. “Like, your food?”
“Oh, uh.” He hesitates. He wasn’t planning on finishing, but now he feels guilty. Where he hates this, Sydney’s basking in it. In the experience, in the flavors, using all of the information she’s gathering, firsthand, and twisting and turning and idealizing it into something beautiful for later. She’s brilliant. Carmy thinks she’s the smartest person he’s ever met, the most talented person. He watches the smooth skin of her neck as she swallows. The up-and-down bob of her throat.
“Carmy, dude, it’s fine. Nevermind,” she brings him back to life, shrugging.
“No,” he says, again. “No, no. I’m not gonna eat it.” He pushes it in her direction.
“So you lied.”
His face feels hot, and he takes another sip of his drink, it just makes him hotter, the burn in his throat. “I didn’t lie to you!”
The table silences for a moment, and Carmy realizes he had raised his voice louder than he meant to. Syd’s looking at him, laughing, and he’s humiliated but, at the same time, she’s laughing and he can’t get past that fact. Her shoulders, bare, are shaking with it, as she places two hands on her belly and tips her head back and her teeth are gleaming.
“Lied about what?” Asks Richie. He’s wearing a full suit and his tie nearly falls into his food because he’s leaning forward so much.
“Nothing,” Carmy says. “It’s nothing.” Syd looks at him, then at Richie.
“Sleeping with your mom, Richie,” she says, and takes a sip of her cocktail, aloe and something else, with a sprig of rosemary.
“Gross, Syd,” Richie spits. Carmy can tell he’s drunk. “That’s his aunt. That’s fucked up.”
“Oh,” Syd bites her lip. There’s scattered laughs throughout the table. “Oh, wow. That’s fucked.” She looks up at Carmy, then, her voice turning quiet. “Sorry, Chef.”
He shrugs, smiles at her. “Eat up, Chef,” he pushes the plate in her direction and she obliges. Among the rest of the table, conversation arises again, and the lulling overlap of voices makes Carmy feel less seen, like he can hide here with Syd in the middle of the table.
She’s in the middle of a bite when she speaks again. “I have an idea,” she tells him, her eyes bright. It’s endearing, the way she says it, through a mouthful of food. Eating her words.
“Surprising, Chef,” he says, and hopes she knows he doesn’t mean it. That she knows he thinks she’s the most fascinating person in the world. Swallowing, she smiles with her mouth closed. Her lips pull back across her face, and the apples of her cheeks are catching the light and she smacks his arm from across the table, leans forward to do so, and he catches sight of her cleavage in her dress and he wants to kiss her right there, right in front of everyone.
“Nevermind,” she shakes her head. “I won’t say it.”
“No, Syd, stop, say it.”
She shakes her head, shrugs.
“Sydney, Chef, come on. What is it?”
It feels like they’re kids, like Sydney has just told him she has a secret and Carmy has asked her what it is and she refuses to answer, petulant and snarky and withholding, and without thinking Carmy places his foot on top of hers under the table and focuses his gaze–for the first time in the night–on her, unwavering and focused. She’s giggling, beautiful, and Carmy still feels the hot pressure of her foot against his from beneath the table.
Carmy makes his voice quiet, self-conscious about last time. “Sydney. Please.”
She bursts out laughing, and when Carmy breaks her gaze he realizes Sugar is looking at him, her expression inscrutable. He tenses his jaw and returns his attention back to Sydney, feeling like he’s broken a promise with Syd somehow.
“If you really want to know that bad,” she says. “But it’s nothing.”
“Okay well if it’s nothing why won’t-”
“Okay,” Sydney places her hands down on the table a little too hard, and for a second all of the glasses shudder from the force, ice clinking audibly against itself. “Okay. Foie gras.” Her words are pointed, enunciated. “Fonio pudding. Chive flowers.” The idea punches Carmy in the stomach, knocks the wind out of him. He chokes on a sip of his drink and in the back of his mind he realizes he’s drunk, just enough to feel it. It’s exactly what he had thought, except with fonio swapped for tapioca, and he’s so moved by the synchronization of their ideas it makes him breathless.
“That’s what you were keeping from me?” He asks, and then feels her kick him in the shin, a little too hard, beneath the table. Why is she doing this to him? He feels strung out, worn down, enamored with her intelligence, her beauty, the witty take-no-shit way she jokes. When he breathes he can feel his chest heavy with the inhale, and the feeling makes him understand that he’s been holding it in too long. “It’s brilliant, Chef. I was thinking tapioca, but,” he swallows, “that was the wrong texture. You totally nailed it.”
She smiles at him over the lip of her glass and presses the toe of her shoe into his ankle.
Dinner feels like it takes hours because it does take hours. Food and drinks kept finding themselves in front of Carmy, and he found himself eating more and drinking more and toasting more and his face was hot and red and he couldn’t keep his eyes off of Sydney, feeling the fortifications he built up around whatever it was he felt for Sydney melt away. She was perfect, he thought in the moment, and maybe one day he would tell her that, once she moved on from him to bigger, better things that didn’t have Carmy smeared all over them in the emotional, haphazard way he couldn’t help but do to the things he loved.
Loved , he thinks to himself. Between dinner and dessert, Carmy’s chiefing his second Parliament against the brick facade of the restaurant. It’s late, almost eleven, and pretty soon everyone will be kicked out just to start pouring into the bars. In seven hours, Carmy will be at work.
It’s April but it’s cold, because it’s April in Chicago, and Carmy’s body is so hot and feverish it’s a welcome sensation. Even though it’s Monday, people are out, making their way out of the impossible-to-book restaurants that line Randolph Street, chatting and leaning into each other’s arms and wrapping sweaters around their midsections extra tight and laughing and kissing and holding each other’s hands. The nicotine in his brain brings him back to life, helps him open his eyes a little wider, finally, Carmy’s eye catches on a man in chef’s whites as he lights a cigarette in the alley behind a restaurant Carmy knows the name of–that everyone in the city knows the name of. And he realizes, quietly, that there is a them , and there is a him . Carmy, the man smoking behind the restaurant. They live for this. He looks down at his hands and finds the black lines of his tattoo in the darkness, a knife stabbed through a hand, and knows it’s always been his hand. Cooking. It’s his first love, this business, and it’ll be his last. In another life, he hopes he finds Sydney somewhere in the middle.
He can hear the restaurant’s door open, the approach of footsteps. Carmy blows the smoke from his lungs into the cold air and watches it disappear, then steadies himself against the wall. It’s her, of course it’s her, in her dress, that fucking dress , her hair falling over her shoulders, her cheeks flushed from the cocktails she was drinking. Because he’s Carmen, he starts coughing, caught off guard from her sudden materialization in front of him. His eyes fall down her body, and somewhere in the back of mind Carmy knows this is wrong, knows he’d never do this at work, or if he was sober, even though he’s not drunk. Something about tonight, he thinks. Her nipples are hard from the cold, poking through the fabric of her dress, and somehow Carmy thinks it’s worse than seeing her naked, more intimate even though everybody can see her standing outside, standing before him.
“Hey,” he says. Takes another inhale of his cigarette.
“Hey,” her voice is drawn out, awkward. He tears his eyes from her, terrified of making her feel uncomfortable, ogled. “Uh, I just came out to get you, ‘cause like, they’re about to bring out dessert and I shouldn’t be telling you this but they’re doing some sort of celebration for us or something. I just know ‘cause I hate surprises and made Marcus tell me and, so, like yeah. And I just,” she’s rambling, but Carmy loves the sound of her voice. He stares at his feet while she talks, “just wanted to make sure you’re okay. Like, you mentioned Mikey earlier and stuff, and like, you’ve just been so…” She heaves out a loud breath. “So.. Okay this is going to sound so bad, but so- so pleasant . And please don’t kill me. You’re pleasant all the time, Carmen. Well, not all the time. But I don’t mean it like that. I just feel like you’re- you look good. Not in that way.” Not in that way , he thinks, and his heart sinks. “Sorry, that’s weird for me to say. Maybe it’s ‘cause I don’t feel like myself tonight, in a good way. And I’m a little drunk. In a good way, and I’m happy for me and happy for you and- and yeah. I’ll shut up now.”
He tries to take a moment to process what she’s saying, but can’t seem to find the words to answer. Thinks about how wonderful she is, how hard she’s worked, how much she deserves this. Deserves everything. He thinks that she’s so profoundly less fucked up than him, that it makes him dizzy that she’d choose to be his partner in anything. It’s enough, he thinks. He wants her, but he’s okay with that, just like he’s okay with everything else that’s happened to him, or, he should say, so profoundly not okay that the pain of it dulls and throbs in the back of his chest until all the grief comes up at once and works its way through his body like a tumor, every once in a while. He looks at her, finally, and realizes she’s so much closer to him than she had been, and that his cigarette is so smoked down the ember’s starting to eat against his fingers but he’s so used to that sensation, that burning, that he hasn’t even noticed. He tosses it on the ground and smashes what’s remaining of the butt beneath his foot, then looks into Sydney’s eyes like he’s trying to find all of the beautiful thoughts she’s thinking in her head.
“Thank you, Chef,” he places a hand on her arm, gingerly. Feels the drag of his calluses against her goose-pimpled skin. “You- you really deserve this.” He lets his hand linger for a second, and then crosses his arms against his chest, searching Sydney’s gaze. She does not speak for a long time.
“Are you still my boss?” She asks. Carmy isn’t really sure of why she asks this, but he just cocks his head at her and shakes it.
“I’m not, no. Not anymore.”
“Just older than me.”
“Jesus Christ, Syd.” Twisting the knife. He feels so bad, feels the weight of every time he’s looked at her, touched her, loved her, which is always. He wants to reach for another cigarette but he doesn’t. She was smiling before, her eyes jovial, but it fades when she hears the sound of his voice. And then he’s doing that to her, too, taking her perfect night and spilling his despair all over her and fucking that up, too.
He feels the wind catch his hair, chilly and harsh and penetrating and he loves the feeling, loves how it roars through his ears. He doesn’t want to say he feels alive. It’s not that he feels alive. It’s just that he can’t remember when he was allowed to be this still. Doesn’t think he has an off switch, even when he’s allowed the moment. He’s too far away, but she’s right here.
Sydney takes a step into his space, but Carmy takes a step back, accidentally, betrayed by whatever reflexes he has left. Something in her gaze breaks, then, and she steps back from him and sags her arms at her sides and smooths all the wrinkles out of her dress before clearing her throat.
“I’ll tell them you’ll be right there,” she says, then turns away from him and walks back in through the door.
It’s eating at him for the rest of the night. He forces down his dessert, his coffee. Rushes through his thanks to the kind, lovely, selfless people who allowed his crew to eat this free meal. Writes his waiters a check each, even though they refuse compensation. She’s on his mind, he didn’t think it was possible for her to be more on his mind but she is. Fucking Mondays, he laughs to himself, as the Brown Line rumbles above his head, stomping his way up North Wells until he reaches The Bear.
Everyone had gone out after dinner, but Carmy–even if he didn’t feel like this –wouldn’t have gone. If he didn’t feel like this , maybe he’d have gone home and eaten a spoonful of peanut butter and watched cooking shows on his couch until he fell asleep and woke up an hour later, and then gone to The Bear at an impossibly early hour to chop carrots and put them in freezer bags until his hand bled.
The faint light in the back kitchen of The Bear is on, but when Carmy tries the door, it’s locked. Not being broken into: good. Electric bill: bad. In the back of his mind, Carmy makes a note to remind everyone to turn off the lights after they leave, except he’s usually the last one in the restaurant, after service ends, and so it’s probably his own fault. Pushing past the cool metal of the door handle, Carmy steps into the yellow warmth of The Bear and reaches in his pockets, wandering through the small back foyer, peeking into the dark office, stopping for a moment before he reaches the kitchen. He’s not sure what he’ll do when he’s there, but he knows he’ll do , and that’s what’s important. Don’t stop and think if you he doesn't need to stop and think. Tomorrow will remove everything that happened today, wipe it clean, make it pure and good.
When Carmen looks up, it’s because Sydney–Sydney of all people–yelps. She’s still in her dress and her makeup, leaning over the edge of the center counter, a forkful of chocolate cake falling back onto her plate. Carmy startles, too, over the sound she makes, and then shoves his hands deeper in his pockets. She’s always everywhere. Always everywhere he wants her to be, which is right in front of him. There’s something about her that Carmy can’t place, a transitory sort of sturdiness, her existence unshakeable, undeniable. She’s always exactly where she is, what she is, and he’s a little jealous of how present she is, sometimes.
“Jesus, Carmen!” She shouts, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand.
He opens his mouth to speak, but he’s not really even sure what she’s doing, beyond eating chocolate cake in the middle of their finally-clean kitchen at midnight in a beautiful white dress, her braids falling into her face.
It’s like she knows what he’s thinking. “Dessert wasn’t enough. Not satisfied. Wanted something else. Came here, been here, actually. Got an Uber. I saw you going towards the Green Line, and I was like hell no , not on a Monday night. Not in the mood. Did you walk?”
He exhales. “Uh, uh huh.” Swallows. “Just across the river.” His cheeks and fingers are still cold from the outside air.
“Have some of this,” she gestures Carmy towards her with a motion of her head and she’s so sincere about it that he listens. Finds his body making its way toward her and he picks up her fork and slices himself a small piece of the cake and puts it in his mouth, chewing it too slowly, feeling more than tasting the sweetness as it dissolves in his mouth. She’s looking at him the entire time, her eyes dark and strong and again, there’s that sturdiness, unflappable, and Carmy didn’t realize how much his mouth tasted like cigarettes until he isn’t tasting them anymore. Absentmindedly, he marks the meaning of their shared fork–something that’s happened so many times before. It’s nothing unusual, but to Carmy, it’s a little like a kiss. The closest they’ll get to it, the sharing of their saliva. He thinks about how awful that word is, saliva . He squeezes his eyes shut and when he opens them again it’s Sydney, Sydney Sydney. It’s just like earlier, the way she steps into his space, silent and resolute and she smells just like she always smells, but less like cooking grease, and her hand reaches up to his face. “You have something,” and it’s a whisper.
It’s just her thumb, rough and soft all at the same time. It smells like cake and like it’s an instinct, Carmy’s mouth falls open at her touch. She’s staring at him, he knows that, because he’s not staring back at her but instead right back at the spot on her forehead right between her eyebrows. In the back of her throat, Carmy hears her make a little noise and then she’s pushing her finger into his mouth, her eyes fixed, running her thumb over Carmy’s bottom teeth and he can feel the grooves of her fingerprints work their uneven path over the flat ledge of his teeth, and then he’s closing his mouth over his finger. He stops holding his breath and looks back at her, almost sick over how beautiful she is, over how much he wants her. It can’t be real, what she’s doing, why she’s doing this to him, why he would answer her how he is, his mind so clouded from the day, so heavy with the desire he has for her, and he needs to pull back, he’s trying to pull back, but then Sydney’s slipping her finger out of his mouth and rubbing the wet pressure of her finger across his lips and sighing.
“You’re a terrible dinner guest,” she tells Carmy, her eyes on his lips, and all he can do is nod because then she’s leaning in to kiss him.
This is not how he thought it would go. Mostly, because Carmy thought that this would never go . But in the quiet fantasy of his room he would sometimes allow himself little snapshots of how it would go, if it ever did, like kissing her after a dinner rush or in his apartment after she comes over to borrow something or in the alley behind the restaurant, up against the wall, her face between his hands and everything about them a mirror: their whites, their height, their hands. He wants her because she is made of everything he wants: brilliance and near-fatal perfection and pride and determination. Hubris and paralyzing fear and years and years of practice and, despite all of that, fucking up.
The way Sydney kisses is the way Sydney is: hungry, overpouring with want. Her hands are in Carmy’s hair, her fingernails digging into the back of his skull, and it takes him a moment to realize what she’s doing, for him to kiss her back. It makes Carmy feel more solid, he realizes, a little bit how Sydney is solid, and he wants to kiss her so much, touch her everywhere, feel every part of her body until he becomes her. And the way he kisses her back is a lot like how Carmy is: obsessive, feverish, restless. His hands find her waist, wrapping up her back, his calluses catching on the fabric of her dress until he’s grabbing fistfuls of the material, letting her take the lead because it’s all he ever wants her to do. Sydney rubs her hands over the fabric of Carmy’s dress shirt and he pulls back, just for a moment, to look at her. She’s panting, her lips parted, lipstick smudged all over her face and when Carmy wipes the back of his mouth it comes up pink. He shows his painted palm to her and she laughs before grabbing his barely-tied tie and pulling him back towards her, whispering: “I meant it in a weird way.”
He looks down at his hands and his tie and then back into her face. “Huh?”
“When I said you looked good,” she exhales into his face. “I meant it in a weird way.”
“Oh,” Carmy says, cleverly.
“You look like Pete,” Sydney’s laughing, undoing his tie.
“Ugh,” Carmy says, but he laughs too and finds the ounce of courage he has within him to push Sydney up against the expo and kiss her. It’s too hard, at first, and their teeth knock together, and then Carmy curses and tries again and he’s starving for it, so hungry it’s burning a hole in his stomach, as he presses his thumbs into her cheeks and kisses her and kisses her until he can’t breathe anymore, and then he takes a deep breath and kisses her again. She tastes like chocolate cake, like vodka, and when he kisses the skin behind her ear he’s surprised it tastes the same.
“God, Carmy,” her voice is low and quiet and he feels the hard twists of her hair against his face. At the sound of her voice, Carmy kisses lower, down her neck and collarbone and he wishes, so badly, that he could suck a mark into the salty skin there but he knows that’s juvenile, that’s dumb, that’s unprofessional. Her hands are holding up his head as he kisses her at the spot on her chest just above the low-cut neck of her dress, bringing his left fingers up to stroke–so lightly–the fabric covering her tit and then back down her body, feeling all of her curves and edges and he can hear what she wants in the way she breathes.
“This dress,” his voice doesn’t even sound like his own, so ragged and drawn out it makes him laugh, self-effacingly.
“I know,” she says. “I know.” And then she’s laughing in the same way Carmy was until he reaches up to grab her in his hands, squeezing gently before pushing down one of her dress straps and she’s not wearing a bra, so he dips his head to kiss her in the place right above his hands. And then she’s talking again, and it’s like he’s dreaming: “I think about you all the time,” she mutters, “exactly like this.” It feels like too much, this affirmation, and Carmy almost wants to cry, because this is so perfect but instead he just whimpers into the skin of her chest, a pathetic sound he can’t bother feeling ashamed of, and hikes her dress up until he can reach under it to feel her the hot nakedness of her skin beneath his hands, squeezing her waist a little as he drags his mouth down her body. When he falls to his knees it’s a little too hard, and for a second it hurts but then remembers where he is and he looks up at her, standing above him, radiant and obscene, holding her dress up with one hand and the other in Carmy’s hair, and he’s panting but still somehow finds a way to speak.
“Please,” he’s begging and he doesn’t care. “Please, let me-”
“Yes, Carmy, yes,” she says, frantic, and then hikes her dress up even higher over her hips. Carmy is face to face with her, his left hand holding her up against the expo. In the front of his mind, really, he knows this is very wrong. It’s their kitchen, it’s a clean space. Tomorrow fifteen bodies will be in here, packed so tightly they will be touching every surface, but Carmy looks up at Sydney and she is everything he’s ever needed and in his mind he’s telling himself let it happen before wrapping his other hand around the bone of her hip and pulling her underwear down, down, to her feet, holding her up as she steps out of them and then, for a moment, he just looks at her before leaning his face into her. She’s so wet it surprises him, and he ignores the pressure in his pants when he realizes it, tasting salt and acid and licking up her slit. He hears her moan, and it makes him feel so good, knowing she feels good, and after that he puts his mouth on her clit, feeling her whole body shake under the contact. And after that he can’t stop, can’t get enough of the feel of her body beneath his hands, the heat coming off of her as he runs one hand up the inside of her thigh, wet with her own slick. Sydney’s uttering a litany of words, none of which Carmy understands because she’s so gone and he thinks: this is it. This is it, he thinks, because he never needs to be anywhere else, do anything else. His knees ache but he doesn’t stop, couldn’t stop if he wanted to, in awe of her above him, and he slides his fingers up her thigh until they find her hole and slowly, he presses one inside of her, impossibly wet and hot, and then another, and when she only gets louder, more strung-out, he doesn’t stop until he’s told.
The first intelligible words she says are his name, when she orgasms. And then his name, after, when he keeps going. “Carmy,” she says. “Carmy, Carmy, Carmy.” It overwhelms him, hearing his name on her lips, in a moment like that. Even though she’s not touching him he moans, and she pushes his head away from between her legs and just looks at him, bearing her eyes into his, the heel of her hand pushed into her mouth. Her hand is in his hair, pulling gently, and Carmy lets out another sound, leaning into the sensation until he realizes how badly his knees hurt and then he’s sitting back onto his heels, tasting her on his lips.
“You need to take your shirt off, now” Syd finally says, and her voice is quivering.
“Yes, Chef,” Carmy plays at a joke, and she just tips her head back and laughs as he jerkily fumbles at his buttons, his hands failing him, until Sydney drops to her knees, too, and undoes them one-by-one, and at eye-level her face is different, more proportional, her jaw square and straight-on and her bottom lip between her teeth, focused as she undoes his shirt, and Carmy wants to reach out and put his hand on her face so he does, he does, and strokes the skin of her cheek with his thumb.
She leans into his hand with her entire body, then turns her cheek into his hand to kiss his palm. “Fuck,” she whispers, then pushes Carmy’s shirt back and slips it down his body. Her hands are wild, restless as she moves them up and down the bare coolness of his chest and he can feel his dick aching in his pants, but doesn’t care, won’t tell her until she asks because she’s giving this to him and that’s all he wants, whatever way she wants it.
“What do you want me to do to you?” She looks up from his chest, where she's kissing his tattoo, and again Carmy's in awe of the brain they share.
When Carmy swallows it’s like he’s swallowing a pill, his throat dry and full like he’s about to cry, and he just looks at her and says: “I want to fuck you.” And she nods a quiet affirmation to him and then and they’re dragging each other to the floor, so gently, their heartbeats so loud Carmy’s starting to forget which belongs to each of them and he’s watching the fast bob of her pulse in her neck, as he holds himself over her, his hands and knees sore beneath the unforgiving hardness of the cold tile floor and part of him wonders if they should stop now, if he should take her home and do it in his bed, that it can’t be more comfortable for her than it is for him and it is really uncomfortable and-
“Hey,” Sydney’s touching his face, bringing him back, and he leans into the sensation.
“Sorry,” he says, kisses her on the lips and then the forehead. “Are you okay?”
She laughs. “Mhm,” and then reaches for the button of his pants, grabs him through his pants for a second, he groans out her name and she smiles and then returns to his zipper. “You’re okay?”
He doesn’t even know how to respond to that, just squeezes his eyes shut and finds the words. “This doesn’t feel real.” And her eyes darken and widen when he says it, and when he follows it up with “please” she tugs his underwear down to his knees and then draws her legs up until they’re touching his thighs, his dick in her hand and his hair in the other and he can’t think.
She’s guiding him towards her and, somehow, he makes her stop, just for a moment, thumbing his hands through her hair and asking, “do we need to like-” he doesn’t finish the sentence: use protection .
Shaking her head, Sydney kisses his forehead. “I’m alright if you are.” He knows she’s on birth control, has seen her take it a couple times. He’s okay, and she’s okay, and there isn’t really another option, so he lets her take him in her hand and guide her into him.
The sensation is too much at first, and Carmy has to keep still or he’ll come, right there, inside of her on first contact. He can hear the sound he makes, tries to keep himself quiet, but then she’s telling him, “let me listen to you,” and he can’t find it in himself to be quiet anymore, so he groans into the open air of the kitchen and tries to forget they’re fucking right under the expo, the one part of the kitchen diners can see into, where everyone’s always standing and talking and working. It’s a little hot to Carmy, the mixture of everything he loves, everything he desires–he won’t lie to himself. He thinks that Sydney probably feels the same way. She’s built from the same things Carmy is: fingernails short and clean and always smelling like garlic, rough ugly hands, sleepless nights and heartburn and nightmares and the need to do better or you’ll die, you think you’ll die. He’s inside of her and she’s gentle and familiar with him like nothing has ever been and when he opens his eyes hers are squeezed shut.
“I’m gonna- can I-” Carmy asks, and Syd looks at him and lets out a breathy gasp.
“If you don’t I might die.” It’s all it takes for him to thrust out of her once, gasping and panting above her, his arms burning from holding himself above her body, and her hands squeezing little crescents into his arms, and he pushes back into her and one of them makes a noise and he doesn’t know who it is and somehow it's everything Carmy’s ever felt like he’s been missing.
“Let me look at you,” she says, running her fingers down the muscles in his neck and then he forces himself to keep his eyes open, to look at her. Sydney. To remember that she’s real and that this is real and it hurts enough to know that. It doesn’t take him long, only until he reaches between them to touch her clit and she’s coming again, her voice echoing against the cold white kitchen and he follows her orgasm, pushing deep into her, his mind going empty and dark as he feels himself come inside of her and from some distant place hears himself saying: “Sydney, fuck,” and her saying: “you feel so good,” still in perfect control as he falls apart above her.
After, Carmy rolls over onto the floor, gasping and heaving for breath, registering his pants around his knees and the very obvious fact that they are in the kitchen-- their kitchen , where they work and eat and will need to be doing those exact things in five to six hours.
After, Sydney runs a gentle finger down the slope of his nose and turns on her side to look at him, like they’re in a bed and not the floor, and Carmy takes her hand in his and kisses it and then says: “I’d like to do this again.”
She scoots her body closer to him. “In a bed, maybe, next time.”
“Next time,” he echoes. He can feel his cheek against the cold kitchen floor.