15-05-2021-052358It-Ends-with-Us

immediately begin to shake and I drop the paper back on the table. I
close my eyes and take a slow sip of the orange juice.
A few minutes later, Atlas sets a plate down in front of me, then
claims the seat across from me at the table. He pulls his own plate of
food in front of him and cuts into a crepe with his fork.
I look down at my plate. Three crepes, drizzled in syrup and
garnished with a dab of whipped cream. Orange and strawberry slices
line the right side of the plate.
It’s almost too pretty to eat, but I’m too hungry to care. I take a
bite and close my eyes, trying not to make it obvious that it’s the best
bite of breakfast I’ve ever had.
I finally allow myself to admit that his restaurant deserved that
award. As much as I tried to talk Ryle and Allysa out of going back, it
was the best restaurant I’d ever been to.
“Where did you learn to cook?” I ask him.
He sips from a cup of coffee. “The Marines,” he says, placing the
cup back down. “I trained for a while during my first stint and then
when I reenlisted I came on as a chef.” He taps his fork against the
side of his plate. “You like it?”
I nod. “It’s delicious. But you’re wrong. You knew how to cook
before you enlisted.”
He smiles. “You remember the cookies?”
I nod again. “Best cookies I’ve ever eaten.”
He leans back in his chair. “I taught myself the basics. My mother
worked second shift when I was growing up, so if I wanted dinner at
night I had to make it. It was either that or starve, so I bought a
cookbook at a yard sale and made every single recipe in it over the
course of a year. And I was only thirteen.”
I smile, shocked that I’m even able to. “The next time someone
asks you how you learned to cook, you should tell them that story. Not
the other one.”
He shakes his head. “You’re the only person who knows anything
about me before the age of nineteen. I’d like to keep it that way.”
He begins telling me about working as a chef in the military. How
he saved up as much money as he could so that when he got out, he
could open his own restaurant. He started with a small café that did