The text came at 1:52 p.m.

Left my notebook at yours. Need it before lineup.

No please. No when you can. Just the problem, stated like a ticket. You stare at it for a full minute, then at the black notebook on your counter, soft at the corners, held shut with a rubber band. Every dish he's ever dreamed is probably in there. He left it on your nightstand like it was nothing.

Like he'd forgotten. Like he hadn't.

You take the train to Midtown anyway.

Morrow doesn't look like what it is from the street. Three stars, and the front is all frosted glass and a door with no sign, like it's daring you to know. You go around to the alley, where the real building lives: steam from a vent, a stack of milk crates, a propped steel door, and the noise of it, knives on boards and someone calling "behind" in a voice that sounds like it's said it ten thousand times.

You hover in the doorway. A line cook in a stained apron takes one look at you, goes pale, and says, "Oh. Oh. You're, uh. Chef's in the back."

"I just need to drop something off."

"Yes. Sure. Of course." He disappears so fast you almost laugh.

The kitchen at 4 p.m. is a held breath. Stainless steel in every direction, everything gleaming, everyone moving in lanes you can't see. A dozen men and women in whites and black aprons, heads down, pretending not to look at you with the focus of people who've been told to.

And at the far end, by the pass, in a black shirt with the sleeves shoved to his elbows, is Ellis.

He's got a clipboard in one hand and a tasting spoon in the other, and he's talking low to a younger cook who looks like he's been through something. You can't hear the words. You can see the cook's shoulders drop an inch. Whatever he's saying, it's the kind of correction that ends in good.

He looks up. Sees you. And stops.

It's small. Anyone else would miss it. The clipboard lowers. His eyes go from sharp to something quieter, like a pot taken off the flame.

"Hall," someone mutters behind you. "Your girl."

"I know," Ellis says, without looking away from you.

Your girl. You pretend you didn't hear it. Your heart pretends harder.

He crosses the kitchen in six strides and stops too close for work. Smoke and citrus and garlic. The faint cologne he only wears on the nights he leaves early, which isn't tonight, which means it's from yesterday. It's still on his collar.

"You came," he says.

"You texted."

"I texted about a notebook."

"I brought the notebook."

You hold it out. He takes it, and his scarred fingers close over yours for half a second longer than he needs to. He runs his thumb over the rubber band. Doesn't open it. Just holds it, like it's something that could have gone missing.

"Thanks," he says. It sounds like it costs him two.

"You said you needed it before lineup."

"I did." A pause. "I didn't think you'd actually bring it."

"Then why text me?"

He says nothing. His jaw works. Behind him, a pan hits a burner with a very loud clang, and about six people jump.

"Family meal's up," someone says carefully, to no one.

"Sit," Ellis tells you.

"I should go."

"Sit."

It isn't a command. You've learned the difference. It's the way he says stay when he's half-asleep, stripped of everything that's supposed to hold it back. You glance around for a chair. There isn't one. He nudges an overturned milk crate toward you with the toe of his boot, and you sit, knees tucked, feeling absurdly small in the middle of all that steel.

He disappears. Comes back with a deep steel pan and a single spoon.

Rice, braised something, charred greens. Staff meal, which Morrow's cooks make for each other at four every day from whatever the dinner service won't use. It smells better than most restaurants' main courses. Steam curls off the top.

"Eat," he says.

"Did you eat?"

His mouth tightens. "I had coffee."

"Ellis."

You look at him for a long beat. He looks anywhere else. His eyes land on the clock above the pass, 4:07, and the muscle in his cheek ticks.

You take the spoon from him. Fill it. Hold it up, not to your own mouth.