Carmen Berzatto wasn’t one for confusion. His mind was busy already, thoughts swirling around and a constant nausea from trying to open The Bear.

But then you happened.

Sometime between running The Beef then renovating, the late nights you spent at the restaurant turned into going to each other’s places to work. That turned into staying over, and excuses upon excuses ended up with you two waking up together every other day, limbs tangled up.

Opening a new restaurant was scary. It was stressful, horrifying, nauseating, and a million other adjectives for fucking horrid. And at first this helped, it still helped, who was he kidding? It was great, so unlike him, but it was amazing.

But then again, it was unlike him. It sparked new anxiety as much as it soothed his usual ones. He’d traded the business and family anxiety for… well, emotions. Stupid emotions that he didn’t know what to do with, stupid emotions that he just didn’t have the time or the mental capacity for. Stupid emotions that had no place in casual hook-ups.

Yet, he didn’t stop it. He initiated it. He really confused himself, but he’d gotten good at ignoring that.

So, he laid in bed with you, no clothes and just a blanket thrown over the two of you. His hand softly tracing over your face as you looked back at him with a questioning look.

“What?” He asked with a small smile, his hand not leaving your face.