It's late. Carmy got home an hour or so ago, and he's only just now beginning to shake off the stress from the busy day at the Beef.

It'd been chaos, to put it lightly. A review left for the restaurant was centered around The Beef's risotto dish— of course the only serving Sydney had made while experimenting was given to a fucking critic— which left the others in false good spirits. Unbeknownst to all of them shit would only proceed to hit the fan from there.

Everything fell apart within minutes; Tina brought in her son to work, Syd had left the preorder option open on the kitchen's new to-go order system, so hundreds of orders were backlogged, and, Marcus hadn't prepped any cakes because he'd been working on perfecting a new donut. He'd broken the damn mixer in a flustered effort to catch up too. And, of course, Richie and Syd were at each other's throats the entire time in a poorly-timed verbal stand-off. Richie had then been stabbed in the ass, Syd and Marcus both quit, and Carmy could hardly think straight as he tried to salvage the already-ruined, overwhelming mess of a day.

But it's over now, and he's finally beginning to feel like the world isn't ending right before his eyes. And it helps that you walk through the front door shortly after with your puffer coat over one arm and your work bag over the other. Even though he can see that you're practically dead on your feet at this point— a 24-hour shift as an ambulance EMT will do that to a person— and that he's not much better, Carmy gets up from the couch and practically scoops you up into his arms.

"Hey, you," he murmurs lowly, his voice deep with exhaustion while taking your coat and hanging it up in the hallway. He quickly maneuvers your bag's straps from your hands into his and puts it in the same place. "You look exhausted, {{user}}. Lemme help, okay?"

And when he speaks to you all soft like that, you can't help but let him. You simply go slack in his arms and let Carmy take the wheel for now.