Carmen was the only brother Sugar had left, so he was trying not to be a shitty one. He agreed to weekly dinners with her and Pete. It'd been Pete's idea, delivered with his patented Cabbage Patch Kid demeanor, and Carmen ended up canceling more often than not because of some headache or other at The Bear, but he tried to 'make it a priority,' the way Sugar insisted. Richie helped him with it without really knowing that was what he was doing. One night Carmen was about to text Sugar to let her know he couldn't make it when Richie asked him, "Hey, pisspants, don't you have your weekly cry-fest tonight?"

"You mean dinner with Nat? Nah. I'm gonna cancel, I'll just make it next week."

"Why?" Sydney asked.

Richie threw his hands up like she had another knife pointed at him. "Shit, where the fuck'd you come from?"

Sydney ignored him. "We're good here, Chef, I got it covered."

She was writing new labels for the spices on the back rack. Carmen bit the inside of his lip as he watched her. She kept shaking the Sharpie she was writing with. He pushed himself off the counter he was leaning against and went to stand by her, pulled a fresh Sharpie from his apron and handed it to her.

"Thanks," she said, and her smile was quick and bright. Carmen smiled, too, and reached for the scissors to measure out tape to stick onto the next container for her to label.

He felt an obligation to go to Sugar's, but he didn't really want to leave the shop. The noise and the constant motion, T and Ebra giving him a hard time, it was familiar to him, comforting. There was always something material he could do to make the place better, and Syd was there. At her place Sugar wouldn't even let him set the table, let alone cook. There he was her little brother and everything that came with it, the crazy mom and dead dad and brother, the years he'd spent away from Chicago.

"You sure?" he asked Sydney. He kept his eyes focused on the containers in front of them even though he wanted to look at her.

"Yes, of course," she said, and he believed her.

"Thank you, Chef."

"No problem."

Dinner came easier now that he'd done it a few times. Sugar liked The Bear a great deal more than she'd ever liked The Beef, but they didn't talk about the restaurant. Pete gamely brought up the Cubs and climate collapse and how his dream job was to host America's Funniest Home Videos, and Carmen and Sugar humored him. At first Carmen'd thought feeling the effort it took meant something was wrong, but then he'd realized it was the effort that mattered, the effort that Sugar appreciated. He appreciated it, too. He was grateful Sugar didn't ask him about AA each time he saw her, even though he knew she wanted to. Together they figured out how to be with each other when they'd never been just Sugar and Carmy before, but always Mikey and Sugar and Carmy. They were Sugar never putting wine out for their dinners even though she and Pete drank because she knew Carmen didn't. They were Carmen eating everything she put in front of him like he used to do with their mom even though what he really wanted was a bag of Doritos and a Dr. Pepper. It made him realize he'd never really known Mike as an adult, made him think this was what loving someone up close was, mundane and boring, and sometimes kind of annoying. He should've done this with Mikey. Hauled his ass back to Chicago and had a meal with him, even though at the time it'd seemed impossible, leaving his work behind just to deal with family shit when his family had always been fucked. But Mikey killed himself, and all of a sudden it was possible. Mikey'd always been able to do that, rearrange the world.

Pete had to take a work call towards the end of dinner, so Carmen sent Syd a quick text to see if she was doing okay with closing up, and watched as Sugar cleared the table, rinsed the plates, and put them in the dishwasher. Afterwards they stepped outside to the garage, where he pulled out a pack of cigarettes and handed one to her. She liked to say she quit for her health, but really it was because Pete hated that she smoked. This was something Carmen had been doing with her since Mikey'd stolen his first pack from their mother's purse, though, and they'd picked it right back up after he'd returned home.

Carmen lit his own cigarette, then cupped Sugar's. They smoked in silence for a while, the ends of their cigarettes flaring bright against the night, and Carmen let the routine of it calm him. "So you and Pete—" he said.

"Here we go."

"No, Jesus, calm down. I like him now, remember?"

"Then what is it?"

"He's just so…" Carmen shrugged and made a face. "Normal."

"Yes, thank God. That's what I like about him."

To Carmen it seemed like Pete was someone she put up with, but he'd only ever seen her with him when he was there. Maybe it was different when it was just the two of them, a married couple, or when they were around other people and she didn't have to be a Berzatto. "But didn't it freak you out, marrying him?"

"You mean 'cause of Mom and Dad?"

"Yeah. I mean, nothing about them makes me think 'yeah, I want to try that.'"

"I guess… I mean, I don't know, I never really thought of them when I was with Pete."

"Really?" Carmen said. "But you always took Mom's side."

"I took her side because she was my mom and we were the only girls and I was a kid."

Carmen nodded, took a drag and let it out. "I guess."

"And Pete is nothing like Dad."

"True. He's all right, Nat, I mean it."

"Oh, well, as long as you think so," Sugar said, and rolled her eyes. "What is this about, anyway? Sydney?"

"What?" Carmen said sharply. "No." He looked over at Sugar and frowned. He was suddenly annoyed. "What do you mean, Sydney?"

Sugar shrugged. "I get a vibe with you two."

"What the fuck is a vibe?"

"You know, like when you like someone?" Sugar raised an eyebrow and a quick, wry smile came to her. Carmen knew she was about to give him shit. He leaned his head back and let out a long groan when he heard the Valley Girl voice she put on whenever she made fun of him because she couldn't do any other accent.

"Like, when you keep texting them throughout dinner," she said, "or, like, when you keep bringing them up for no reason, or, like, when you randomly start asking questions about marriage after randomly opening a random restaurant with them, or, like—"

"All right!" Carmen said. His face was heating up and he wanted to run a hand through his hair. Instead he snatched Sugar's cigarette from her and crushed it with his shoe. "I'm leaving, and I'm telling Pete you smoke behind his back."

Sugar cackled. "Oh, wittle baby's gonna tattle 'cause he's got a big, fat cwu-ush."

"Pete!" Carmen hollered.

"No!" Sugar shrieked, and tackled him from behind. He fought her off, calling out to Pete the entire time, and she fought him back, trying to cover his mouth while shoving him down the driveway to his car.

Carmen rolled his window down after he got in and started the engine. "I'm not coming back here again."

"Tell Syd I said hi."

"Fuck you."

"Byyyye, drive safe!"

He thought about what Sugar'd said on his drive back. Had he really been texting Sydney during dinner? So much so that Sugar had noticed? And had he brought her up without cause? He'd only mentioned her 'cause Pete had been talking about plastic, and just the other day Syd had mentioned they should look into better eco-friendly suppliers for their takeout containers. And then again with the AFV thing, 'cause he was sure Syd'd wonder why it still aired when YouTube and TikTok existed.

He flipped on his turn signal, merged into the right lane so he could take the ramp, slammed a fist into the steering wheel, and said out loud to himself, "Fuck."

888

Carmen'd kept her notebook. When he left his apartment each morning, he patted himself down to make sure he had everything—keys, cigarettes, mask, Sharpie—and Syd's notebook. He kept it in the left frontside pocket of his pants, felt the weight of it throughout the day in the kitchen as he prepped before opening, during nights when he reviewed accounts and got some extra cleaning in. When he pulled out a cigarette and lit it, propped a leg up on the wall behind him and shoved a hand in his pocket, it was there.

Some nights when he couldn't sleep he'd take her notebook out and flip through it, looking at Syd's neat, loopy scrawl. He stopped reading it line by line because he had it memorized. She'd written notes for her own recipes down alongside ones for the recipes he'd taught the crew. It'd surprised him when he'd first read it, that she'd put down notes for his recipes at all, because he knew with her experience and talent she could have just listened and watched his demonstration and then made the dishes herself. It was strange to see what he'd learned by sight and ear and taste from his mother and then from Mikey written down so precisely, the dishes he'd had any time his mom'd wanted to make something quick but kind of fancy. He liked to skim his fingers over the indentations of her pen on the paper—she wrote so lightly—and it was when he was doing this one night while lying on his couch, TV buzzing in the background, that he had a sudden surety—that Syd's' braised short rib risotto was something she'd come up with while listening to him, that it wasn't only something for her to add to the dinner menu, but an answer to the Berzatto family dishes he'd been introducing to the restaurant.

He'd told her the truth when she'd had him taste it. It was tremendous, her dish, the texture and taste perfectly balanced, leaving you with a satisfaction that lasted even after you were no longer full. But there was something else about it that made it perfect for The Beef, and now The Bear—he could have grown up eating that dish. Somehow, without even talking to him about it, she'd created something that touched that soft spot in him that reminded him the one good thing in his family, the one inheritance he gratefully accepted, was food. That's how good she was.

He had to be careful with himself and with her because the way they understood one another without needing to talk was seductive. When they walked into the freezer together, he knew what to hand her without her needing to ask, and that was enough to make him feel like he was having a good day. Part of it was the rhythm they fell into in the kitchen, and into which they pulled the rest of their crew. And it was a rhythm, not a routine, something alive and moving, not a simple repetition. The months it took to work on a new dish, both of them trying, tasting, trying again; and then figuring out if they could pay for it, which vendors to use, how and when to serve it; then showing T and Ebra how to make it. Their partnership was easy. Not that they didn't disagree or argue or do things that annoyed one another; not that she didn't still feel some kind of way when he had to tell her when one of her dishes needed work; not that she didn't happily tell him when he was being a dick; no, it was that none of that characterized them or signified an inevitable end.

Together, he and Sydney built the restaurant that was supposed to've saved him and Mikey. Carmen'd kept the hope of The Bear right alongside the rage and sorrow, an end he and his brother would come to together. He'd thought it was what Mikey'd wanted, too. But Mikey'd made a different ending for himself. The truth was if Sydney hadn't walked in the day he'd discovered all that cash, Carmen wouldn't have opened it. He would've kept The Bear a dream, a lost one, because he didn't know that he could make it what it was meant to be, a return to the first kitchen he'd fallen in love with—his mom's, Christmastime when he'd been four years old, his dad still alive and everyone he knew and loved together, his mom letting him sample the raisins and dried cherries she needed for her panettone. Sydney could make that kind of restaurant. Carmen knew it, because he'd had the shit kicked out of him and he'd stayed; Sydney'd had the same done to her and she'd left.

It seemed sudden to anyone on the outside, Carmen knew, that he'd gut the restaurant his family'd run for thirty-five years and start afresh with her, fix the office so he and Syd could each have their own desks. He'd had to fight Richie about it, even after telling him he had no say because it wasn't his fucking restaurant. He'd had to justify it by pointing out Sydney's organizational skills, her keen insight into the business side of running a shop, her ability to lead, her frightening ability to problem solve. He'd had to point out that everyone at The Beef listened to her, including Richie. But his other reasons he'd kept to himself. That he tasted her food and he remembered him and Mikey roughhousing in front of the couch over something stupid while Sugar and their mom yelled at them. That he tasted her food and remembered going with three hours of sleep a night, seemingly endlessly, when he'd first started out in New York, fueled not by ambition or love of the work, even, but rage, rage at his dad for being a fuckup he loved, rage at his mom for being crazy and loving her, rage at Mikey for ignoring him and him still loving him. He tasted her food and he remembered why he did this, why he was a cook—not just because he was good at it, not just because it was what Mikey had taught him, but because food was essential in a way nothing else was, and to make it well, make it good, make it so that something you needed made you stop and think it was something you wanted—that was tremendous.

He wasn't stupid. He knew from the moment he first laid eyes on her that he liked her. She'd walked into his cramped office, not one of the other guys or Tina, but a woman around his own age, all smooth skin and wide dark eyes, her white shirt neat and pressed and perfectly buttoned up to reveal a sliver of her neck, and he'd been frozen in place, stuck staring at her because she was pretty and he couldn't figure out why, why was she so pretty and why was she standing there with her CIA degree, in a dirty mess of a place he was killing himself trying to keep open because it was the only thing Mike'd left him after offing himself, after years of ignoring him, their parents' shop. Two weeks he'd been at The Beef and it'd been a total shitshow, fucked and incomprehensible and more than he could bear, but she'd walked in and everything had stilled. Two weeks back home and she'd been the first thing he could understand. And she'd said that she knew him, she'd mentioned a life that he'd left behind just a few weeks prior but that was so removed from the shouting, dull-knifed, dry bread and under-seasoned meat of The Beef that it should have belonged to someone else. She'd looked at him like his decade-plus of trying to get Mike to see him meant something, like it mattered, like it wasn't an embarrassment and a failure, and it was too much, all that recognition and admiration from her. It was his first experience of what Sydney did to him, that disorientation alongside the stillness, the way she made him feel something other than alternating bouts of panic and numbness, anxiety and confusion, sadness and an anger that went down to the bone, the way she made him wonder if maybe the hole Mikey'd left him in wasn't the entire world, if maybe there could be something outside of it. But he hadn't realized other people saw what she did to him.

If she hadn't been there to stage, if he hadn't hired her for The Beef, he would've nursed his crush on her privately, indulgently, and unrepentantly. And maybe a few weeks down the line, if he'd had the time and the nerve, he would have asked her out, tried to make her laugh, taken her home, and then fallen into an uneasy acquaintanceship with her like he usually did with the women he slept with. But he'd still been startling awake to nightmares of what Mikey's funeral must have been like. And things had been so strained with Sugar. He'd had too many vendors to pay, too much money owed to Cicero to give into what Syd brought out in him. He hadn't had the space for it. He'd been her boss then, and they were partners now.

So instead of sneaking glances at her, he worked by her side. He tasted the food she created and listened as she sounded out ideas before they became official plans. He created a culture with her at The Bear different from the one he'd once thought he craved, thought made him good, different from the one she hated and from which she'd tried to escape. The Bear was an extension of his inheritance from Mikey—Mike's money, Mike's location—but it was his and Syd's recipes, their design, their people. Marcus and Tina, Ebra and Sweeps, Angel, Manny, Fak—they'd loved his brother, but they liked him, too, now; and they loved Syd and Syd was his. Together they'd renovated the space so that it was brighter, more open and welcoming, modern and better able to showcase the food they made. Even though The Bear carried the name he and Mike had dreamed up all those years ago, before the painkillers and the estrangement, it was theirs, his and Syd's.

888

He and Syd were coming up with vegetarian options for The Bear, even though Richie kept arguing with them about it.

"No working man doesn't eat meat."

"Are you talking about yourself? Because you're not a working man, Richie. You don't commit the act necessary to be one. You have to do this thing called 'work' in order to be a 'working man.'"

"Ah!" Richie waved Sydney off and limped out of kitchen to the front of the shop. His stab wound had healed over a year and a half ago, but he leaned into his injured vet persona whenever Sydney said something biting to him. Things had changed between them since the stabbing. Richie rarely insulted Sydney, but Sydney still read him daily.

"Are you done?" Carmen asked, trying not to smile.

"Yes, Chef," she turned to him. "Sorry. He's just so annoying." She made a face, and Carmen's insides did this almost painful squeezing thing they did whenever she was like this, carefree and ready to rib someone. "How does he not get that we run this place?" She gave herself a little shake. "Okay. Focusing on the food now. What do you have for me?"

It was a soft polenta with mushrooms, greens on the side, and a mushroom sauce. He'd been working on it for a few months, before and after hours, and even at home. It was a play on a dish he'd made back in New York, only now without the duck. He'd had to figure out how to make it still taste rich and decadent when it was meant to be vegan. The whole time he'd been thinking of Syd's reaction, anticipating what she'd think and what she'd say. Carmen dipped his large spoon into the dish, made sure he got a bit of everything on it, and brought it to Syd's mouth. She opened up for him, eyes flicking from the spoon to him and then away as her lips closed over it. She chewed and swallowed, her eyes fluttered closed, and she brought a finger to her lips.

"More?" Carmen asked, and she nodded silently. He spooned up some more of his dish and fed it to her, cupping his hand underneath.

"Yo, Jeff," Tina was passing by carrying a pot half her size she was going to use for family meal that day. Marcus and Sweeps stopped behind her. "You gonna feed her the whole thing or do other people get to try this out?"

Carmen felt his face heat up, but he took a step back from Syd and said to Tina, "Go ahead, Chef. Tell me what you think."

T pulled a spoon from her apron and tasted it. Her eyebrows shot up and she smiled. "Very nice," she said, and walked off. Marcus tried the dish, nodded and slapped him on the back, then Sweeps, who gave him a thumbs up.

"And you?" Carmen asked after they'd left. Syd wasn't looking at him. She had her fingers to her lips, like she was steadying herself. He wanted to pull them away, both because he liked looking at her mouth and just because he wanted to touch her. He wanted to run his thumb over the pads of her fingers and see if they were calloused from knives and burns like his.

Sydney nodded. "Good," she said. "It's good. Really, really, really good. Great job, Chef."

And the squeeze inside him turned to something else, a swoop low in his gut. He felt the flush on his face crawl down his neck, and he became aware of his heartbeat. Her words made it faster. He wanted to feed her more of his dish, get her to say more. A smile he couldn't control spread across his face and he said, "Yeah?"

"Yeah. Um, what were you thinking? Fall menu? Dinner?"

Of course she'd already know. "Yeah. You got time for me to show you how to make it tonight?"

"What about everyone else?"

"We've got time. We can show them later in the season."

"Okay, then. Yes, Chef."

888

He still woke up sometimes to the voice of his head chef calling him an overhyped piece of shit. He couldn't tell if it was a nightmare or not because it didn't make him yell or lose his breath. It made him feel shitty, but he was used to feeling that way, knew how to feel that way and welcomed the familiarity of it.

A weird thing started to happen. The Bear was doing well, establishing a solid customer base and getting good reviews, and Carmen was thinking more and more about what it'd been like in New York, how miserable he'd been. And an ache came in his chest, like he missed it. In New York the articles and reviews had made him into a wunderkind, but in the kitchen none of it had mattered because he'd been surrounded by people who'd wanted to eat him alive just the way he'd wanted to do to them, and while they'd studied at the CIA and Alain Ducasse all he'd had was a masochist's desire to succeed. Turned out masochism trumped pedigree. Now The Bear closed at end of day with no fires to put out and on his way home Carmen felt like he'd lost something. Somehow, it'd been easier to take creating a piece of perfection while being degraded than it was to hold on to something steady. The success of The Bear, it made him nervous.

Sydney made him nervous, too. She was the first thing he wanted in a long time that didn't only have to do with making food. The last thing he remembered wanting was for Mikey to let him be his brother, and that had fucked him all the way up. His entire adult life he'd been single-mindedly focused on his work—he never thought of it as a career—and he'd never put much time or effort into relationships, romantic or sexual. But with Sydney around he felt like he'd never been so fucking horny in his life. It sloshed over into other feelings, so that when he was lonely, or when he was high off an idea for a new dish, or when he was zoning out at home watching a baking show and scarfing down uncooked ramen, he would think of her and how much he wanted her. It was so bad he was getting embarrassed at how much he was masturbating.

He meant to keep how much he wanted to kiss Sydney to himself, but it kept slipping out of him unbidden. One day he was taking a break outside, scrolling through his phone, when he saw a meme. It said, "women be like 'i'm fighting demons' and the demons is having a job." It was funny, but it had him smiling because he knew Sydney'd like it. He sent it to her without thinking, even though ostensibly the reason they had each other's numbers was for work. He knew she looked at it immediately because just a second later he heard her laugh, her perfect laugh, spill out from the kitchen, and it turned his smile to a grin.

They started eating out together a few times a week. It was never planned and it was never at a place too far from the restaurant. One morning they found each other both standing in line to get breakfast from a food truck that had just set up around the corner the week before, and after they each got their burritos they walked just a few paces away and ate facing each other, each taking huge bites and not bothering to finish chewing and swallowing before talking. A construction worker bumped into Sydney and she let out an "Ow!" and Carmen almost got in a fistfight at 7:00 AM after telling him to watch where the hell he was going.

Another day, one of the hottest of summer, an ice cream truck that had been wailing in the distance the entire day finally drove down the street in front of The Bear right before family meal, and Sydney and Marcus hailed it down. They got Spongebob pops for themselves, but then a kid came up to them, tugging at Marcus's apron. Marcus gave him his popsicle. Carmen watched from the front of the shop as another kid came and then another, and that's when he saw it, the two lines of students on the sidewalk opposite, one teen volunteer at each end. Students peeled off from the lines to run heedlessly across the street to Marcus and Sydney, and the two volunteers ran back and forth between the ice cream truck and the lines they were supposed to be guarding, yelling and waving their arms. The chaos of it had Carmen shaking with laughter. He called the rest of the crew over to watch Sydney and Marcus get mobbed by children demanding ice cream from them as the volunteers apologized, near tears as they tried to corral their students, until Sydney called out like she was in a horror movie, "Carmy! Tina! Help!" The whole crew ended up coming out and buying popsicles and cones and ice cream sandwiches and handing them out to the kids; and watching them all together in their blue aprons, their neighbors from the other shops came out and got ice cream, too. Carmen ate his cone standing next to Sydney, watching as she laughed, watching as she licked melting ice cream from her fingers. By the time they were all done the ice cream truck had nothing left to sell, and the driver turned off the music and told them, "Thanks, but you're all crazy," before driving off.

A muggy, late August night after closing, exhausted after spending six days at the shop, Carmen ended up at a hole-in-the-wall ramen shop a few blocks from The Bear. They hand-made their noodles in-house, with a broth from a family recipe handed down from the owner's great grandmother. The food was excellent, but he liked it there because the lighting was low and he could put off going home, be around people without needing to go to a bar. There was something about the acoustics, even though the place was always packed, the noise of all the talking never rose above a hum. He'd ordered a scallion pancake and some cold noodles, was holding his glass of ice water against his face when he saw Sydney walk in. He'd been shaking his leg the entire time he'd been there, but once he saw her he stilled. He wasn't surprised because he'd been thinking about her even though they'd said goodnight less than an hour before, and it felt like his thoughts of her, his longing, had somehow called her over. She started making her way toward the bar when she spotted him. She stopped halfway down the aisle and they looked at each other over the heads of couples and families and friends for a long moment. In it Carmen felt he could stare at her forever, and he didn't mind her looking at him, seeing him, even though he was sure he looked like shit. She raised her eyebrows in question and Carmen nodded.

Their knees touched under the small table. Her fingers brushed against his when he handed her his menu. When the waiter came round she asked them if they wanted their mains to come out at the same time and Sydney said yes. She asked, "Do you mind?" while gesturing at the drinks menu and Carmen shook his head no. They didn't talk for a long while and it was nice, their silence, having the comfort of another person there without needing to perform for her, without needing her to act to keep his interest. Sydney sipped on her beer and Carmen tried not to look at her too much as they shared the pancake. He kept looking up at her, and then looking away when she looked back. Their conversation came easy after their noodles came.

"You ever think about it?" Sydney asked. "The French Laundry?"

Carmen shrugged. "Uh, I've never really had the time to." He cleared his throat. His voice was hoarse from yelling out orders all day.

"You probably get people asking you that stuff all the time."

He didn't. She was the first. It was weird to have someone who understood what he'd left behind. The Beef'd meant so much to him and Richie, when he'd left his CDC spot in California it hadn't even really been a decision, just the only thing to do. But he and Syd spoke the same language. She'd loved The Beef, too, and she loved The Bear. But she knew what else was out there. She understood the level of skill and artistry he'd attained, the level at which he'd been working, what he'd gone through to get it. And she knew what else he—and she herself, to be honest—could be doing.

"You don't miss it?" Sydney asked.

Carmen was careful in his answer. "I don't want to miss it," he said. "I think The Bear…I think we're doing something really great."

Sydney nodded. "Heard."

"What about you?" Carmen said. "You ever miss Sheridan Catering?"

"I mean I only did it for like, two years."

"Yeah, but it was yours. And two years isn't nothing. We're only a year and a half in with The Bear and I'd miss it if it folded."

He'd looked it up online, of course. She still had the old website for it up, with a message on the main page saying the business was closed and thanking all the customers for their trust in her. Underneath were hundreds of messages from people whose weddings and birthdays she'd catered. Five plus years after her business shut down Sydney still had people seeking it out to let her know she'd helped make their day special.

And he knew she hadn't told him the entire story. She'd worked for UPS during her CIA stint, and had gone back to it for a bit over a year, in 2020. In August of 2020, after she'd shut down Sheridan Road Catering. Carmen was sure she'd made mistakes when running it, 'cause shit happened, but he also knew there was no sole proprietorship in 2019 that was planning for lockdowns and self-isolation. Syd always expected so much of herself—she put the word overachiever to shame—maybe she didn't feel like there was more to the story.

"Well," Syd said. She tipped her head to the side and the light caught her eyes so Carmen could see the curl of her lashes and how dark her eyes were. "I don't know if 'miss' is the right word. I probably shouldn't have done it alone. It's just, I was so sick of being treated like shit. Someone screaming at you just 'cause they can, just 'cause they feel entitled to it, and 'cause they don't have control over any other thing in their life."

Carmen remembered the chef he'd worked under in New York and swallowed, scrubbed at his jaw. "Yeah."

"Everyone kept telling me I was talented and I hated it, 'cause they always followed it up with a 'but.' They were like, 'You're talented buuuuuut you don't actually know what you're doing.' 'You're talented buuuuuuut I'm going to have you on cutting vegetables for a year.' So when Sheridan blew up in my face it was like, maybe they were right, you know? Like, yeah, duh, of course it didn't work out, I was, like, twelve and," she made air quotes, "'over-eager.'"

"They weren't right."

Sydney gave a half-hearted laugh. "Well, you went into business with someone whose last business failed, so I don't know if I can take your word on it."

She squeezed her eyes shut and rubbed the space between her brows. She was exhausted, too. Carmen got an impulse and he didn't fight it. He pulled her hand away from her face, his touch gentle. Her skin was warm and soft and Carmen wanted to hold on to her, but he didn't. Sydney looked at her hand where he'd placed it on the table for a moment, then said, "Okay. Whatever. Anyway."

"Syd," Carmen said, "you're great. You know that, right?"

"Right."

"No. Sydney. Chef." He waited for her to look at him so he could make sure she understood. "You're brilliant. The Beef? You made it better. The Bear? It works 'cause of you."

He thought she might make a joke. She usually did whenever something became very serious. It was because she was used to being smarter than people gave her credit for, Carmen knew. But she didn't. She looked down as she fiddled with the napkin in her lap and said, "Thank you, Chef."

On their way back to The Bear, Carmen so he could pick up his car and drive home, Syd so she could walk the couple extra blocks to the train, she folded her arms over her chest and said, "I'm sorry."

"What for?"

"Michael, your brother."

Carmen stumbled on how she said it, like he needed to be reminded who Mike was. Then he realized that's all Mike was to her, his brother. She'd never been witness to Mikey's charm, his gravitas. If Mikey meant anything to her it was because of him, Carmen.

"Uh, thanks?" he said. "I still don't get it, though."

"I mean, we've been working together what? Three years? And we've been hanging out a lot lately, and you just said all this nice shit about me…"

Carmen rolled his eyes and tried not to smile. If he encouraged her she'd spend the next two weeks teasing him with, 'What's that thing you said about me again? Something about me being brilliant…?' He wouldn't take it back, though. If anything he'd find another way to tell her how good she was.

"I feel like I should have asked you about him? I don't know."

"No," Carmen said, "I like it. It's, uh, nice. You know, not having to talk about him."

And he meant it. He never had to listen to her memories of Mikey, to how devastated she'd been when she'd heard the news, to how she had or hadn't made it to the funeral, to how much she missed him. He never had to pretend he agreed what she felt was in any way similar to what he did, that they'd somehow experienced the same thing just because they'd both loved someone who'd no longer wanted to live. If Syd was the only one who knew the realities and intricacies of his work, she was also the only one who'd never thought of him as Mikey's little brother. To her he'd always just been Carmen Berzatto.

"You sure?" she asked.

Carmen nodded. "Yeah."

888

Sugar didn't get it. She kept needling Carmen to ask Sydney out, as if it were that easy. It was getting to the point that he was avoiding their dinners just so he wouldn't have to hear her talk about it. Their last phone call she'd told him, "Stop being stupid and just fucking ask her. What is the problem?"

The problem was it was hard to want Sydney so much when he was sad. There was no other way to say it, even though sad was such a small, pathetic, childish word. In AA they said everyone grieved differently, that he was grieving, he was processing, still, after three fucking years, grieving and processing. But the last two times he'd been frozen in front of a fire all he'd been thinking was, "I'm sad." He saw Sydney almost every day, though, was witness to her intelligence and drive, all her loveliness, and so he was able to handle all his wanting. Then Richie and Marcus fucked it up for him.

It was innocuous, what Richie said, just him grousing like he usually did when Carmen called him out on something.

"What'd me and Syd tell you, Cuz?" Carmen said. "No more favors. This isn't The Beef, okay? You can't just tell your deadbeat friend we'll carry his fucking home-brewed beer, and then bring that shit in here. We've got vendors, man. People we've signed contracts with, people we've already paid. That shit is regulated."

"'Me and Syd this, me and Syd that,'" Richie said. "Fucking infant. You can't even make a decision on your own. Everything has to pass by Syd—"

"—'Cause we're partners—"

"—like you're in fucking nursery school and you need Mommy's permission. You know, I knew this was gonna happen. The minute she told me she was obsessed with you, I knew—"

"Wait, wait, waitwaitwait." All the blood in Carmen's body seemed to rush to his head and he broke out in a sudden sweat. He held a hand out to Richie's shoulder and said, "What do you mean?"

"I mean you're walking around like you two share one fucking braincell. It's a local beer, real Chicago beer, and we should carry it."

"No, stupid," Carmen said, "what do you mean Syd told you she's obsessed with me?"

Richie frowned, didn't answer for a moment. "Man, relax," he said. He pried Carmen's hand from his shoulder. Carmen pulled his spoon out from his apron and started tapping it against his palm. "She's just always talking about you, is all."

"No, no, you said she told you—told you—she's obsessed with me. That's not the same thing."

"Uh, it is the same thing when you're the one who has to listen to it. Every day it's—" Richie made his voice high and frilly "—'Carmy's so talented' and 'Carmy's the best chef in the world' and 'Carmy, Carmy, Carmy.' Shit's all day long. You know her, like, second day here she tried to tell me your entire life story? Wasn't even hired yet and she was talking all this Food Magazine shit, like I give a fuck—" Richie stopped abruptly and looked at Carmen. "Yo, Cuz, you all right?"

Carmen'd stopped tapping his spoon. Instead he had it fisted in one hand, his other gripping the counter top. His jaw was tight and his stare was unblinking ahead of him. "Food & Wine," he said.

"Huh?"

"It's Food & Wine, not Food Magazine."

"Cousin, who cares?"

"I care. And she didn't mean anything by it."

"Who didn't mean anything by what?"

"Sydney," Carmen said. "And it doesn't mean anything."

"Cousin, what?"

Carmen shoved past Richie before he could say anything else. He ignored Ebraheim when he called him as he passed by, took the long way round the kitchen to avoid passing by Sydney, and shut the office door behind him. He took a few deep breaths in the dark of the room, but his heart was still beating too fast. He sunk down against the door until he was crouching and flexed his hands. They felt like they were pulsing.

He knew he wanted Sydney, and it was fine. He could deal with that, just like he dealt with his fucked up sleeping and his stomach ulcer. But Sydney wanting him, even the possibility of it, that was something else. It scared the shit out of him. It had him shaking.

"Stupid," he said to himself. He shut his eyes and hit the back of his head against the door. "Stupid, stupid."

A knock came. "Uh, Chef?" It was Sydney, her voice holding so much of what he liked about her—her honesty, her care, and the way she was always ready to make something difficult better with a joke.

"You all right?" she asked.

"Yeah," Carmen said. "Yeah, yeah, yeah."

"Okay, then, how about you come back out here? You can work on your fursona on your own time."

Carmen let out a weak huff of a laugh.

He was a great chef. Sydney was a great chef. It was professional respect. It didn't mean anything. He said this to himself a few times while thinking of Sydney on the other side of the door. His heartbeat slowed down. He pushed himself up and opened the door to her.

A few weeks later he was on family, serving up roasted lamb and ratatouille. Syd and Manny helped him bring everything out and Sweeps and Fak helped him serve. He sat down next to Marcus before tucking in.

Marcus took a few bites of the ratatouille and said, "Yo, Chef, this is fire."

"Thank you, Chef," Carmen said. He valued Marcus's taste. Since opening The Bear Marcus had created a signature dessert for each season, carefully pairing them alongside the dishes he and Syd created, and a number of their customers came in looking specifically for his confections after they'd seen photos of them on social. Marcus had the curiosity and commitment Carmen respected in a fellow chef, with none of the competitive, aggressive bullshit he himself had gotten caught up in for years.

He leaned forward to take a bite of the lamb and spied Sydney down the table. She was sitting next to Tina, covering her mouth as she laughed at something Ebra was saying. Her cheeks were full, and Carmen knew without having to ask that she was enjoying what he'd made. He still wanted to ask her, though. Hear her say it. Listen to her rib him for going French when 'literally there are so many other cuisines in the world,' like she always did. He smiled just at the thought of it.

Marcus looked between him and Syd and said, "You ever gonna make your fancy New York dish for us?"

"What do you mean?"

"The bone marrow one."

Carmen understood immediately. Beef tartare with caviar and smoked bone marrow. A two-day process that involved separating the marrow from the bones, infusing the marrow in milk to make a bavorois, with caviar and a lemon-infused oil, all served within the bone. A relatively simple dish compared to the other meals he'd prepared when he was in New York. But he'd made it in the first few weeks after being hired, when he was still earning his dues and being broken in, a process he later realized never ended because it was a system. He'd been in a Bosch-like hellscape, suspended between accolades and chef stardom, his head chef stripping him to the bone with daily rituals of humiliation, and Mikey letting him know none of it mattered with his silence. Each night he'd made it had been a tightrope between wretchedness and a total escape from the self, with tension in every muscle of his body, anxiety shooting up his fingers and down his spine; but his hands deft, unshaking, beautiful, his mind blank, his movements fluid, no stuttering, his eyes seeing everything so clearly, like when he stood in front of a fire; he'd known exactly what to do and how to do it, so that he'd achieved perfection with each serving and had answered his head chef again and again with "Yes, Chef, I'm a useless piece of shit," and had known he was telling the truth. He'd been at his best making that dish because he couldn't get any lower, and it was the closest he'd ever gotten to being free from fear.

Carmen stopped eating. "How do you know about that?" he asked.

"Syd's favorite," Marcus said, easy like he was noting the time of day. "Or at least the best she's ever had."

Carmen felt something in his chest tighten and he rubbed his hand there.

"You all right?" Marcus asked.

"Yeah," Carmen lied, "yeah."

He shared a smoke with Richie before opening. Usually the familiarity and repetition of movement soothed him. Light, inhale, hold, exhale. But he couldn't stop tapping his hand against his leg.

"You all right, Cuz?"

People had to stop asking him that. He had to get himself under control.

"Yeah, fine."

He thought back to that first day with Sydney. "I know you," she'd said. Not her first day with him, though.

It made sense she liked that dish. A simple presentation with clean bone and a white center. But when you dipped your spoon into it you got a burst of color, the green of the caviar, the red of the beef. Decadent, intense, but still an exercise in balance, like her short rib risotto, with the caviar and beef serving each other, not competing. She'd been there. When he'd been at his lowest, when he'd been at his best, she'd been there. And he'd brought her pleasure.

The Bear opened for dinner and he fell into the rhythm of their kitchen by Sydney's side. She called orders and he and the other chefs repeated them to her. He cooked and tasted and wiped down and plated, and in a small moment between the heat and noise he stood next to her and asked, "You ever been to New York?"

She looked at him like she was concerned for his health.

"Um, yeah. Hyde Park's only a couple hours away."

Carmen nodded. "You been to Eleven Madison Park?"

He wasn't looking at her, but he felt it, the way her movements slowed down incrementally. "What are you talking about?"

But instead of answering Carmen said "Behind," and moved away from her. He shouldn't have said anything at all, though, because that night, after closing, after everyone had left, when he and Syd usually went over the day's revenue, she instead appeared in the doorway of their office with her tote bag slung over her shoulder and her jacket on her arm. The light of the kitchen behind her made it hard for him to see the expression on her face.

"Hey, Carmy?" Her voice was unsure in a way he'd rarely ever heard it.

"Yeah? Yes." He cleared his throat.

"Just—" she started, then stopped. "Don't worry about it. Don't be weird about it, okay?"

"Okay," he said, without knowing what he was agreeing to.

He tried to keep his promise to her over the course of the next few weeks. It felt like Syd was keeping a promise, too. One without a center, since they hadn't spoken it out loud. So much about them was like this, a language where they didn't need to speak because they anticipated what the other wanted. Carmen wished there was more distance now, though, something to make him speak up, more, better, again.

He and Syd were very careful with one another, and Carmen felt an ebb between them, like the tide draining from the shore. The small touches between them that didn't mean anything ended, and so did the breakfasts and late night dinners that didn't mean anything, either. It wasn't a matter of avoiding each other. He still saw her six days a week, still went over the books and cleaned after hours with her. But his sleeping got worse, and when he lay in bed awake, staring at his ceiling at three in the morning, he realized he was lonely again. It was like getting a cold. He forgot they existed when he didn't have one, but when he caught one it altered his daily existence, made even breathing difficult. And it reminded him how vulnerable he was, that something so common could knock him out.

He went to the butcher's and the farmers market, picked up some beef bones, caviar, filet mignon. On his day off he made the dish Sydney loved so much. It came easy, even though he didn't have the staff and tools of a Michelin starred restaurant around him. He also didn't have someone whispering in his ear assuring him of his worthlessness. He didn't hear his head chef's voice. He didn't reach that place he sometimes missed, where he was no longer himself, Carmy Berzatto, but no one at all, just a body in service to creating something perfect. But he wasn't working toward perfection. He was working towards Sydney, and the thought of his food on her tongue. After he finished plating he sat down at his small kitchen table and ate his dish. Just a few minutes to finish off something that had taken so long. He did this for seven, eight, nine weeks, a ritual as a balm to his loneliness.

He kept up his other rituals, the ones he'd made when missing Mikey was still fresh. He walked the shore for hours wearing a jacket that used to belong to Mikey, watched the sun rise. He attended AA, listened to the other stories of confusion and loss. He walked the streets of his city until one early morning he stopped in front of a tattoo parlor. He'd gotten his first one in Denmark, the 773 on his arm because he'd missed home even though he hadn't wanted to return. He walked in, looked around, ended up staring at photos of the work of one of the artists showcasing deceptively simple, delicate black linework.

"You considering?" an artist asked him. She was taller than him, Latina, butch, the sides of her head shaved and tattoos up her arms and onto her neck.

"Yeah," Carmen said. "These yours?"

"They sure are."

"They're beautiful."

"Thank you," she said, and held out her hand. "Name's Jo. Let me know if you have any questions, all right?"

Carmen shook her hand. "Do you take walk-ins?" he asked.

"'Course. You looking to get something now?"

Carmen pulled out the sketch he'd been carrying around with him for weeks. Jo studied it and asked, "What is this?"

It took Carmen twenty minutes to explain. He pulled out his phone to show her photos of how the bone held the bavorois like hands cupping something fragile, and when he finished Jo said, "…That's…a lot." But she guided him to a room, and she cleaned the skin on the back of his left shoulder, and Carmen welcomed the pinch of the needle against him.

He wasn't being impulsive. Sydney'd taken something that caused him pain and made it into something else. Those days were still a nightmare, but now they were also something to re-visit, to probe and explore. He'd never been able to think of that spotless New York kitchen without panic beating close to his skull, but over the past few weeks he'd returned to it—often and willingly—because Syd'd been there, because even in the midst of all that pain there'd been something good.

888

Carmen was in his and Syd's office when the landline got a call from a number he didn't know. He answered instead of letting it go to voicemail because it looked vaguely familiar.

"Hello?"

"Hello. Is this Mr. Berzatto?" The voice on the line was accented, something Caribbean, deep and smooth. Carmen paused because Mr. Berzatto was his father. He couldn't remember even Mikey ever being called that.

"Uh, this is Carmy, yeah. What's this about."

"Carmen, yes, hello. I was hoping you would answer. This is Winston Adamu." Sydney's father. The number'd been familiar because Syd had it listed as one of her emergency contacts.

Carmen sat up in his chair, leaned forward. "Oh, Mr. Adamu, yes, of course, uh, hello. How are you?" He felt like an ass. "Is everything all right?" He looked over his shoulder into the kitchen, where Syd was holding her clipboard, talking to Marcus and Fak.

"I'm well, I'm well, and nothing's wrong," Mr. Adamu said. "But I was wondering if you'd be able to do me a favor?"

Carmen had never spoken to Sydney's father before, hadn't even met him yet, but he still said, "Yes, of course."

"I'm throwing a party for Sydney, a surprise, and I wanted to invite you and the rest of The Bear. She talks about you all the time, and I know she'd love to have you there."

"Me?" Carmen asked.

"…And the rest of her colleagues, yes. Do you think you can ask the others she works with on my behalf? I'm afraid I don't have their contact numbers."

"Yeah, I can take care of it, Mr. Adamu."

"Thank you, Carmen."

Her father gave him the details of the party. It was in two weeks and it'd be a potluck. Her father was having it at his place, had already invited family and was slowly reaching out to Sydney's friends through "the Facebook" and "the Insta-gram."

After hanging up Carmen sent a group chat to everyone at The Bear save Sydney.

Are you guys free Monday after next

No one answered his question. Instead he got Marcus asking him why Syd wasn't on the chain and Tina telling him he'd forgotten her.

I didn't forget her. Her credit score's better and her dad's throwing a party to celebrate. He wants you all to come.

Aw — from Marcus — her dad's so nice

Carmen frowned. You know her dad?

Yeah — from Marcus — he's the one who showed me how to make coconut bread

That's my giiiiiirrrrrl — Tina sent this followed by brown hands clapping and a 100 emoji, and Ebra and Sweeps both liked it.

See this is why I hate I phones — came from Manny — you ' re all always liking shit and I can ' t do that on mine

Wait if it's a party for her why isn't she on here — came Fak.

"'Cause it's a surprise, you idiot," Richie said out loud, and Carmen rubbed his temple.

Can you SHUT UP. She's right there.

Why does she get a party just for being an adult? Where the fuck's my party? — Richie answered back.

Sorry, my bad — Carmen wrote — you weren't supposed to be on this. Guys hold up I'm gonna start another chain

Cackles erupted around the kitchen and Carmen heard Richie shout out, "Yo, fuck you, Cuz!"

"Um, guys?" Sydney's voice rose up over all the laughter. "Why is everyone on their phones?"

Carmen brought pollo a la plancha, a quick and easy flavorful Cuban dish. He had the apartment number from the address Mr. Adamu had given him, but he wouldn't have needed it. The elevator doors opened, and the sounds and smells of Syd's party spilled out of it into the hallway. Music was playing, calypso and Afrobeats, and threaded through it was laughter and voices in greeting and conversation. He spotted some of the others from The Bear as he walked in, Marcus because he was so tall, and Tina and Sweeps with him. He gave them a nod, and Marcus held his drink up to him in greeting. The people around him were all ages, from the elderly sitting on the couch and chairs, to kids running around everyone's legs. Some he could tell were Sydney's family, but there were so many others there, too. He wondered who they all were and why they'd all come. It struck him, because he didn't think he had this many people to show up for him. He'd lived in Chicago most of his life, just like Syd, but if he'd been the one to die and not Mikey, no one would have confused them.

From the smell alone he could tell other people had brought Caribbean food, too, but when he wound his way to the kitchen through the groups of people chatting and drinking and eating and dancing, he saw next to the fried fish and breadfruit was also mac 'n' cheese and cherry pie. All around the apartment people had a fusion of foods piled high on paper plates and they smiled with their mouths full. The movement of the party centered around the kitchen, with people coming in to grab drinks and food, stopping to talk to a friend or cousin they hadn't seen in months, leaving and then returning for ice, for seconds, for the dish they hadn't yet tried.

Carmen made some space for his dish on the table, and when he turned around Sydney was making her way toward him. It took her a while because every few paces someone stopped to hug or kiss her on the cheek, and she ended up talking to them, smile wide, eyes bright, hands gesturing like they were a part of the conversation, too. Carmen leaned back, curled his fingers against the counter as he watched her. Everything about her was so alive. When she finally made it through she greeted him with a quick hug, which was one-sided because Carmen was so surprised by it. He hadn't touched her in a while.

"Carmy, hey," she said.

"Hey."

"Dad told me you called everyone over. How are you late to a party you helped set up?" she asked. The joke was in her voice, but the question had Carmen wondering if she'd been looking for him, and that made him dig his fingers into the counter harder.

"Me?" he said, "Nah. I just told the crew to come. This was all your dad."

"Well, still. Thank you. I appreciate it." She was beaming. She had a bit of sweat beading high on her forehead. She looked so good like this, surrounded by people who were celebrating her. Carmen'd never liked parties. He hated the performance involved, how you had to put yourself aside and take on the persona whoever you were talking to wanted to see. He'd been avoiding them even more since Mikey, but he was glad to be here with Syd and her family and her friends, to have been invited to see her like this, to have been invited to be one of them.

Sydney made this little gasping noise and said, "Oh, shit, hold up." She turned from him, grabbed a red Solo cup, filled it with ice and seltzer.

"Here you go," she said, handing it to him. "There's juice and soda here, too, but I've only ever seen you drink Red Bull, and my aunties definitely did not bring that."

Carmen smiled and shook his head, but he was touched. Why was she looking after him at her party? All these people were here for her.

"Thanks," he said, "And congratulations. I know how hard you've been working for this."

"Thank you," she said. A quiet fell between them then, and even though the party was all around them, all movement and noise, it was as though the quiet they made together held them apart and was inviolate. Her eyes were so lovely, and so was her mouth, and Carmen felt warm under her gaze. But he must have done something with his face, because Sydney's eyes went wide, and she gasped again and shook her head.

"What?" Carmen said, and then, "I'm sorry."

"No, what? No." Sydney took a breath, then said, "Look, you haven't actually met my dad yet, have you? Come on, I'll introduce you."

He followed her through the throng of people, keeping close behind her. He met her father, finally. He did what Sugar would have pushed him to do, if she were there. He made an effort. He spent the night meeting Sydney's aunties and cousins, and he found out who all the other people were. Her friends from past jobs, people she'd known around the neighborhood her whole life, a few high school friends she called by their full names, and her roommates who she'd been living with since she'd moved out of her dad's place. He held his cup like it held beer, and nodded and smiled during conversations though he rarely knew what was being discussed. He didn't take refuge with the rest of The Bear crew. He only went down for a smoke twice, and he returned both times. He didn't go to the bathroom to hide, but to splash water on his face and close his eyes for a few seconds. When he looked at himself in the mirror he tried not to pass judgement.

He spotted what must have been Syd's old room on his way back. It was different from the rest of the apartment, which was decorated in warm, welcoming dark furniture. Syd's room looked like how she must have had it when she'd first left for college, bright with touches of pink, almost girly. It was being taken over by things her father hadn't yet thrown out, an old printer, folded up boxes appliances had come in. But Carmen could see Syd in it everywhere. Her bed was tiny, and he ran his hand over the brightly colored comforter covering it. On the walls were movie posters, art prints, her CIA degree framed up and glossy. On her windowsill were the awards she'd gotten there, and on her shelves he saw some of the same cookbooks he had back in his apartment. Her desk was just as tiny as her bed, and she had a corkboard leaning on it with recipes she'd written out pinned on it alongside photos of herself from when she was a kid, photos of friends and family, some he recognized from the party outside. And all around the room were boxes from Sheridan Road Catering. Carmen had to sit down. He held his head in his hands and tried not to fight the tenderness that was unfolding inside of him. Such a soft feeling, but it was harder for him to hold than the anxiety that sometimes buzzed right under his skin, or the fear Mikey'd opened up in him. And it came with a selfishness he didn't want to admit. He wanted Syd.

Outside he heard someone start chanting, "Speech, speech, speech," until it was taken over by the entire apartment. Someone turned the music down, and Carmen got up, stood in the frame of Sydney's door and watched as she made her way through to stand by the low table in the living room. It took her a moment before she could begin speaking.

She took a deep breath and said, "So what do you do when you try something and you just end up fucking up your life?"

"Sydney!" her father said.

Sydney grimaced and said, "Sorry, Dad." A quiet ripple of laughter went around the apartment. "And Mom," she said. "And Auntie Ellen. And Auntie Myra." And the laughter rose louder this time. "What I meant to say was, what do you do when you try something and you end up messing up your whole life?" She paused and looked around the room. "You just make it through," she said, and shrugged. "I've been lucky. 'Cause I've had such great people around me. Dad, thanks for letting me mess around your kitchen again after you'd finally gotten me out of it, and thanks for telling me I could always come home."

Her father kissed his palm and placed it over his heart.

"Mom," Sydney said, "thanks for helping me pack all my shit—sorry—stuff and telling me I'd be okay. I thought you were just saying it 'cause you had to, but I think you really believed it, and that made me believe it, too."

Sydney's mom beamed at her across the room.

"And to my not-so-new family, everyone at The Bear—" a raucous cheer went up, with Ebra, Marcus, Sweeps, Tina, Richie, Fak, Angel, and Manny all raising their drinks and clapping and whistling and hollering. "Yeah," Sydney was laughing now, "thanks for that. Thanks for being such a pain in the, um, butt every day." She swallowed and cleared her throat, and from where he was standing Carmen saw tears come to her eyes. His heart beat loud in his ears. "It's meant a lot, to have you and The Bear when everything else was so messed up."

The feeling was so thick in the room, Carmen felt like he'd stumble under the weight. He couldn't name it, and he hated himself, but he wanted to be a part of it. He wanted to add to it, wanted to share in it.

Then Sydney said, "And—and—and Carmy, where are you?"

Everyone looked around and turned to him, but Carmen stayed entirely still, his breath shallow and his eyes on Sydney.

Her eyes were on him, too. "Thank you," she said, "You could have launched The Bear with anyone, but you partnered with me. Thank you for that, thank you for trusting me."

It took a minute for the room to realize she was done, but then Richie called out, "Awww, she's a softie!" and everyone broke out in clapping and laughter, and the people closest to Syd wrapped her up in a hug, and the hug became bigger and bigger as more people joined it to squeeze her to them.

Hours later most of the company had left, and the only people still there were Syd's roommates and two of her aunts. Her dad was out fast on the couch. Her roommates were there with him, stage whispering about Keanu Reeves as they watched Speed with the volume turned down. Her aunts were at the kitchen table, swapping family and neighborhood gossip. Carmen and Sydney were cleaning up.

"You don't have to do this," Syd said.

But Carmen wanted to. It was hard for him to leave her right then. He felt like there was something unfinished he had to figure out, like she'd asked him something and he was waiting for the right moment to answer her.

Most of the lights in the apartment were off, but the television flickered across her dad's face, and the light from the kitchen made her aunts' shadows long on the floor. He followed Syd through the apartment quietly, each of them with bags in their hands, sorting out recycling, compost, and trash. He followed her into the kitchen, where they stood next to each other and without her asking Carmen rinsed dishes for her to place in the dishwasher. There was only the sound of the water running between them. They didn't speak, and Carmen didn't tell her she was wrong, that there was no one else he could have opened The Bear with, that without her, it'd just be a promise he couldn't keep.

He followed her outside, finally, and they stood on the front steps of the building, each leaning on one side of the railing, facing each other. The moon was high in the sky, casting the night in blue, and the sounds of the city were muted around them. Carmen's want grew until it was bigger than everything else in him, bigger than caution, bigger than fear, and he answered the silence between him and Sydney by stepping up to her. She didn't freeze up or move back, but met his gaze with a level one of her own. This close to her he could smell the subtle lavender of her lotion, could feel the warmth of her body. She parted her lips and her eyes fell down to his mouth, and then Sydney kissed him. It was a quick kiss, just the pleasing pressure of her pretty mouth against his, but it thrummed through him so he felt his pulse quick in his veins, and he chased after her when she pulled away. He brought his hand up to cup the back of her neck and kissed her the way he'd wanted to for ages, open-mouthed and wet so he could taste her. Sydney curled her fingers into his shirt beneath his jacket, fisting the material so he felt her knuckles hard against him, and the depth of his longing came at Carmen like a shot, because he wanted her hands all over him. Their kiss was just like her, sweet and hot, and too good for him, really. She bit his bottom lip so he felt the pain and she didn't suck it away.

When they pulled apart Carmen steadied his hands on her waist. He wanted to keep kissing her, take her hand and bring her home and kiss her some more, kiss her in some other places, but instead he bumped his nose to hers and asked on a shaky breath, "Is this okay?"

"Yeah," Syd said, "this is good."

Carmen went home drunk on their kiss, fingering the material of his shirt where Sydney'd left wrinkles 'cause she'd held on to him so tight. In the days following he found himself smiling for no reason, save that all the things he'd missed about their friendship that had left him lonesome returned. The warm, easy quiet where they worked in sync, the closest he'd ever gotten to comfort; Syd's teasing and laughter, which he'd dreamed about when he'd missed her most; Syd trusting him enough to ask for help when she needed it, even if it was with something small. Late at night, after everyone else had clocked out, he and Syd scoured their city together, hunting down the best food Chicago had to offer and sharing it with each other. On their days off he drove her around for her errands; they went to the farmers market together, he took her back to his place, they cooked together with an intimacy they couldn't create at the restaurant. He learned he liked hand feeding her and he found a way to tease her, by taking her plate and keeping it from her until she let him bring the food to her mouth. And so he understood they were friends and lovers.

And it wasn't that they kept all of this a secret. It was just that at work, six days a week, they were at work, and outside of work they didn't much see the rest of The Bear crew.

It didn't take long for them to sleep together. Carmen took Syd on an 'official' date, something more planned than what they usually did. He went for a jog beforehand and stopped after a block when his wheezing reminded him smoking and jogging didn't go together. He did a few sit ups and pushups in his apartment, took a shower and used conditioner when he washed his hair. He looked in the mirror before leaving to see her, wished he were handsome, hoped Sydney didn't think the same.

But his nervousness left him when he brought her back home. She'd been so happy throughout dinner, smiling around her spoonful of crème brûlée. It'd been hard to keep his hands off her on the way to his apartment, and that was all right, because once they got inside his building Sydney pulled him in for a kiss. They kissed up against the entrance, her hands in his hair and his hands on her ass, and they kissed up all five flights to his door, hanging off each other's lips and panting up the steps, laughing between caresses because Sydney kept asking him if he made all his dates hike up Mt. Everest just to fuck him.

In his apartment he kissed her up against his door, kissed her mouth, her jaw, the little mole on her neck, and then because he'd wanted to for so long he dropped to his knees in front of her. He untucked her boxy white button down, then tugged her pants and underwear down her legs at the same time. He held her hand to steady her as she stepped out of them. He tucked his head under the hem of her shirt to kiss her stomach. It quivered under his mouth and tongue, and a pang of tenderness and lust pierced through him. Sydney canted her hips forward, demanding, eager, and Carmen listened.

He lifted her thigh over his shoulder, loving the weight of it there, grasped her by the hip. Her hand came to his hair, not a caress but a grip, and her other hand held onto the door frame. He was careful at first, mouthing and licking until the jerks of her hips and her little cries taught him what she liked, and then he gave in to that greedy place in him that wanted all of her for himself. He worked her over patiently, generously, and thoroughly, lapping at her slick folds, fucking her with his tongue and sucking tenderly on her clit until she came, long and hard, with a low moan of his name. She curled over him and Carmen caught her on her way down, his hands sliding up her thighs and waist and sides until she caught herself with her arms about his shoulders.

Her lids were low in satisfaction but her grin was brilliant. Sydney sagged in his arms, kissed him with her wetness still on his face. Carmen picked her up, not breaking her kiss, braced an arm against her back and another under her legs, loved the weight of her against him. He placed her on his bed, but when he pulled away to shuck his clothes off she got on her knees and helped him, pulling his shirt over his head, distracting him from his jeans, making him shiver with kisses to his neck and shoulders and rakes of her nails across his nipples and abdomen. He pushed her back so he could tug his jeans off, and Syd made grabby hands at him when he was naked, which made him giddy. "Come here already," she said, and she opened her arms to him as he placed one knee on the bed between her legs, crawled up her body to her mouth.

Her shirt was still in the way. Syd was impatient, her fingers scrambling over the buttons, so Carmen took hold of her hand and linked their fingers, sucked on her neck and unbuttoned her shirt himself, one-handed. Then it was all heated, slick skin. Her breasts pressed against his chest, heavy and soft against him except for her stiff nipples. He wanted to tease her so he reached down between them to where she was still wet from her first orgasm, cupped her there for a moment, relishing the heat of her, stroked her. She reached down, too, gripped his wrist hard as he pumped three fingers in her and fondled her clit lightly with his thumb. He liked playing with her like this so much he was grinning into their kiss. But Syd wanted more. She bit his shoulder, pushed his hand away. Carmen sucked his fingers into his mouth to taste her some more, and Sydney pushed him onto his back, got on her hands and knees to reach across him to his nightstand. Her breasts were in his face then, and he held her by her delicate waist, arched up to kiss one, sucked languidly on her nipple so that she fumbled and cursed.

She finally found his stash of condoms. She sat prettily on the bed with her legs folded beneath her, batted Carmen's hand away so she could put the condom on herself. Then she reached up, took his face in her hands and kissed him so that all he had in his brain was pleasure and her without being able to tell the difference. She straddled him, and Carmen found her hand, linked their fingers again. With her other hand Sydney caressed him, her palm on the side of his face, trailed her fingertips delicately down his stomach and over his happy trail. Then she took him in hand, and Carmen gripped her hip hard. "You okay?" she asked, looking him in the eye, and Carmen nodded. She nodded back at him. She raised herself up and Carmen helped her steady. She placed his tip at her opening and she sank down onto him with this little whimper that made Carmen want to beg. She was tight and hot around him. Carmen had already dipped into that heady place where words were too far for him to reach, and now all he knew was his body and Syd's body and what they made and gave between them. She set a rhythm that had him bucking up into her, and her wetness smeared across his hips and upper thighs. Their breathing came heavy, loud on top of the noise of his bed. Carmen gripped her hips with both hands to help her ride him, and Syd reached a hand down to touch herself. She said, "Carmy, baby, Carmy, Carmy," pleadingly and he could tell she was close. Carmen pushed himself up to sitting as she came, her body taught as she pulsed around him. He hooked an arm around her waist, braced a fist against the mattress, searched for her mouth with his own, and fucked up into her. She bit him again, clutching at his shoulders, kissed him so she was all around him as he came, too.

They held each other after, limbs limp and breathing labored. Sydney pet him, her hands in his hair, on his back, praise and gibberish falling from her mouth. Carmen wanted to keep hiding his face in her chest, nuzzle against her breasts and kiss her there, but Sydney made him look up at her. She held his face in her hands and covered it with kisses until he felt like she was kissing even the parts of him that were loathsome, and he trembled in her arms.

The next morning Carmen woke up before Syd. He didn't have curtains, and the early morning light had him blinking. He felt his satisfaction in every muscle. He'd forgotten sex could be like this, restorative, bringing him back to his body in a way nothing else could. It'd never been so good, though. Syd was next to him, lying on her stomach facing away from him, her face smushed into his pillow. His satisfaction bloomed as he looked at her. The night before he'd had to dig around his drawers for something for her to wrap her hair up with, and he'd thought she should just have a drawer, however much space she wanted, so she could keep her shit at his place.

The covers only came up to her waist, leaving her back bare. Carefully, Carmen reached over and placed a palm against her in the space between her shoulder blades. She was warm. He could feel the steady thump of her heartbeat through her back. That tenderness came over him again, a wave of it that made him shut his eyes to breathe through the feeling.

Sydney shifted under his hand, turned and woke. She had pillow marks on the side of her face. "Hey," she said. Her voice was quiet and groggy from sleep. Carmen wanted to fold it up, keep it for himself to take out and listen to whenever he missed her.

"Hey," he said. He let himself have just a little bit more of her warmth, brought his hand to the small of her back and rubbed his thumb against her there. Then he pulled his hand away, folded his arms as he lay on his side.

"What is that?" Sydney asked.

"What?" Carmen said.

A smile spread across her face. "Are you being shy right now?"

Carmen ducked his head, then snuck a look up at her.

"Oh my god," Sydney said, and laughed.

He wasn't being shy. If he didn't ball up his hands he'd reach for her, hold her, and wouldn't let go. But then Sydney reached out to him. She placed a hand on his cheek and rubbed her thumb there, the same way he'd done to her. They stayed like this for minutes, Carmen with his eyes closed, feeling her care for him in his bones. He turned his head to kiss her palm. He unfolded himself, pulled her to him even though he knew he wanted her too much. Sydney tangled their legs together. She kissed his shoulder and then she started tickling him, making his breath come short with laughter. He tickled her back, and it became a wrestle, all arms and hands and legs as they moved against one another, playful and with more kissing and holding than any real struggle, until Carmen caught her from behind by the waist.

He tucked his head into her shoulder. "I win," he said, panting.

"You do?" Syd asked, but she didn't sound curious at all. She turned to kiss him over her shoulder, and this time she was the one who linked their fingers, her hands over his where he held her, gripping him tight. This time they fucked slow, bodies pressed so Carmen felt every shudder of her breath.

They couldn't make a real breakfast because all he had in his apartment was ramen, cereal, milk, and 5-hour Energy. Sydney laughed at him, and Carmen admitted to himself that he loved it. She wrapped his sheets around her, he pulled on a pair of sweats, and they ate bowls of Fruit Loops crossed-legged in front of the window where he kept his stacks of cookbooks. Sydney pointed out the ones she had, too, and a stray thought came to Carmen, that if they made a home together they'd have doubles of books.

"Do you know what you need to get, though?" Syd asked.

"Mm?"

"Vibration Cooking."

Carmen stretched over to the couch behind them, dug between the cushions, and pulled his battered copy out.

"Nice," Sydney said. She took it from him and ran a hand over the cover.

"Is it a favorite of yours?" he asked.

"Yeah," she said, flipping through the pages. "Everywhere I've been it's always French and Italian and New American, you know? And it's fine, I love it, good food is good food. But then I found this at Women & Children First, up in Andersonville? And I guess it helped me…locate myself? Like, in cooking. Or more like, I already knew where I was, but it helped me find the words for it. I was always going to cook what I wanted, but it helped me see that what I'm interested in isn't just a home tradition, or a family tradition, or a local tradition, you know?"

She looked at him the way she did sometimes, cautiously, as if she weren't sure he understood her or how he would respond.

Carmen nodded. "That makes sense," he said.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. I can see it in you. You write recipes a little like Vertamae does."

A delighted little smile came to Syd's mouth, and Carmen was glad he didn't have to hide anymore how much he liked looking at her.

Syd bit her lip. Just 'cause he wanted and just 'cause he could, Carmen reached over and pulled it out from her teeth with his thumb. Syd tilted her head to the side, but her gaze on him was wondering, and Carmen didn't feel self-conscious beneath it.

"Can I ask you something?" she said.

"'Course, yeah."

"Why were you so upset about the risotto?"

Carmen dropped his gaze and pushed his soggy loops around the pink milk in his bowl. "That was years ago," he said quietly.

"So?" Syd said. "I want to know. And don't say you weren't upset, 'cause you were."

He had been. Even now they still didn't serve risotto at The Bear. Being upset muddled Carmen's brain. He didn't know what to do with anger or irritation or disappointment, had always just wrestled them down to the pit of his stomach until something came to distract him from them. He'd always hated being angry because no violence he showed could equal the fury itself, but that morning he'd hated it even more 'cause Syd had been involved. He hadn't ever been upset with her before.

"Was it really the rev—"

"No," Carmen said quickly.

Syd raised her eyebrows.

"It wasn't."

Syd looked away, but said nothing. Carmen placed his bowl on the floor and brought his knees up, circled them with his arms.

He told her the truth, which he hadn't had to figure out 'cause he'd understood it the moment he'd read the review himself that morning, before Ebra'd read it out loud to the whole crew.

"…You didn't trust me," he said, and felt like an ass, because he was one.

There'd been no reason for her to trust him then. They'd only known each other for a few months, and though his trust in her had been complete, it'd also been unspoken, like so much between them. She'd been impatient, the way she was when she loved something, and she should have asked him at a quieter time, in the morning, maybe, or after closing. He'd asked her if she'd understood him and she'd said yes, but that review showed him that she hadn't. He should have made it clear.

"I don't say no to you," he said.

He felt the way she stilled and how those words sounded when spoken aloud. Too big, too much, too fucked. Not a problem he should place on her, the way he wanted nothing between them. He couldn't look at her.

"I-I didn't say no to you," he said.

"Oh."

Sydney's voice was so soft that Carmen was embarrassed. He wanted to talk about something else or maybe not talk at all, but he remembered the sight of her back that day, the way she hadn't even put on her coat in her rush to get away from him.

"Sydney, you're really good," he said. "Like, really, really—"

"I'm not fishing for compliments."

"Will you let me finish?" Carmen said, and it came out sharper than he meant. He took a breath, flexed his fingers and forced himself to find the words. "I should have asked to see your recipe, or asked you to make it in front of me. But you have to know, Syd, how good you are. That I know how good you are."

Did she understand? That he admired her? Her skill and her taste? Her way around a kitchen? That her genius didn't scare him or make him feel that she was someone to best? That he felt privileged to witness her?

"I wouldn't say no to you and then ask you to open a place with me."

He shook his head. "And that critic, he knew your dish was good, but he didn't know why. He didn't know how. He didn't even ask your name so he could credit you properly. He came at you like he was surprised it was good. That's not how I want people talking about my restaurant, and that's not how I want people talking about you."

Sydney was still quiet, so Carmen said, haltingly, "About your work, I mean, your food."

"…Okay," she said. And then, "I didn't know he was a critic."

"I know."

"I didn't give it to him on purpose."

"I know."

"It's just, I'd put so much into it, and I couldn't throw it out."

"Baby, I know," Carmen said, and both he and Syd froze. Her eyes went wide. She licked her lips.

"Baby?" she said, and Carmen thought 'Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck' to himself.

"Baby?" she said again, and the smile was wide on her face and in her voice. "Is that your pet name for me?"

Carmen felt the heat come to his face and shut his eyes.

"Carmy. Am I your baby? Huh, is that what I am?"

She was almost crowing. She would never let him live this down. They'd be ninety years old and she'd be asking him if he remembered when he called her baby out of nowhere.

But it'd slipped out of him so easily, and it felt so good when she called him baby. He didn't want to take it back. So instead he leaned over and kissed her. She was grinning into it, almost laughing, so Carmen trailed his kisses to her jaw and down her neck. He tugged on his sheets wrapped round her so they pooled on the floor and moved his kisses to her shoulder and back.

"Carmen Berzatto, this is not an answer," Sydney said, and she did laugh now.

He kissed each of the dimples low on her back, then bit her ass. She swatted him playfully on his arm and Carmen caught her hand, placed it on his head. She ran her fingers through his hair and he felt the pleasure of it in his dick. "Lay back," he said.

"You are unbelievable," Sydney said. Her voice was full of fondness and he suddenly recognized what he was feeling—joy. It thrummed through him, quick and sure like a smooth stone skipped over water, and he didn't think too hard about it, just loved the way Sydney's legs fell open for him, loved the way she tugged on his hair and called him baby when she came, loved her.

888

Sydney liked it when Carmen texted her he'd gotten home safe, and he liked it when she'd call him just a few minutes later. They'd talk late into the night so that he had to charge his phone as they spoke, and he'd spread out on his couch or in his bed, listen to her talk as she did her laundry or pre-pooed her hair, the sounds of her roommates in the background behind her and sirens and the train coming in through his window.

He'd been avoiding dinner with Sugar and Pete for more than a few weeks because of this, because he wanted to hold on to Syd a little bit longer. He'd never had someone who still wanted him in the morning before. For the longest time he'd thought the thing to keep safe between him and Syd, the thing he had to lose, was what they made together—The Bear, but also the ease and the trust and the understanding. But it wasn't any of those things. It was her. It was Syd. He felt stupid. Because this was a lesson Mikey'd taught him well, but here he was, learning it all over again as if he had memory loss.

Carmen was sleeping and eating better than he had in a long, long time. He hadn't woken up screaming or breathless in a while. He did cry in his sleep, though, woke up with tears running over the bridge of his nose. It happened once when Sydney slept over. He woke very slowly, like he was being dragged up through something dense, his middle curved, head bent, limbs trailing after him. When he opened his eyes he felt the wetness pooled on his pillow, and a sense of relief so intense hit him that fresh tears came. Sydney was already awake and looking at him. There was no judgement on her face. There wasn't fear or worry, either, which was also a relief for Carmen. Her eyes were wide, and he had his first thought of the day that didn't have to do with how real the dream had felt, how he'd known for certain he was at the bottom of a deep well, in total darkness because the top had been drawn over it, and he couldn't climb up and he couldn't make a sound. He thought her eyes were pretty. She wiped at his tears with her fingers, and her touch sent a shiver through him. She didn't ask him if he was okay, just let him close his eyes and breathe through it.

One afternoon at The Bear, before they opened for dinner, Carmen was in the office he shared with Syd. Sugar'd called him twice already, and he'd ignored her both times. He leaned back in his chair with his eyes closed, pressing the balls of his hands into them. This was happening more often, too. An exhaustion that didn't kick in his adrenaline, but instead just made him want to sleep.

Syd walked in. "Hey, Chef," she said. "You good?" She shifted through a stack of papers on her side of the desk until she found what she needed and stuck it to her clipboard.

"Chef?" she said.

Carmen didn't answer. Instead, unthinking, moving only on impulse, he reached out for her, pulled her to him. Syd came willingly, stood between his legs as Carmen wrapped his arms around her. He kept his eyes closed and pressed his head against her middle, and Syd rubbed a hand up and down his back.

They never did this here, because they were at work. It was just a moment, just something small Carmen was taking for himself before the rest of his day rushed at him. Then he heard Sugar's voice.

"Carmy, I swear to god, if you don't pick up your fucking phone—"

Sugar was there, at The Bear. In the doorway of his office. A panic seized Carmen, total, blanked his mind, and he jerked himself away from Sydney. He shoved her to get her farther away from him, and then he pushed his chair back even further to put more space between them. It made an awful squealing noise against the floor, and then it hit the wall with a loud, pathetic thump and he came to a stop.

"Um…" Sugar said. She looked at Carmen and then she looked at Sydney, and then she looked back at Carmen. Carmen refused to look at Sydney.

"What?" he said. "What is it? What do you want?"

"Uh…have you checked your phone?"

"No," Carmen lied.

"Well, uh…"

"What the fuck do you want, Nat?" He was shouting and he still hadn't looked at Sydney. His heart was beating so loud he couldn't really hear his voice over it.

"Mom's social security card."

"What?"

"Remember, Mikey had it here? You took it to your place? You were supposed to bring it to mine so I can renew her passport so they can have it at the nursing home, but you haven't been over in like months? 'Cause you keep bailing?" If Sydney weren't standing right there she probably would have called him a little bitch.

"What?"

"Mom's social—"

"All right, I got it!" He was still shouting, and his hand was starting to shake. "I'll bring it to you."

"When?"

"Tonight, fuck! Can you leave?"

"Tonight? Are you sure?"

"Nat. I swear to god, if you don't get the fuck out of here—"

"All right, I'm going. Check your fucking phone and pick up when I call you." And she did leave. But not before looking at Syd for a long moment, and then casting a look around the rest of their office.

Carmen leaned forward. He scrubbed his hands down his face, perched his elbows on his knees, and held his head in his hands. He felt like a stone was pushing its way down his throat.

"What is wrong with you?" Sydney said.

It took him a while, but Carmen finally answered, "Um, a lot."

Sydney didn't laugh. "Natalie doesn't know about us?" she said.

Carmen didn't answer. Sydney said, "Carmy. Have you not told your sister about us?"

"…We haven't told anybody here, either."

"We," Sydney said, and the word sounded like a curse, "haven't told our employees. Who work for us. In a professional capacity. As in we sign their paychecks. Because this is a place of business. Where we conduct our work." Her voice got harder and more sarcastic as she spoke, and Carmen felt more and more stupid.

"I—" here Sydney paused, and Carmen wanted to crawl into a hole. "I have told my father, my mother, my roommates, and my friends. Who have you told?"

Carmen said nothing.

"Who've you told, Carmy?"

He said nothing because he had no answer for her.

Sydney walked out the door.

Carmen had to talk himself into going into the kitchen. He left the office with his head down, dodged Richie and went straight to the restroom, where he splashed water on his face and chewed on some Tums, never once looking in the mirror. Out in the kitchen he checked in on Marcus and the sfogliatella he'd been working on for the past few weeks. He was debuting it tonight as an alternative to his much beloved olive oil cake, one with a custard filling to be eaten hot, and another with a whip cream filling to be eaten cold. He checked in with Ebra on the beef and veal ragù for the tagliatelle, and the rack of lamb, which they were roasting to serve with cauliflower. T had the farro, spinach and beets, and radicchio, endives and arugula down. Fak and Richie and a young woman they'd hired a few months back, Synclaire, were on the to go orders. Impeccably, methodically, without betraying an ounce of panic, Carmen made his way through the back of house, pointing out improvements, answering questions, tasting, and pitching in with each of his crew where he saw fit.

He was tapping his spoon against his hand when he approached Sydney. "We good, Chef?" he asked.

Sydney glanced over at him, a look so quick it wasn't enough even to be dismissive. It started at his face, dropped down his body, and cut away. She didn't answer him.

"I said are we good, Chef?" Carmen said. Behind him, Tina turned to look between him and Sydney. Ebra leaned over to look as well, his eyebrows raised. Manny passed by and said nothing.

Sydney took a breath, nodded, and continued preparing the polenta and mushroom, just as he'd shown her months and months ago.

All around them their crew kept with their work, but to Carmen it seemed too quiet. Their attention was on him, on Sydney. They could tell Sydney was upset with him. They knew he'd fucked up.

"I'm gonna need to hear you say it, Chef."

Sydney stopped in her movements. She put her spoon down and looked straight at Carmen. A sense of despair started clawing at the back of his throat the moment their eyes met.

"Yes, Chef," she said. She didn't return to her work, but continued to stare at him, unmoving and silent.

Carmen looked down and nodded at his apron. "Thank you, Chef," he said.

888

It was too cold to smoke outside, so Carmen and Sugar smoked in the guest bedroom, leaning out the open window together so as not to leave a smell. They were squished in shoulder-to-shoulder and it reminded Carmen of when they were little and had tried to use a swing at the same time.

"I'm the oldest, now," Sugar said. "I can't get used to it. Do you know how weird it is, to be the middle child all your life and all of the sudden you're the oldest? I've had to rethink my entire fucking personality. At least you're still the youngest."

Carmen shrugged. He didn't really want to talk about Mikey.

"The restaurant's looking good," Sugar said. "He would have loved it." She didn't know it was the place he and Mikey'd dreamed up together. A flare of irritation shot through Carmen.

"Yeah," he said. "He would have if he hadn't offed himself."

"Jesus, Carmy."

"Whatever."

He stubbed his cigarette out on the windowsill and flicked it out onto the pavement.

"Good job," Sugar said. "Pete jogs there every morning, so he definitely he won't notice stubs littering the ground."

Carmen ignored her, flopped back on the guest bed and stared unblinking at the ceiling. It took forty minutes to drive from The Bear to Sugar's and he was tired.

"How's Mom?" he said.

"The same," Sugar said. "The new meds are better. Help her calm down. The fees go up in the new year, though, so you're gonna have to put more into the account."

"All right."

"You should go see her," Sugar said. "She misses you."

"How's she gonna miss me when she can't even remember her own name?"

"Jesus," Sugar said. "What the fuck is wrong with you?"

The second time that day someone'd asked him that. He thought of Sydney and he swallowed. She hadn't spoken to him the rest of the night. She'd closed down and cleaned with everyone else, then left without even looking at him.

"Carmy," Sugar said, "Seriously, what's going on?"

"Don't you get tired of checking in on me all the fucking time?"

"Um, no. You're my little brother."

"Is that why you couldn't do it for Mikey? 'Cause he's older?"

"Fuck you." But Sugar's tone had no bite in it. She took a drag of her cigarette and blew out a long line of smoke. "Don't come here after weeks of ignoring me and try to pick a fight. I'm not interested."

Sugar'd never fought with Mikey, only with him. Mikey fought vicious, or he'd used to, when he'd been alive. He'd had a talent for making an argument last hours. When he'd finally listened to Sugar's voicemail, after seeing that she'd been calling him nonstop for hours, the first thing Carmen'd thought was that Mike and him hadn't spoken for two years. When their mom's eccentricities and periodical bad moods started getting worse, it was Sugar who'd told him. When she and Mikey'd decided their mom couldn't live alone anymore, Sugar'd been the one to tell him. Now Mikey'd been dead over three years and Carmen didn't have to rely on Sugar to tell him what was going on with their brother anymore. He just had to carry what Mikey'd left behind with her.

He didn't know about Cicero and Richie or Mikey when he'd been alive, but Carmen's problem with Pete had always been a problem with Nat. He and Sugar came from the same place—same fucked up parents, same older brother, same schools and neighborhood; but she'd got a spouse and a house while Carmen'd got a job he spent his life on and nothing else. Richie went on and on about how he'd left, fucked off to Denmark and New York and Yountville, but Sugar'd fucked off and gotten a normal life. Not the facsimile their parents had tried to pull off, but the real thing, with a husband so boring and so deliberately but cluelessly kind he seemed stupid. All she was missing was a dog and two and a half kids.

He wondered how she could do it, the house in the suburbs and the nine-to-five office job with a real HR department, when no one else in their family could. Mikey'd dropped out of a business course at City College before taking The Beef on from their mom. Pete had felt like a deliberate turning away from the Berzatto family heritage. Someone so foreign could only be a judgement. And Carmen'd felt sour, that Sugar could not only think to be different from what she was given, but then go ahead and do it. He'd looked at Sugar and wondered why he'd never seen The Beef like she had, if maybe his being a chef, the rigor of it and the abuse he'd endured, wasn't for a love of food, but his Berzatto dysfunction coming through. Maybe he was more like Mikey and their mom. Maybe with Mikey gone he was the sibling who'd take on what Sugar had laid down. Maybe he'd live up to the hallmarks of their family—criminal, crazy, dead by suicide.

Carmen could feel his irritation at the tips of his fingers now. He flexed them, made fists with his hands. He remembered vaguely the bad tantrums he'd used to throw when he was very little, when his upset at not being able to name what he felt would grow larger than his body and spill out of him. He still didn't know what he felt, still didn't know what to do with it. He just knew that he wasn't mad at Sugar.

Something slopped out of him, viscous, ugly, writhing; something half-dead trying to be born from a thing already dead. It left him exhausted. He closed his eyes and brought his arm over his face.

In a small voice Carmen asked, "How'd you know he was using?" even though he knew, even though they'd had this very conversation before. But he needed to hear it again because he hadn't been there.

"He wasn't exactly discreet," Sugar said. "Those last few months he wasn't even trying to hide it anymore. I'd take him out for lunch to try to get him out of The Beef and he'd take three pills with his Coke."

"Fuck him."

"Yeah," Sugar said softly. "Fuck him."

Carmen wished he could say it to Mikey's face. It'd gone away for a while, the anger. He'd found the cash Mikey'd been stashing away for their restaurant together, and he'd felt it, the love his brother had for him. It should have been enough. It was all he'd always wanted. But some days he woke up from the well he couldn't climb out of and he thought it would have been better for Mikey to'd lived and never spoken to him again. A lifelong estrangement would have been better than this, a life without even the possibility of Mikey's rejection. Mikey should have given him a choice. If he had, Carmen would have chosen him over their siblinghood, over The Beef, over himself—he would have chosen Mikey over everything. Because he was what mattered, and all the other stuff was just bullshit. He and Sugar'd been at this for three years. Another three years and another after that, and one day, if he made it through, he'd have lived more without Mikey than with him.

He felt the bed dip with Sugar's weight.

"What's going on with you and Sydney?" she asked.

"I love her," Carmen said. He couldn't filter himself. He was so tired.

Sugar laughed. "Um, okay," she said. "Is that what I saw earlier?"

"Fuck if I know."

"How long has it been going on?"

"Since I met her."

"You've been dating since you guys met?" Sugar's voice was incredulous.

"No," Carmen said. "That's just been a couple months. I've…" he couldn't really find the words, even though he'd just said them. "I've felt…this…since then."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

Carmen shrugged.

"Does Richie know, and everyone else?"

Carmen shrugged again.

"Jesus, Carmy."

"Oh, fuck you." Carmen took his arm from over his face to flip Sugar off.

She slapped his hand. "No, fuck you," she said. "I don't get it. Why not just tell everyone?"

"'Cause it's not anyone's business," Carmen said.

"You realize you're fucking shit up with her, right? Like very obviously and willingly fucking shit up with her."

"Nat, just shut up."

But she ignored him. "You don't even make sense. You already own and run a business together, no one's going to care that you two are seeing each other."

"You don't get it," Carmen said. "She's gonna leave me, anyway."

"Why would she leave you?" Sugar asked.

"Because she can."

He was just telling the truth. But Sugar's face fell and her whole body seemed to sag along with it.

"Oh, Carmy," she said, and he hated the pity in her voice. His throat got tight and he felt too hot.

"Don't," he said.

"I didn't say anything," Sugar said softly.

"But you're going to."

Sugar shrugged. "She's not Mike."

Carmen let out a bark of a laugh. Syd was funny because she liked pointing out the absurd, not because she needed to be the center of attention. She and Mikey never would've gotten along, 'cause she was funnier than him and he would've hated that. She didn't bully people into doing things they didn't want to, didn't ice them out when they said things she didn't want to hear. She actually knew how to run a restaurant. She wasn't a fucking addict after having a father who'd slowly killed himself with alcohol.

No shit Sydney wasn't Mikey, and Carmen told Sugar as much, "No shit." But it came out weak and his eyes were wet anyway. He cleared his throat and wiped at his face.

Sugar punched his shoulder. "Don't be so predictable, Carmy."

He sniffed, closed his eyes and swallowed. "I'm trying."

"What's that stupid thing he was always telling you?"

"Let it rip."

"Yeah," Sugar said and smiled. "Do that."

888

When Carmen woke he could smell breakfast being made, french toast and bacon, and he could hear Sugar and Pete in the kitchen. He'd been so tired he'd ended up staying at Sugar's because the drive home had seemed too daunting. He yawned, ran a hand through his hair. He checked his phone and bolted up in bed. He'd overslept.

"Fuck."

No messages from Sydney. He texted her Sorry, realized he was being a fuckup and texted her again.

Not an excuse. I'll be there asap.

He still had to drive back home, get cleaned up, and get to The Bear. He was in such a rush he tried to shove his sneakers on while going down the stairs, and he ended up falling down the last few steps. He kind of busted his lip. There was blood. He'd definitely scratched his nose.

"Carmy, what the fuck," Sugar said, spatula in hand as she walked out the kitchen, but he ignored her.

He blew a couple red lights to get to the restaurant and his heart was thudding as he climbed out. But when he walked in the crew was gathered towards the front around Sydney, listening closely as she reviewed how to prep for the day. Carmen leaned against the wall behind him to catch his breath because he'd actually run in. Everything was fine. Why was he flipping out?

Tina was the first to notice him after Sydney wrapped up. "Jeff, what happened to your face?" she asked. "You get in a fight?"

"No," Carmen said.

He'd only had an old box of Spongebob themed bandaids at home, and he'd put one across the cut on his nose. Sydney was frowning at him from across the kitchen. He felt fucking ridiculous. He followed her into their office.

"Uh, hey," he said.

Sydney reached for her water bottle and took a sip.

"Sorry about this morning. I was dealing with family shit last night and I kind of passed out." He was still in that headspace where he couldn't really control what he said.

Sydney's gaze was cool. He knew she was probably thinking he was full of shit, but he kind of wanted to kiss her. 'Cause of his fuck up it'd been a day since their last kiss, and he missed her. He wondered if he could do everything in reverse, kiss her and hold her first, and then apologize. If she'd let him.

"You don't need to apologize."

"Huh?"

"There's no foul," she said. "This isn't The Beef. We're not understaffed and in the red. You can be a few minutes late. We've got you."

"Oh," Carmen said, and a relief washed over him that left him a little lightheaded. "Yeah." He nodded, leaned against his desk and put his hands on his knees like he had to catch his breath. "Yeah, yeah, yeah. You're right."

"What happened to your face?"

"What?" Carmen looked up at Sydney. He noticed, not for the first time, that she was almost painfully pretty. She would probably leave him.

"Your face," she said. She was upset.

"Nothing." He touched his mouth, touched his nose. "Just…it's nothing."

She wanted to say something else, he could tell. He wanted her to yell at him, call him an asshole or something, so he could admit to it and say he was sorry. Instead she said, "Can you be on family today?"

"'Course, yeah."

He made a braciole using Mikey's recipe, the one he'd gotten from their mom, served it with some rigatoni. At the table he sat between Fak and Marcus. Marcus and Richie gave him shit about his face and he took it with a half smile and a roll of his eyes. He got a text from Sugar telling him she didn't know he was a klutz and another one from Pete asking if he wanted the name of a doctor, since falls could be worse than they looked. He wished he'd sat next to Syd. She was sitting at the other end of the table with Synclaire and Tina, and he wanted to hear her voice. He missed Mikey, who was dead. He missed his mom, who wasn't. Ebra complimented his cooking and told him back home he'd cooked a meat stew that put "all this Italian nonsense" to shame. They had to hire additional cooks. Some kid'd made a video about the prosciutto and sopressata sandwich on their lunch menu, and they'd been getting mauled by the lunch rush for the past two weeks. Cicero was still livid about his money, and he kept leaving him these violent messages that ended with him telling Carmen to take care of himself. He really wished he'd sat next to Syd. But he was surrounded by people who brought to their work the same care and dedication he did. These people knew him, they worked with him each day, and each day they returned. He felt…he felt all right. He was all right.

Sydney didn't speak to him the rest of the day, and it was painful. Carmen hovered around her, trying not to be too obvious, but he didn't know if he succeeded. At end of day she left again without looking at him or saying goodbye. This time Carmen ran out after her.

"Chef," he called out. "Wait up."

This time of night around The Bear everything quieted down so all they heard was the sound of the El on its tracks and the couple cars that passed by every few minutes, their headlights on. There were just a few other people out, a late night jogger, a smoker with her face illuminated by her phone.

Sydney kept walking like she hadn't heard him. Carmen ran a little to catch up with her.

"Sydney, hey," he said. "Can we talk?"

Sydney stopped and turned to him. "Talk," she said.

"Uh, can we go back to the shop?"

"Nah, I'm good. What do you want?" She had her arms crossed in front of her and her jaw was set.

"Wha—" Carmen cleared his throat, "What's going on? What's up?"

Sydney raised her brows. "You're the one who wants to talk. So what's going on with you? What's up with you?"

Carmen frowned. "I—fuck. I know you're mad."

"Yeah, and?"

"And. Why?"

"Carmy." Sydney said his name like he was stupid. "Your sister, your family, who you love and respect, came in yesterday and you jumped away from me."

"I didn't—"

"You literally jumped. Like, fucking pole vaulting jumped away. From me. So you tell me, what the fuck is up?"

He shook his head. "I'm sorry."

"'I'm sorry'?" Sydney repeated, her voice high and laced with incredulity. "Really? 'I'm sorry.' That's it, that's all you've got?"

He didn't know what else to say. He shoved his hands in his pockets, rubbed his thumb against her notebook, and looked off to the side. He really wanted a cigarette, but he didn't like smoking in front of her. He didn't really know why.

Sydney shook her head and let out an exasperated breath. Her tote bag was slipping down her arm. She tugged it up, said, "You're ridiculous," and started to walk away again.

The thing was, if he let Sydney go, if he didn't try to explain himself, he'd still see her the next day. The Bear was hers just as much as it was his, and she wouldn't leave it just because he was a disappointment. That morning had reminded him. The only thing at risk right now was himself, and all that tenderness in him for her.

"Sydney!" he called out her name.

He jogged up and fell in step beside her. "Syd, I'm sorry. Just, please, just listen to me."

She kept walking, not even breaking her stride, so Carmen turned and started walking backwards in front of her.

"Sydney," he said. "Sydney, please? Please?" He put his arms out and caught her by the shoulders. "Please?"

She shrugged away from him. But she stopped walking.

Carmen stood in front of her dumbly. They were in front of a laundromat now, and the fluorescent lights fell on Sydney to make the pink of the butterfly on her scarf stand out more than the other colors on it. She didn't have braids in, but had styled her hair out in long twists that she piled in a bun on top of her head. She had more scarves at his place, along with an extra toothbrush and sets of clothes. She'd been spending more time at his place than hers. He'd been thinking of asking her to move in.

Sydney sighed. "Dammit, Carmy…Look, I get it, okay?" she said. "This shit is scary, and we work together, and—"

"That's not why—"

She held up a hand to keep him from interrupting. "And you're fucked up over Michael, and we have all this shit going on with The Bear, and it's a lot. I get it, I get all of it. I've got my own shit, too. But this thing with us…it can't be like it is in the kitchen."

So it was the same for her—how in the kitchen it felt like they were two parts of a whole, working together, a heart beating and blood rushing. How together they were elegant and sure and safe.

"In there we know what we're doing, we're good, we got it. But in this? Whatever this is? You have to talk to me. You can't just be all cryptic with some tattoo on your back, kiss me one second and then ignore me when your sister comes to see you. That's bullshit. So talk to me."

"I'm so—I'm—" Carmen took a breath, ran a hand down his face. He looked to the side of the road where the stop light was turning from red to green with no cars beneath it.

"This is hard for me," he started. And it was hard for him. Not being with Sydney, but the way she cared about him and wanted to be good to him and wanted him to be good to himself. He could feel the weight of it, like a hand rubbing his back when it was hard for him to breathe, but it came with expectations, and expectations meant he could fail, fail her. It wasn't like food, that came to him so easy, like it was made for him to do. This love, this loving, he had to work his way through it.

"I'm not making an excuse, it's just…I've never had…this." He brought a hand to the back of his neck. "I've never had the time, I've never cared, I've never wanted it. And, uh, I don't think anyone's ever wanted it with me. And I like it, this. Us. I like—I love you, um."

Carmen shrugged, and even he could tell he sounded stupid. But he tried again. "It's just, this is good, like really good, Syd. And I don't want any outside bullshit to mess with it."

He finally looked at her, because he wasn't sure that his words were saying what he meant. Sydney looked shocked.

"You love me?" Her voice was quiet.

"Yeah, of course."

"Fuck."

"Syd?"

She let out a puff of breath and looked skyward. "Well when you put it like that…" she said, her tone light and joking, like she was trying to take a step back from what he'd said.

"You didn't know?" Carmen asked.

"Of course I didn't know, you didn't tell me."

"Well I do. I love you."

"Okay," she drew the last syllable out, like she was buying time. She took a deep breath, swallowed. "Then why are you hiding? Why haven't you told anybody?"

'Cause if he fucked up then no one else would have to know. 'Cause if she didn't want him anymore he could deal with the shame and embarrassment and shittiness of it by himself. 'Cause wanting her was different than wanting to be a better chef than anyone else, or wanting Mikey to see him, or wanting the restaurant to be great; there was no element of competition that he could use to help him understand why he wanted it so bad. 'Cause he didn't want anyone giving her shit for being with him, he didn't want to hear whatever the fuck Richie had to say. He didn't want the thoughts that would come to him when everyone knew, that he didn't know how to love people, that he was too fucked up to be with her, that she could and should do better. He wanted them to be untouchable. He wanted them to be Sydney and Carmen and nothing else.

But Sydney was standing in front of him and all he wanted was to hold her hand, get up close to her warmth, and he couldn't because she was asking him why he didn't want anyone to know he loved her. He realized, all of a sudden, that he was hurting her. It made it so that nothing else much mattered.

So he let it rip.

"All right," he said.

"All right," Syd said, nodding. "Wait, what does that mean?"

"It means…do you want to have dinner with me and Sugar this weekend?"

Sydney blinked hard. "Are you being serious? Are you fucking with me right now?"

"It's this whole thing, Pete started it, we have dinner every week. Or at least we're supposed to. I've kind of been fucking off about it."

Syd started laughing. She laughed so hard tears came to her eyes and she doubled over with her hands on her knees. Her tote bag fell off her shoulder and Carmen bent to pick it up.

"Is that a yes?" he asked.

"You know you're crazy, right?" Syd said, taking her bag from him. "Like from zero to a hundred, just like that?"

"Zero?" Carmen said, and he smiled. "That's where you thought we were? I thought we were at least at eighty-five."

Sydney rolled her eyes and wiped at her tears. "Unbelievable," she said.

She reached out, touched a gentle finger first to his nose, then to his lip where he was cut. "What'd you do to yourself?" she said, and she almost pouted. "You know how much I like your face." His eyes dipped closed under her touch.

"Syd?" Carmen said.

"Yeah?"

"Can I kiss you?"

She started laughing again, and Carmen didn't wait for her answer. He pulled her to him by her waist, held her tight, and kissed, and kissed, and kissed her.

888

In fourteen years Carmen and Sydney no longer run The Bear together, though it's known across the country as one of the best restaurants in Chicago. Sydney has her own place, Adamu's, downtown. It's a bit more upscale than The Bear, African and Caribbean influenced, open only for dinner.

Much of the old crew no longer work with Carmen. Tina is a grandmother and lives with her girlfriend. Sweeps gets a job coaching Little League. Marcus has his own place, too, Color Theory, a patisserie a few blocks down from The Bear. He also teaches, runs an after school program for black and brown high schoolers interested in food service. Carmen spends his days with Fak and Richie and new hires who are really old hires who are really family who've worked with him for years. Ebra stops by every Friday for lunch with his daughter. Carmen never lets them pay, but they always leave a generous tip.

Carmen gets off work early one Wednesday. Wednesdays are slow, so he's leaving dinner to his sous, who he trusts, so he can pick up his daughters. Tahlia is eleven, tender-headed; still sucks her thumb but is very sensible, the total opposite of Carmen when he was her age. Beatrice is six, autistic and mostly non verbal; like every Berzatto she's bossy and loves food. Both his daughters still hold his hand when they cross the street.

When they get home the girls run through the apartment, flipping on all the light switches. Carmen trails behind them, turning off the ones they don't need. He helps them get cleaned up, gives them each a snack, then ushers them to the kitchen table so they can start their homework. Tonight he's making something quick and easy, spaghetti, with just a few changes to their uncle's recipe. Bee gets up once the pasta's boiled, just like Carmen knew she would. He lets her eat just a few strings. She makes him dangle them over her mouth like she's a lake monster, and then he signs that she'll be too full to eat dinner later.

When the bell rings, Tahlia opens the door to let their grandpa in, and Carmen greets him with a "Hey, Mr. A." Tahlia and Bee each grab one of their grandpa's hands and Carmen leaves the sauce to them. When the bell rings again Carmen opens it for Sugar, Pete, and their son, Michael. It's hugs and smiles and kisses all around, except for Michael, who's fifteen and thinks he's too cool for family affection. He's not too cool to ask Carmen what the tattoos on his right hand are for, though. He has a letter on each finger—S, T, B, N, and M. Sydney, Tahlia, Beatrice, Natalie, and Michael.

Dinner's ready by the time Syd gets home. Being with her all these years has meant more for Carmen to love. How she only eats crappy, sugary cereal for breakfast, if she eats it at all. How she loses her temper with him when he's being a little too needy. How she accommodates him when he's being just the right amount of needy. The stretch marks on her breasts and her ass. How good of a mother she is.

Sydney walks in, the light from the hallway illuminating her from behind. She's tired but she has a smile on her face. It's all hugs and smiles and kisses again, except for Bee, who insists Sydney lift her up. After she puts Bee down Carmen kisses Sydney hello. It's chaste, and he bumps his nose against hers afterwards, but Tahlia still shrieks in dismay and Michael still cries out, "Aw, gross, Uncle C!"

Then it's setting the table. Sydney's dad grabs the plates. Pete and Sugar grab the cups and cutlery. Michael shows Bee and Tahlia how to fold napkins fancily. Sydney brings the huge pot of spaghetti to the table, and she and Carmen serve it along with bread her father'd brought. And Carmen eats dinner with his family.