Archive of Our Own

Caitlyn Kiramman fell into a toilet this morning.  

So she pulled her ass out of the cold water, put the seat down, and did her business properly, only to find that there was no hand soap left.  

When she went into the kitchen to make a cup of coffee, still half asleep, there was a strange man with sex-ruffled hair sitting on the sofa, watching the news, and drinking coffee from her mug.  

He looked just as surprised to see her clad in nothing but an oversized t-shirt and a thong as she was to see him sipping from a mug that says SHOOT LIKE A GIRL.  

And as she was ready to smack him over the head with the LEGO catalogue, Jayce emerged from his room—zero remorse for leaving the toilet seat up, by the way—and explained that he and Viktor had been secretly seeing each other for months and that Caitlyn wasn’t allowed to tell anyone at work about this.  

And then she realized it was Viktor, Jayce’s co-manager at Surf n’ Turf.  

Caitlyn is grateful to Jayce for letting her stay at his place while her quarrel with her parents seems to reach no end, and even more grateful that he’d scored her a serving job at the restaurant he managed.  

However, he is a hoggish roommate, and now she knows about her boss’s secret relationship with her other boss, and both of them have seen her ass in a thong.  

“At least it wasn’t a sexy thong,” Jayce says out back of the Surf n’ Turf that evening.  

She smacks his arm.  “I would have preferred for your most recent conquest not to have seen my ass, sexy or otherwise!”

“It’s nothing I haven’t seen before,” he says.  

“Viktor is my boss.”

“So am I.”  He rolls his eyes and holds out his cigarette.  “Light me up?”

Caitlyn retrieves her lighter from her apron and lights Jayce’s cigarette before lighting her own and putting it back in her pocket.  

She takes a much-needed drag.  

After dipping her ass in toilet water and then showing said ass to Viktor, Caitlyn figured her day could only improve.  

She was wrong.  

One of the newer hires had forgotten their non-slip shoes and had to go home, so they were down a server, and thus, Caitlyn was a little busier than usual.  

To make things worse, the public high school hosted its Homecoming dance that evening.  Hence, a strong majority of her tables were large parties of teenagers wearing fancy outfits that cost more than what Caitlyn would earn working doubles the entire weekend.  They ordered almost exclusively off the kids’ menu, and then the Shirley Temple Chain Reaction happened.  

When one person orders a Shirley Temple, every single person under the age of twenty-one sitting in the restaurant gets inspired.  Then, the servers wait in line at the soda machine forever while they take turns pouring grenadine into Sprite.  

“Do you ever think about how we put cherries on a Shirley Temple even though grenadine is pomegranate-flavored?” Poppy had asked.  

Nevertheless, every teenager in the restaurant had to have a maraschino cherry on their Shirley Temple.  

By the time the evening slowed, Caitlyn’s sales were low, her alcohol sales were even lower, she’d confiscated two fake IDs, and her fingers were red from grenadine.  

“Did you at least make good money tonight?” Jayce asks.   

She shakes her head.  “I hate to stereotype, but teenagers don’t tip particularly well.”

“I’m sorry,” he says.  “I scheduled you because I thought this would be a really good shift.”

“You scheduled me because you were already working,” she says.  Without gas in her car, Caitlyn has no choice but to ride in Jayce’s passenger seat, sometimes arriving for her shift hours early, and always swapping for her coworkers’ closing shifts so she doesn’t have to wait quite as long for Jayce to finish locking up the restaurant.  

The back door opens, and a tall and husky figure drags a trash bag behind him.  “See ya later, Jayce.”

“Bye, Claggor.  Get home safe,” Jayce says.  

Effortlessly, Claggor throws the bag into the tall dumpster.  

Jayce takes another drag from his cigarette and sighs.  “Caitlyn, you know I don’t mind you staying with me while you get this figured out.”

“It’s been three months of figuring this out,” she says.  “I need… I need my own place.  If that means getting a second job-”

“No,” he says.  “I am not going to watch you work yourself to death, Sprout.  If you don’t have time for yourself, you might as well move back in with Cassandra and Tobias.”

“They wouldn’t like to hear you calling them by their first names,” Caitlyn says.  

“Respectfully, fuck them,” he says, tapping his cigarette.  The ashes fall into the metal garbage can they use as an ashtray.  “I’m proud of you, but if you want to go back-”

“No,” she says.  “I’d rather fall into your toilet every day for the rest of my life than go back to hiding like that.”

He frowns.  “Did you fall into the toilet?  That’s gross.”

She shoves him.  “I wouldn’t fall in if you stopped leaving the seat up like some kind of animal!”

“Sorry, I don’t have maids who put the seat down!” he jokes.  

“Your stubble is in the sink!” she says.  

“Okay, and?” Jayce asks through his laughter.  “My casual hookup saw your butt this morning.  Stop making coffee in your underwear.”

He tosses his cigarette in the proper receptacle.  “Seriously, Sprout, I love having you.  Please let me know if there’s anything else-”

“There’s nothing,” she says shortly.  “All things considered, tonight wasn’t completely awful.”  The Shirley Temples and poor tips are nothing compared to the way she’s treated in the kitchen.  

“You’re holding back,” he says.  “Is she still…”

“Yes,” Caitlyn says.  “Jayce, you don’t understand.  She’s so… so…”

When the door opens again, the rest of the line cooks come pouring out: first Mylo, whose hands are covered in bandages since he splashed himself with hot fryer oil yesterday.  Then there’s Ekko, who is new to cooking professionally, but already makes some of the nicest-looking salads Caitlyn has ever seen.  

Jinx, the closing host, carries a bag of leftover food she snatched from the line, including the mashed potatoes Caitlyn was going to eat for dinner.  Oh well.  

And then there’s the self-proclaimed grillmaster, Vi.  “Hey!  Oh, good, you’re still here, your highness.”  She takes off her red Surf n’ Turf snapback and curtsies.  

Caitlyn could ask, What do you want, Vi?  Then again, she’s quickly learned that anything she says to the line cook can and will be used against her.  

“Aww, icing me out?” Vi asks when she doesn’t answer.  “Typical.” 

“I’ll meet you in the car!” Jinx shouts, swiping the keys from her sister.  

“Did you guys remember to put the shrimp in the front of the walk-in?” Jayce asks.  “We can’t have another repeat of Tuesday.”

On Tuesday, Jayce and Caitlyn threw away three massive tubs of raw shrimp that had gone bad because someone stupidly stored them behind the newer shrimp that would have lasted a bit longer.  It smelled atrocious.  

What has Caitlyn’s life come to?  Back in June, she was the shining star at her parents’ dinner parties.  

Caitlyn is attending the Enforcer Academy!  Caitlyn gets the top grades in her class!

Now she spends her evenings sweeping shrimp tails and breadcrumbs off the floor while Jayce assures patrons, Caitlyn is one of our best servers!  She hardly ever forgets refills or slips on lemon wedges!

Vi rolls her eyes.  “Of course, we remembered.  Replaced the labels and everything.  Now, listen to this.”  She turns the volume up on her portable speaker, and a piano riff starts playing.  

She yells over the music, “This makes me think of you, Ice Queen!”

You’re as cold as ice… Willing to sacrifice our love…

It’s ironic, really, that Vi calls her that.  People happen to like Caitlyn.  Poppy likes Caitlyn.  Seraphine likes Caitlyn.  Zeri likes Caitlyn when she’s not in one of her moods.  Heimerdinger, the owner, seems to like Caitlyn too, even though he spends most of his time hiding out in the office or teaching Ekko how to make the perfect Caesar salad.  

Caitlyn is not an ice queen.  

“Turn that off,” she says, trying to keep her voice even.  

“Sorry, what?” Vi asks.  Is she turning the volume up?

Jayce snorts and shakes his head.  “Alright, go home, everyone; I’ve gotta do numbers.”

The rowdy line cooks keep singing as they get into Vi’s run-down pickup truck.  

Caitlyn says to Jayce, “You were laughing too.”

He shrugs.  “It’s kinda funny.”

“It is not,” she said.  “Vi is a bully.”

“That’s kind of just how line cooks are,” he explains.  “Shit.”  The line cooks must have accidentally kicked the cardboard box holding the door open.  Now, Jayce and Caitlyn have to go the whole way around the building.  

Caitlyn puts out her cigarette and follows Jayce to the front.  “She’s exceptionally rude,” she says to her friend.  “I don’t like it.  You told me that everyone here is nice.”  

“I did say that, didn’t I?”  Jayce scratches the back of his head.  “Vi is nice, though!  She just… isn’t friendly.”  He unlocks the door so they can go back inside.  

The restaurant looks strange with the chairs stacked on top of the tables and the black rubber mats rolled up.  Then again, Caitlyn is usually the one who rolls those mats and stacks those chairs.  It shouldn’t look strange.  

Jayce sits down at the booth where his laptop is set up.  “This should only take a minute,” he says, clicking on some spreadsheets.  “You guys sold like, no alcohol tonight.”

“I know,” Caitlyn says.  

“Your BWL is under ten percent,” he says.  

Alcohol is usually twenty percent of her sales, if not more.  Caitlyn’s alcohol sales are always the highest.  

“Still better than Poppy’s…” he says.  “Oh, but Poppy sold a fuck-ton of desserts.  That’s why.”

“Maybe I would have sold more desserts if I weren’t constantly being harassed every time I walk into the kitchen.”

Jayce sighs and sits back in the booth, letting his arm rest over the back.  He looks up at where Caitlyn stands.  She towers over him like this.  

“Look,” he says.  “Vi is a good person.  I genuinely believe that she would get into a fistfight for any of us here, even you.”

“I beg to differ.”

“Vi is just a dick.”  He closes his laptop, and Caitlyn feels her phone buzz.  TIPS ARE PAID, the restaurant app tells her.  

“Can we go now?” she asks, not wanting to talk about this anymore.  

He scooches out of the booth.  “Why?  Wanna go to bed and have sweet dreams about Vi?”

“Knock it off!” she shouts.  “I do not.”

“Sure you don’t,” he says, ruffling her hair.  

Caitlyn grabs her water bottle off the counter and follows Jayce outside to his car.  She hates having to catch rides with this man constantly.  He listens to the worst music.  

Sure, you don’t… his words echo in her head.  

As he’s switching between radio stations, she says, “You do know that I’m not attracted to every woman I meet just because I’m a… You know.”

“‘Lesbian’ isn’t a bad word,” Jayce says, putting the car in reverse.  

It is when you’re the sole heir to a matrilineal estate, but she doesn’t feel like arguing with Jayce tonight.  She just wants to go back to his apartment and scrub her body free of grenadine and grease.  

***

For some reason, the hot water in Jayce’s apartment doesn’t work.  Caitlyn goes to bed shivering because her weighted blanket is at her parents’ house.  

***

The universe has another terrible day in store for Caitlyn.  This afternoon, when she prepared her apron for work, small pieces of grilled chicken fell from the pockets.  

Hours later, she has forgotten to question Vi about the offending food and instead repeats her mental to-do list.  

Coke refills for Table 416, more napkins for Table 417, and Table 503 will be ready for their dessert soon.  

Caitlyn fills three glasses with ice and then begins to fill them with soda.  

The Coke sputters and kicks halfway through the second cup, filling the entire glass with foam.  

“Shit,” she swears under her breath

“I’ll help you!”

Caitlyn jumps, almost spilling a cup of soda foam onto Poppy. 

“I’m so sorry!  I didn’t see you there.”  Being six feet tall, it’s difficult sometimes for Caitlyn to notice her smaller coworkers, especially Poppy, who is a Yordle just over three feet tall.  She is quite literally half Caitlyn’s size.  

“All good!”  Poppy goes into the back, where all of the soda syrups are wired into the machine… or something.  Caitlyn doesn’t totally understand how this works.  

Poppy wiggles a plastic tube around.  “Yup, out of Coke on a busy night.”  She unscrews the cardboard box of Coke from the tube and tosses it on the ground.  Then, she crouches on the ground and reaches for another box to replace it with.  “You might want to get out of the way,” she says.  

Caitlyn obliges, stepping back so Poppy can pick up the box and scurry across the floor, wobbly on her feet from the weight of the box.  

“Easy!”  Caitlyn jumps in and helps her push it into place.  She screws the knob around the tube, which she thinks is wired to the Coke.  

“Make sure it’s nice and tight,” Poppy says.  “Or else we’ll have a sticky floor, and I think we’re due for a health inspection soon.”

“We’re always due for a health inspection if you ask Heimerdinger,” Caitlyn says.  

“Ha!  Yeah…”  Poppy walks off, taking small but fast steps back to the line, ready to run a plate of nachos out to some guests.  

Caitlyn fills the sodas the rest of the way and balances them in her hands.  

“Hey, Sprout,” Jayce says, walking into the kitchen.  “Your 418 has a credit card on the table.”

Refills for 416, napkins for 417, and a check for 418.  Shit, the large party will be ready for the dessert they brought in any minute now!  

“Here are your sodas,” Caitlyn says, dropping the drinks off at her table.  

“Sorry,” the mother says.  She gestures to her baby.  “He dropped the spoon for his macaroni and cheese…”

Napkins for 417, a check for 418, dessert for 503—at some point—and a spoon for 416.  

Fortunately for Caitlyn, the paper napkins are right next to the touchscreen computer she uses to print receipts, so she prints the receipt for 417 and grabs napkins for 418.  

“Peg… it will come back!  To!  You!” Seraphine sings as she waits in line behind Caitlyn.  “Oh, thanks!”

As she’s walking away, she double-checks the receipt she just printed and-

There’s nothing on it but an appetizer and a few beers.  

She printed the wrong check.  

She drops the napkins off at 417 and then circles back to the computer.  

“I like your pin shot!” Seraphine sings, bobbing back and forth as some receipts print from the computer.  “I keep it with your letter!”

Seraphine is just working at the Surf n’ Turf until her music gets discovered, which could be any day now.  She has an amazing voice.  

That being said, Caitlyn doesn’t want to listen to Seraphine sing along to the yacht rock that plays over the intercom while she’s absolutely in the weeds.  

“I’ll be a minute,” she says, putting another credit card in the reader.  She scats along with the saxophone part.  

And then Caitlyn sees the giant stack of checkbooks in her hands.  “How many ways did they split the check?” she dares to ask.  

“Five.”  The card reader beeps, telling her it’s ready to be removed.  

Caitlyn has time.  

“Excuse me.”  She reaches onto the shelf below to retrieve a spoon from the plate of extra silverware for the baby at that one table…  That’s a better use of her time than listening to Seraphine sing Steely Dan while running credit cards.  

Seraphine groans.  “I have to punch in this card manually?”

Yes, she will be a while.  Caitlyn has time.  

“Your spoon,” she says, passing it to the mother at her table in the corner.  

As she passes by the table of people waiting for their check, she says, “I’ll have your check right over.”

She takes a few dinner plates from her large party and stacks them on her arm.  

“Can I have a box for this?” a Yordle with a bushy mustache asks.  

A box?  For that teeny tiny piece of fish?

What a waste of styrofoam!

“Of course!” Caitlyn says, adding that to her mental to-do list.  

A check for 418, a to-go box for 503, and dessert for 503—eventually.  The Yordles don’t seem to be in any rush to eat the birthday dessert Jinx stored in the walk-in for them.  

Seraphine twirls as she pulls the last credit card out of the electronic reader with a flourish.  

“Excuse me,” Caitlyn says.  She punches in her employee number and taps the buttons on the touchscreen.  

Reprint.  

An error message appears: NOT ENOUGH BEVERAGES.  

She swears under her breath and rings in a bunch of waters.  

Send.  Reprint.  

She puts the receipt into a check presenter and then reaches for a Styrofoam box.  

“You don’t have to do that when we’re busy, you know,” Zeri says.  

Caitlyn uncaps her Sharpie marker and scribbles a quick THANK YOU onto the takeout box.  “I think these people will appreciate it.”  

“Your funeral.”

She drops the check off at Table 418, saying, “Whenever you’re ready,” and then she rushes back to the large Yordle birthday party to drop off the takeout box.  

“I think we’re about ready for that dessert,” the Yordle with the mustache says.  He winks, but not in the creepy way Caitlyn’s used to.  He’s a friendly nine-hundred-year-old yordle who's ready for whatever dessert his grandchild is having for their three-hundredth birthday.  

Is Caitlyn going to need to light three hundred candles on this cake?  She sure hopes not.  

“Coming right up,” she says, taking the Yordle’s empty plate.  

She rushes across the floor, her long legs allowing her to make large strides that get her to the kitchen faster.  

“Corner- whoa!”

“Oh my god!”  Caitlyn jolts backward and watches as Poppy frantically regains her balance.  

“I am so sorry,” she says.  She just stepped on her coworker!  Like, fully trampled the poor thing!  “Are you alright?”

Poppy adjusts the plates stacked on her short arms.  “Yeah, all good!”

It isn’t all good; Caitlyn forgot to announce that she was coming around the corner.  

“What do you have against Yordles?” a cool, low voice asks.  

“Nothing!  I-”

“Not everyone can be a flamingo like you, Frosty!” Vi teases.  

“I… I beg your pardon?”

Jayce chuckles and shakes his head as Vi flings another plate onto the expo line.  He shakes some cilantro on top of the fish tacos and then calls, “I need some runners!”

Seraphine practically materializes out of nowhere, grabbing the plates.  “I’ll need a follow with the crab fries.”

Caitlyn can’t run food right now.  “Behind,” she says, squeezing behind Jayce and back into the prep area.  

Jinx told her that shortly after the Yordles at 503 arrived, she put their birthday dessert in the walk-in refrigerator.  

However, Jinx doesn’t exactly have the strongest grasp of the organizational system in the walk-in, so the dessert will be wherever she was able to find space, Caitlyn reminds herself as she scans the shelves.  

The hairs on her arm stand up from the cold as she bends her knees, trying to get to Jinx’s line of sight.  

Right on top of a box of lemons is a pink cake box from a bakery in Piltover.  Caitlyn grabs the box and brings it to the prep line, setting it down and opening the lid.  

Her mouth waters as she takes in the sight of the pink and yellow cupcakes.  These are her favorite ones from the bakery closest to the academy she attended as a child.  Whenever she brought home a good test grade, her father would have the driver stop by the bakery for a treat.  She always got the pink strawberry-frosted cupcake.  Her father—after making her promise not to tell her mother—would get a coconut creme cupcake for himself, telling her that he had earned one too since he helped her read her flashcards at the breakfast table that morning.  

As it turns out, girls who sneak summertime flings in through their bedroom windows don’t get cupcakes, no matter how well they do on their investigative analysis quizzes.  

Caitlyn opens the candles in the cardboard packages that the Yordles must have brought with the cupcakes.  

Is the birthday kid three hundred and four or three hundred and forty years old?

She guesses three hundred and four, sticking the candles into the cupcakes in the middle.  

Carefully, she lights the candles and then pulls the tray out from the box.  She leaves the box on the prep line to use in case there are leftovers later, and calls, “Behind,” as she passes Jayce on expo, Zeri getting drinks from the soda fountain, and-

“Ha!  If you were sweet, I’d call you Cupcake,” Vi cackles from behind the line.  

“Shut up!”  Caitlyn calls as she rounds the corner

“Corner!”

She stops in her tracks.  She can’t see Poppy with the cupcakes in the way, but she’s there.  She’s down there somewhere.  

“All good!” her tiny voice calls.  

Slowly, Caitlyn continues her trek to the large party.  

“Excuse me,” she says to Viktor, who is hobbling around the restaurant on his crutch, asking patrons if they’re having a good time.  

Silently, he picks up the zero and the four candles on the cupcakes and swaps them.  “There.”

“Thank you,” she says as if she doesn’t know that he’s having sex with her temporary roommate.  

“I’ll bring some plates over,” he says as if he hasn’t seen her using the Keurig in her underwear.  

Caitlyn approaches the excited table of Yordles.  “Happy birthday,” she says before setting the dessert in front of the child with balloons tied to their chair.  

They gasp in surprise.  “Thank you!  Thank you, Grandpa!”

The Yordle with the bushy mustache hugs the child and says, “I love you so much.”

Something sharp pierces Caitlyn right in the heart.  

She pushes it down and helps Viktor pass out the cake plates while the Yordles break into a chorus of some alternative version of the birthday song that’s way more fun than the death march her mother’s councilor friends sang at her birthday party last year.  

“Make a wish,” says a Yordle woman.  She points a camera at the birthday kid.  

Caitlyn wishes she had done a better job of hiding her classmate from the Enforcer Academy when her parents got home early from whatever event they’d been attending.  

When she realizes she’s been standing at the table a little too long, she says, “Enjoy your dessert,” and then walks by the rest of her tables, glancing at them to make sure they’re okay.  

She grabs the check presenter from 418, and then notices that the baby at 416 has thrown his spoon on the ground again, and…

“Here is your specials menu.  Our catch of the day is crab-topped haddock, unless we ran out of that.  Then… I don’t know,” Jinx says, handing menus to the elderly couple she just sat at 502.  

Shit.  

“Can you pick that up, Caitlyn?” Jinx asks.  She doesn’t wait for an answer before walking away.  

Seraphine bobs back and forth while she runs gift card after gift card through the card reader.  “She… had a place in his life…” she sings.  “C’mon, Cait!”  She points to her with a perfectly manicured nail while Michael McDonald sings another yacht rock tune over the intercom.  

“Quit singing and hurry up,” Zeri says.  

“What are you doing over here, anyway?” Seraphine asks.  “You’re in the bar section.”

“Our card reader stopped working,” she says.  “I can only take cash payments over there.”

“Only because you busted the power line again, I’m sure,” says Seraphine.  

“Scoot.”

“Caitlyn’s in line,” Seraphine says, letting Caitlyn get to the reader.  

“Oh, sorry, your highness,” Zeri says.  “I just got double sat, but I guess the nepo baby can go first.”

“That’s a new one,” says Caitlyn.  She puts the debit card in the reader and waits for it to start beeping before writing a quick THANK YOU on the receipt.  

She frowns.  

The capital letters look intimidating.  

She draws a weak smiley face.  That’s a bit better.  

“Move.”  Zeri pushes through to the reader.

Caitlyn rolls her eyes and walks away, putting her customer service poker face back on.  “Thank you for coming in this evening,” she says to the people finishing up at 418.  “Come in again soon!”

She turns around to face the new table.  “Good evening.  My name is Caitlyn.  I’ll be taking care of you this evening.  Have you dined with us before?”  She gently lays the beverage napkins on the table.  

“Yes, we’re ready to order,” snaps the elderly man.  They haven’t been sitting for that long, have they?

Caitlyn retrieves her notebook from her apron and clicks one of her favorite Sharpie pens.  “Anything to drink?”

They each order waters with lemons, and then she tries not to flinch when the old man orders his filet well done.  Cattle farmers in Demacia do not put their hearts and souls into producing steaks just for people to order them well done at the Surf n’ Turf!

But she writes it down anyway and then turns to the woman, whom she assumes is his wife.  

“Marge, what do you want?” the man asks.  

“Umm…”

Lux whisks away the dishes on Caitlyn’s table that had just gotten up.  She’s moving fast.  Too fast.  Suspiciously fast.  

The woman’s eyes are all over the menu.  

“Are you between a few things?” Caitlyn asks.  “I could make a recommendation if you’d like.”

“Maybe I’ll have…”  Her finger wobbles as she points to the menu.  

417 looks like they’re ready for more beers.  

Caitlyn still needs to bring another spoon for the baby at 416.  

“Maybe the clam chowder.”

“A cup or a bowl?” Caitlyn asks.  

“Oh, just a cup…”

Caitlyn takes their menus and goes to the touchscreen to ring in their order, and then walks past her tables again.  

She isn’t running as much food as she’d like to be, but she’s overwhelmed.  

“Do you need me to run water to your big party?” Poppy asks.  

Caitlyn looks down at the Yordle, who clearly isn’t having a much better night than she is.  Her fur is sticking up in more than one place, and her apron is stained with sauce.  

“You would do that?”  After Caitlyn completely stepped on her?

“Of course!”  Poppy runs off with the water pitcher and greets the large party, taking glasses and filling them up.  

Caitlyn takes another beer order from 417 and drops off a spoon at 416, only to find that not only are they ready for their check, but they will not be taking the untouched bowl of macaroni and cheese home.  

She runs some appetizers over to the bar side of the restaurant, even though she’s pretty sure Zeri hates her.  Serving is a team sport, and Caitlyn has been trying to be a better team player lately, even if that means cleaning Jayce’s hair out of the sink.  And the shower.  And the laundry room.  

She drops off the beers at Table 417 and asks, “How did your food turn out?”

“Amazing,” says a guy in a Zaun hockey jersey.  “Thanks.”

Relieved that they don’t need anything, Caitlyn checks on her large party.  “Is there anything else I can get for you today?  Would you like me to box up the leftover cupcakes?”

Grandpa Yordle smiles and holds out a pink cupcake on a B&B plate.  “We only have one left; please take it!”

“Oh,” she says.  She might cry right now.  “Thank you so much.”

He winked again and said, “We’ll take the check whenever you’re ready.  No rush.”

This shift is never-ending, she thinks as she goes into the kitchen with her cupcake.  She puts it in a styrofoam to-go box and writes her name on top in Sharpie so nobody will take it.  

Viktor hobbles into the kitchen.  “There’s a to-go order on line one,” he says to Lux, who is in the middle of packaging a giant order.  “Things are beginning to slow down.  Zeri, you can be cut.”

“Hell yeah!” she says, putting some sodas on a tray.  

“Your silverware cover is one hundred.”

“Fuck!” she shouts.  “Who’s closing?”

“Caitlyn,” says Viktor.

“Fuck!”

Vi flips a hamburger.  “You can say that again.”

Zeri smirks and repeats herself.  “Fuck!”

“Someone run these out,” Jayce says.  

Caitlyn takes the plates from his hand—it’s food for her table anyway—and runs them out to the elderly couple.  

“I’ll check on you in a little bit,” she says.  

She needs a check for Table 416, so she goes back to the touchscreen, where Poppy is standing on a stool, punching in an order.  

“Almost done,” she says, reaching for a button that’s a little too high.  

“Do you need me to reach?” 

She looks at Caitlyn.  “Yes, please!  They want the shrimp nachos!”

Caitlyn pushes the button for her, and Poppy sends the order back to the kitchen.  

“Thank you!” she says, running off with a couple of to-go boxes.  

Caitlyn pushes the stool back under the computer and prints her receipt.  

“Excuse me!” the elderly man who just got his steak calls.  

“What can I do for you?” she asks.  

He holds the filet open with his knife.  “I ordered this well done.”

Caitlyn takes the plate.  “I’m so sorry about that; we’ll get this taken care of.”

“It’s practically mooing!”

“Honey,” the wife says, “she said she’s taking care of it.”

Of course, an underdone steak.  This is exactly what Caitlyn needs on a night like tonight.  

She drops the check off at her 416 just as the baby begins to cry and throw pieces of bread against the wall.  

“Corner!” she calls, entering the kitchen.  Jayce is on expo tonight, which is good.  

Vi is grilling tonight, which is not good.  

She shows the underdone filet to Jayce.  “This man wanted his steak well done.  This is more of a medium well.”

He sighs and takes the plate.  “Write a blue check.”

She writes the order down in her notebook; they’ll have to make the man new sides as well, since his broccoli and fries are on the plate Caitlyn took.  

“Hey, Vi,” Jayce calls, leaning under the heatlamps.  “This filet is supposed to be well done.”

“What the fuck,” she says, taking the plate.  “This is plenty done!”

“There’s still pink in it!” Caitlyn objects.  

Vi thrusts the plate against her counter.  “Of course, it’s your plate, Ice Queen.”

“My name is Caitlyn!”

“Well, you’re so cold!”

“Not as cold as this steak!”  Caitlyn fights not to smile.  That was a pretty good comeback.  

“Who the fuck orders a steak well done?” Vi asks.  “Cattle ranchers in Demacia don’t devote their lives to farming so people can order well-done filets!”

That’s exactly what Caitlyn thought when she rang in that steak, but she isn’t going to say anything.  She just needs Vi to throw that steak back on the grill.  

She says, “Maybe if you had cooked the steak correctly the first time, this wouldn’t be an issue!”

“Damn, Piltie’s got bite,” Zeri says.  

Vi continues.  “Maybe if you had done your job and recommended he didn’t have the flavor cooked out of his steak, this wouldn’t be an issue!”

“Hey!” Jayce shouts in his Big Scary Manager Voice.  “Knock it off!”

Vi’s eyes narrow.  

Caitlyn feels blood rushing to her face.  This time three months ago, she was the one complaining about an underdone steak.  Now, she’s getting into screaming matches with line cooks.  

She looks around.  Claggor seems very interested in the shrimp he’s sautéing.  

Mylo is looking back and forth between them, shaking his basket from the fryer.  

Vi rolls her eyes and uses her tongs to throw the steak back onto the grill.  

“Sorry, Vi,” Jayce says.  “You know how old people can be with their food.”

Caitlyn scoffs.  So he’s taking her side?

“I have to check on a table,” she mutters, even though she can already see that Table 416 put cash in their checkbook and left.  

“Whoops,” Jinx says after bumping into Caitlyn.  “What’s going on in here?  Why’s everyone so quiet?”

Nobody answers her.  

“Well, since I have your attention,” she says, “we have about forty open menus.”

The line cooks groan.  

“Fuck!”

“Sheesh!”

“Also!” Jinx says.  “There is a walk-in eight-top.  Can I put them in Seraphine’s section, or are we almost down to closers?”

Jayce groans.  “Viktor should not have cut Zeri…”

***

Caitlyn sits at the table closest to the kitchen and tries to enjoy her cupcake from the Yordles who left hours ago, but with Jayce and Viktor sitting across from her, it’s hard to stomach the sweetness.  

“Here’s my silverware, Caitlyn!” Poppy says, showing her a large stack of linen-rolled silverware.  

“Thank you,” she says.  

“Can you please check the rest of my side work?”

Caitlyn takes Poppy’s notebook from the top of her silverware pile and signs it.  “I trust you.”

“Thanks!”

“Viktor!  Viktor!” Jinx says, poking the manager in the shoulder.  “Lux and I bussed all the tables.  Can we go now?”

“Did you replace the paper towel rolls in the bathroom?” he asks.  

“Yes.  Viktor, c’mon!  The new Scream just came out.  We have to see it!”

Jayce waves her off.  “Go ahead.  Just don’t forget to clock out.”

“You’re the best!”

Caitlyn takes a bite of her cupcake.  The cake tastes like crushed childhood dreams and good test scores that no longer hold meaning.  The frosting tastes like the tuition money she no longer has for the Enforcer Academy.  

She sets the cake down and instead opts for tearing the wrapper apart in her hands.  

“This is great,” Jayce says after a moment of silence.  “Now that you two know about each other, we can just all ride back to my place together!”

Caitlyn and Viktor look at each other with wide eyes.  They don’t need to have a conversation to know that neither one of them would like a repeat of this morning.  

“It…  It feels like so long ago,” Viktor says.  “This morning, I mean.”

“We could all watch a movie tonight!” Jayce says.  

Visions of the three of them on Jayce’s tiny sofa watching cheesy romcoms and sharing a popcorn bowl fill her head.  

The two men cuddle and flirt with each other.  They’re under the blanket that Caitlyn usually shares with Jayce since she doesn’t have her own.  

Hand stuff…

“I’m going to step outside,” she says.  

She takes a stack of dishes that Lux and Jinx forgot and drops them off in the dish room on her way back, only to trip on the bright red hose the dishwashers have already gotten out.  The dishes crash to the floor, and Caitlyn’s butt is once again in a puddle of questionable water.  

“Careful, Frosty.”

“Shut up, Vi,” she mutters under her breath.  

That stupid Foreigner song starts playing again.  You’re as cold as ice!

Wordlessly, Poppy starts picking up the dishes that haven’t shattered while Caitlyn grabs a broom and a dustpan.  

“Thank you,” she says.  

“It’s no problem,” Poppy says.  “Goodnight, Caitlyn!”

Poppy leaves, probably going home to people who care about her and don’t bring their secret lovers over without giving her proper notice.  

Caitlyn sighs and pours the broken glass into a bucket before heading outside for her smoke break.  

She hadn’t noticed any tables left in the restaurant, so she finally lets her hair down and retrieves her cigarettes and lighter from the pocket of her apron.  She only has three Marlboro Reds left; she’ll have to ask Jayce and Viktor if they can stop by the gas station on the way back to the apartment.  

And Viktor.  She shudders.  She’ll have to wear pants to bed if she doesn’t want to flash her boss again.  

She lights the cigarette and takes a drag.  

“Oh, you look so pretty with your hair down, darling!” says Mel Medarda.  

Mel doesn’t work at Surf n’ Turf, but she’s been coming in long enough that she’s allowed to stay past closing time and leave with the employees.  

Well, she usually leaves with Sevika, the bartender, who is currently holding the door open for her and Lest, the other bartender.  

“Thank you,” Caitlyn says.  

“You have an okay night?” Sevika asks.  

“I just wish Vi didn’t pick on me so much,” Caitlyn says.  

Sevika shrugs.  “Fuck it out.  That’s what Mel and I did after she told me my martini wasn’t dirty enough four times in one night.”

Mel smiles and wraps her arms around Sevika.  “Now, we’re happier than ever.”

Caitlyn winces.  “In that case, my shift was fine.  Someone even gave me a cupcake.”

Sevika laughs.  “That’s great!  C’mon, Mel.”  She puts her arm around the regular, and the two of them get in Mel’s nice car.  

Lest’s ears twitch.  “I heard your little tiff with Vi.”

Caitlyn taps ashes from her cigarette into the metal garbage can.  “Please, can we not talk about this?”

“That’s how line cooks are,” Lest says.  “They’re assholes, but they’re generally good people.”

“That’s what everyone keeps telling me, but I fail to see any of that goodness.”

Lest lights a cigarette of her own.  “We all get picked on.  We just deal with it better than you do.”

Caitlyn sighs.  “She’s just so mean.  Like, I can’t get a break, and it’s… It’s almost worse when I’m super busy, like I was tonight.  And she can’t admit when she makes a mistake either.  I’m tired of it.”

“So dish it back,” Lest says.  “You can’t just tell her to stop or shut up.  If she says you’re a frosty bitch, then tell her she’s a total hothead.”

“I…”  Caitlyn can do that.  That doesn’t sound too hard, and she’s proven that telling Jayce doesn’t work.  What does she have to lose?

“Well, I’ve got a second job to get to,” Lest says.  She looks Caitlyn up and down.  “You’re pretty fit.  You got any dance experience?”

“Not really.”

She shakes her head.  “Too bad.  Let me know if that changes.”  An Uber pulls up, so Lest squashes the rest of her cigarette against the pavement and gets in.  

“Goodnight!” Caitlyn calls.  

She waves as the car drives away.  

Caitlyn doesn’t want to work at Babette’s with Lest.  She’s finally getting the hang of being a server.  She doesn’t think she could do it topless.  

When her cigarette burns out, she figures she shouldn’t waste the last two in her box, so she throws the butt away and heads back in through the kitchen, only to collide with a warm, firm body.  

“Whoops,” says Vi.  “I swear, I didn’t mean to bump into you!  Don’t send Poppy after me!”

Caitlyn frowns at the new grease stain on her apron and furrows her eyebrows.  “What?”

Vi scoffs.  “Like you don’t know Poppy’s into you.  It’s adorable, I almost don’t want to tell her you’re taking advantage of her.”

“I am not,” she says.  “I don’t even know what you’re talking about!”

Vi raises her eyebrows.  “Sure.  Totally.”

“And don’t pick on Poppy!” Caitlyn calls as Vi carries a trash bag over her shoulder and heads over to the dumpster.  

Her chef coat is tied around her waist now, and she’s just wearing a ribbed wife-beater tank top.  

Most line cooks are either super scrawny, like Mylo, or big and burly, like Claggor.  Vi’s different.  She’s toned.  

As she takes in Vi’s appearance, for the first time since getting kicked out, Caitlyn remembers that she’s a… that she’s like this.  

You will not experiment under this roof.  

Then again, it’s not appropriate to experiment under Jayce’s roof either, even if he’s been hiding Viktor and Caitlyn from each other since she moved in.  

“Hey,” says Jayce.  “Everyone’s clocked out.  I got your stuff.”  He passes her the purple water bottle she got for her birthday two years ago.  It’s still decorated with a sticker from the Piltover Enforcer Academy.  

“Thank you,” she says.  

“Ready to go, Sprout?”

She nods and follows him and Viktor to the car.  

She and Viktor reach for the passenger side door at the same time.  

“I’ll sit in the back,” she says, resigning herself to Jayce’s cramped backseat.  A plastic water bottle crushes beneath her non-slip shoe.  There is cat hair on the seat.  Jayce doesn’t even have a cat.  

Caitlyn stares out the window and watches as Vi flings one last garbage bag back into the dumpster before walking over to her car.  

She’s never noticed Vi’s tattoos before; patterns decorate her arms, and gears on her neck lead onto her back.  

Caitlyn is curious, but she’s always sought the bigger picture, so she casts that thought away.  

Just before Jayce’s car turns the corner, Caitlyn swears she sees Vi give a little salute.  

***

Caitlyn brushes her teeth in the dark.  She doesn’t feel like turning the light on.  

God, she can hear Jayce and Viktor.  They could, at the very least, pretend she still doesn’t know about their relationship.  

She spits her toothpaste into the sink and turns the faucet back on, letting it wash down the drain.  

She puts her toothbrush back into her travel case and wonders if she should ask Jayce to clear a drawer for her since she’s been here for so long.  

Then, she pulls her thong down to her ankles so she can use the toilet before going to bed.  

“Jayce!” she growls, banging on the wall the bathroom shares with his headboard.  

But he’s too busy having sex with Viktor to apologize for leaving the toilet seat up once again.  

***

Why don’t we steal away?

Why don’t we steal away?

The same yacht rock song is playing on a loop.  Caitlyn has just been triple-sat.  She’s standing at a table, notebook and pen at the ready, but the elderly people in front of her have many questions about the food and their dietary restrictions.  Is this item gluten-free?  Can they get this with the sauce on the side?  Is there garlic in this?  

Caitlyn doesn’t know the answers to all of these questions.  All she knows is these people won’t let her go and ask her manager for help, and three hungry tables in her section still haven’t been greeted.  

She’s trapped.  

Let me ask my manager, she wants to say, but her mouth won’t move.  

Instead, the elderly folks smile and thank her, and she puts her notebook back in the pouch of her kangaroo onesie and goes to find her manager.  

“I sat you at 420,” Jinx says.  

“Okay,” says Caitlyn.  She needs her manager.  

Vi is talking with someone else’s table; she’s standing there in her wife-beater tank top, and the gears on her arms are grinding in real time.  

Caitlyn grabs some beverage napkins and greets her next table.  

“Hello!  Welcome to Surf n’ Turf,” she says to her mother and father.  

Her mother’s nose is buried in the menu.  Her father blows his nose into his linen napkin.  He’s crying.  

She continues her spiel.  “My name is Caitlyn.  I’ll be taking care of you today.  Have you dined with us before?”

Her father sobs.  “Why?” he cries.  “Our baby!  Our baby girl!”

“Can I get you started with anything to drink?”

Why don’t we steal away?

“This isn’t you, Kitty!” her father says through another broken sob.  

“Two lemon waters, coming right up,” Caitlyn says, repeating their order back to them.  

Seraphine skates in a circle, singing along to the yacht rock.  

“Excuse me,” Caitlyn says, trying to get to the touchscreen.  

“Hey,” Vi says, appearing practically out of nowhere.  “Can you grab something for me out of the walk-in?”

Caitlyn can’t open her mouth to ask what it is that Vi needs.  She can’t even say she’ll do it.  

She just goes back to the walk-in, pulling open the heavy door.  

Leaning against shelves filled with cupcakes is Vi, who is now wearing a tacky maid dress.  A bouquet sits on the floor, discarded in a puddle of something Caitlyn can’t identify.  

Vi shakes her head slowly and takes Caitlyn’s jaw in her hand.  “Hey, Cupcake.”

And that’s when Caitlyn realizes this is like the dreams she used to have when she was still attending the Enforcer Academy.  She’d spend so many hours training or studying, stressed out over some upcoming test or trivial personal matter, that she’d start having dreams that she was still training, still studying, except now and then, something weird would happen.  In one dream, her professor was her father.  In another dream, she sparred against one of those inflatable tube men you see outside the used car lots in Zaun.  

The telltale sign that this is a dream isn’t the kangaroo onesie, nor is it Caitlyn’s parents dining at a chain restaurant.  No, the giveaway is that Vi is being nice to her because that is genuinely the most unrealistic part of this dream.  

And the worst part of this lucid dream is that she’ll still be exhausted when she wakes up.  

***

When Caitlyn checks her phone in the morning, she has a message from the cellphone carrier notifying her that she is no longer subscribed to their unlimited phone plan.  

Immediately, the panic settles in.  If her parents can cut her phone off, what else is she going to lose?  Her insurance?  Her trust fund?

Oh, gods.  

Her bank account.  

When she was a baby, her parents had opened several accounts in her name, including a trust fund that she should probably kiss goodbye—unless she wants to tell her parents that this is all just a phase—and a savings account she knows she’s already lost access to, since that was her tuition for the Enforcer Academy.  

Her checking account, on the other hand, was opened when she was a teenager so that her mother could provide her with a monthly allowance.  What had Caitlyn even blown that money on?

Oh, yes.  A car that runs on premium gas, which she can no longer afford, so it sits idle in Jayce’s apartment complex’s parking lot until she has the money to fill it up.  

Point being, her mother technically owns the account and has every ability to shut it down.  

She leaps out of bed and runs to the living room.  “Jayce!” she shouts. 

Jayce and Viktor are already cuddling in the living room, sharing a bowl of cereal.  Disgusting.  

“Perfect timing, Sprout,” Jayce says.  “We got logged out of your Netflix account.  Can you sign us back in?”

She frantically pushes the buttons on the remote, putting the password back in.  Caitlyn1-04.  Her first name.  Her birthday.  

USERNAME OR PASSWORD INCORRECT.  

She groans.  

“Is it case sensitive?” Viktor asks.  

“Of course, it’s case sensitive,” she mutters, putting the password in again.  

Caitlyn1-04.  

USERNAME OR PASSWORD INCORRECT.  

“It is really fine,” Viktor says.  “We can just pirate Love Island or watch it on Heimerdinger’s account at work.”

“Caitlyn,” Jayce says.  “Are you okay?”

His voice is just an echo.  She’s been thoroughly cut off.  The password probably doesn’t have any part of her name or birthday in it anymore.  Her parents don’t love her enough for her to be the password.  

She clicks on the Hulu icon.  

Caitlyn1-04.  

USERNAME OR PASSWORD INCORRECT.  

“Caitlyn…”

“We need to go to the bank.  Now.”  If she’s locked out of all these other accounts, she probably won’t be able to get onto her banking app.

But she has her debit card, her ID, and her passport.

Jayce pushes Viktor off of him.  “You can put something on cable while we go to the bank.”

He nods and takes the remote from Caitlyn, scanning the channels.  

Caitlyn takes her coat from her hook and then reaches for her shoes.  

Viktor almost falls off the couch.  “Oh, dear Janna-”

“Sprout, c’mon…” Jayce groans.  “Forgetting something?”

Pants.  Caitlyn needs to wear pants to withdraw her money.  

***

She spends the next several hours lying in bed, desperately trying to put an end to her meltdown before she has to go to work.  She forgot her weighted blanket at her parents’ house, so Jayce has collected every blanket in his apartment, including the sheets on his own bed, and wrapped Caitlyn in them like she is the chicken in a burrito.  

When the blankets aren’t heavy enough to subdue her meltdown, Jayce climbs on top of the cocoon and flattens her against the bed with his entire body weight.  

“When you emerge,” he whispers, “you will be a beautiful butterfly.”

Caitlyn is numb.

***

“Thank you again, Jayce,” Caitlyn says as she clocks in for her evening closing shift at Surf n’ Turf.  She’d had to rush to get ready after waking up from her nap; her button-up shirt is a bit wrinkled, and she’s still finding pieces of chicken in her apron from her last shift.  She just knows Vi is the culprit.  

“Yeah, of course, Sprout,” Jayce says.  Aloud, they’re talking about him driving her to the bank.  Silently, she’s expressing her gratitude for everything else.  Caitlyn isn’t proud that she’s someone who needs it, but Jayce is the only person she’ll ever let squash her into oblivion.  

There aren’t too many reservations this evening.  Lux told her that not even twenty parties were on the list, which is unusual for a Sunday, but it’s the first nice weather day Zaun’s had in a long time, and Surf n’ Turf doesn’t have outdoor seating.  

It’s going to be an easy shift, but Caitlyn is closing, and if she’s going to be here until after eleven, she had better be making money the whole time.  

“Maybe I’ll get to go home early tonight,” Poppy says.  She opened this morning, so she’s polishing silverware in the back in hopes that she’ll get cut soon.  

Jinx pokes her head into the back.  “Hey, Caitlyn, you got sat.”

“Thank you.”

She leaves Poppy to her task, grabs some beverage napkins, and greets her table.  

Her smile wavers slightly.  It’s a one-top, a man on his laptop computer.  Not only will he not spend a whole lot of money, but he’ll take up this table in her section for hours while he works.  

She gives the new patron her usual introduction, only for him to cut her off.  He’s fully prepared to order his entire meal: lobster tails, a Caesar salad, and a beer.  

She rings the order in, and then she’s back to having nothing to do.  She’s scheduled to close again this evening, so she has no side work to get ahead on.  The dinnertime rush is just arriving, so there aren’t any tables she can help Jinx and Lux clear.  

“You okay, Sprout?” Jayce asks.  He replaces the paper in the printer and watches it rattle and spit out a blank receipt.  

Caitlyn nods.  “I just have the one table, so I’m fine.  Thank you.”

He rests his elbow against the shelf and raises his eyebrow.  “That’s not what I mean.”

Oh.  Yes.  He means Caitlyn’s minor meltdown this morning over her parents’ most recent move in their months-long game of emotional chess.  

“I’m fine, Jayce,” she says.  

“You spent three hours in bed under multiple blankets when we got back.”

“Really, Jayce-”

“You didn’t even want ice cream.”

She rolls her eyes.  “Thank you for driving me to the bank.”

“It’s no big deal,” he says, even though they both know it is a massive deal.  “I’m sorry they said it’ll take so long for you to get your money, though.  At least it’s their policy and not… You know…”

“Um, excuse me.”

Jayce and Caitlyn look down at the source of the voice.  

Poppy wrings her hands.  “Uh, Viktor accidentally touched a little bit of the shrimp, and he’s saying it’s okay because it was breaded, but his skin is all red… I think he has hives.”

“I can hop on expo,” Jayce says.  

She winces.  “You’ll have to convince him to go home first.”

Caitlyn and Poppy follow Jayce as he swoops into the kitchen.  

“Viktor!” he calls.  

“I am fine, Jayce,” Viktor says, balancing all of his weight on his crutch.  His sleeves cover most of his arms, but his hands are bright red, coated in that lattice pattern Caitlyn gets if she uses a latex bandage.  

“Get him out of here!” Vi yells from her station on the grill.  “He needs to go to urgent care.”

Jayce loops Viktor’s arm around his shoulder.  Caitlyn grabs his crutch, ready to follow them to Jayce’s car.  

She might have to Uber home from work if Jayce can’t be back by closing time.  

She can’t call an Uber.  Her phone doesn’t work anymore.  

“But somebody must watch the window!” Viktor protests.  

“I would, but I can’t reach!” Poppy says.  

Jayce swears.  “Seraphine and Zeri don’t get here until five…”

“I can do it,” Caitlyn says.  “I’ve watched you enough.”

Viktor coughs and stumbles against Jayce.  

“Alright,” Jayce says.  “Just… try to get along with Vi.”

Shoot, Caitlyn thinks as she takes Viktor’s spot in the window.  She didn’t exactly consider that she would be planted on the line right across from Vi for the foreseeable future.  Then again, she never thought Jayce would take her up on this offer.  

She rests her hands against the metal while the screen next to her lights up with a new ticket from Lest.  The appetizers, salads, and desserts populate the bottom of the screen, while the entrees must be at the top, Caitlyn guesses, since she sees her order for her one-top is up next.  

“Tails on one,” Vi says.  

Claggor wipes some sweat off his forehead and steps in front of Vi to put two bright red lobster tails on the plate Vi has prepared on her counter.  

She scoops some rice onto the plate and throws it up onto the line, pushing a button that turns the ticket on Caitlyn’s screen green.  

It’s ready.  

She pours some cilantro onto the rice like she’s seen Jayce and Viktor do, and then she picks up the plate-

“Nope,” Vi says.  

“It’s for my table-”

“Leave it in the window and call for a runner,” Vi says.  

Caitlyn looks around her and doesn’t see anyone.  “Um, is there someone who can…”

“Dammit,” says Vi.  “Behind.  Move.”

Claggor hunches over his stove so Vi can get out from behind the line.  

She peeks her head around the corner and yells, “Need a runner!”

Poppy follows her back into the kitchen.  “I got it!”

“Table 402,” Caitlyn says.  “Thank you.”

“Heard!” says Poppy.  

“You gotta yell, Ice Queen,” Vi says.  

BEEP!  

A lower beep echoes that one as Caitlyn’s screen lights up with another order from Lest.  The traffic must be picking up.  The bar is sending in appetizers left and right.  

Mylo drops some fries into one of his baskets and then begins to bread some pickle chips.  

“Incoming,” Vi says to the other line cooks.  She pairs her phone with a portable speaker.  “You ready for this, Ice Queen?”

“My name is Caitlyn.”

She wipes some sweat from her cheek, just above her VI tattoo.  “That’s the spirit!”

The music begins to play, and it’s a much-needed contrast from the yacht rock Caitlyn’s usually forced to listen to on the floor.  The line cooks listen to the kind of rock that makes a girl feel badass while shaking cilantro onto tacos and sliding steak knives under filets.  

“Get me those nachos from cold,” Vi says.  

Caitlyn grabs the tray of nachos from Ekko’s cold window and places them in front of Vi, who then drops the diced chicken on top and drizzles melted cheese over the whole dish.  

“Use your voice, Frosty,” she yells over an electric guitar solo.  

Caitlyn glances outside the kitchen, where she can see Sevika shaking a martini.  “I need app hands!”

“Needs work,” Vi says.  “What do you guys think?”

Claggor wipes even more sweat from his brow.  “I think I’m really hot.”

Seraphine takes the nachos from the window.  “What’s your clock-in number?” she asks.  

“What?” Caitlyn asks.  She has so many questions, beginning with When did Seraphine get here?

“We’re going to finish out your one-top for you since you're stuck here tonight,” she explains.  “Don’t worry, Jinx changed the seating chart.”

And by that, she means that Caitlyn is no longer on the seating chart and won’t be making money tonight.  Granted, she has Jayce to thank for the roof over her head, access to a Keurig, and also a phone charger, not that she needs it anymore.  Point being, she owes this to him.  

She can expo while he takes care of Viktor, and she’s going to do a great job of it.  

Vi throws another set of plates up onto the line.  Caitlyn fills a tiny metal dish—a bullet—with ketchup and places it next to a side of fries.  She grabs the coleslaw from Ekko’s salad station and puts it on the order of fish and chips.  

“That needs a lemon wedge,” Vi says.  

“I know.”  Caitlyn puts a lemon wedge in the fish and chips basket.  

Poppy is already waiting for her.  

She runs off with the plates, and then Caitlyn calls for someone to run appetizers to the bar.  

“The ice cream on these brownies is melting!” Ekko shouts from the salad station.  

Vi barks, “Get him a runner!”

“I’m getting him a runner!” Caitlyn yells.  

“It’s just… they’re melting way faster than usual…” Ekko says.  

“Hey, Caitlyn,” Zeri says, huffing.  Her face is red.  “My guests are asking if we can turn up the air conditioning.  Like, really crank it.”

Vi throws a big red water bottle into the window.  “Someone fill this with ice water for Claggor!”

Zeri takes the water bottle.  “Seriously, Caitlyn, we’ve gotta do something.”

Caitlyn doesn’t know how to work the air conditioning.  Does she look like someone who can work the air conditioning?

“It’s hot back here, too,” Vi adds.  “The guys aren’t doing so good.”

Caitlyn slides the freshly filled water bottle across the sauté window and says to Zeri, “Watch the line for a minute.”

The main control box is scary to look at, and the only buttons Caitlyn’s ever used on it are the ones that dim the lights.  

“Maybe this one,” she mutters to herself, turning a dial.

“Hey!” Vi shouts.  “We can hear that stupid yacht rock back here!”

Not that button.  

And then she sees the little blinking red light.  

The AC is broken.  

She pulls her phone out of her apron to—

To text Jayce.  

She cannot text Jayce.  

Her parents cut her off from her phone plan, and therefore, she has no service.  Her phone is basically useless.  

“Shit.”

“What’s wrong?” Seraphine asks, having apparently materialized behind her.  

“Can you send Jayce a picture of this and ask him how to fix it?”

“On it.”

Caitlyn takes her spot on the line and lets Zeri get out of the heat.  “Hang in there,” she says to the line cooks.  “We’re going to get Jayce to tell us how to fix the air conditioning.”

“You mean it’s broken?” Mylo asks.  “We can’t work like this.  We’ll all get heat stroke or something.”

Caitlyn starts, “I’m sure Jayce will be able to fix-”

“And then how long until it kicks back in, huh?” Mylo asks.  

“Hey!” Vi shouts.  “Save your energy and quit yapping.”

Caitlyn puts a steak knife under a burger—she thinks she’s supposed to do that—and Poppy takes the plate from her.  

“Hey, is there any way we can get a little more air up front?” she asks.  “My tables are complaining.”

She sighs.  “It’s broken.  Jayce is going to let us know how to fix it.”

“No, he’s not,” says Seraphine.  “He called a maintenance line, but they won’t be here until tomorrow.”

Mylo throws up a basket of loaded fries, and Caitlyn passes them to Seraphine for her to run.  

“Caitlyn, I’m ringing in a new burger for 605,” Zeri says.  “Theirs was overdone.”

Vi’s ego won’t be able to handle this.  

Caitlyn taps on the ticket on her screen and prioritizes it so it shows up first.  

“I need this new burger for 605 on the fly,” she says.  

“Not your fault!” Zeri adds.  “The person is just an idiot who doesn’t know the difference between medium well and medium rare.”

Vi snorts and throws a burger patty on the grill.  “That’s kind of a major difference.”

“Behind,” Zeri calls, pushing past Poppy at the soda fountain and Lux, who is currently packaging a to-go order.  “I’m going to get Heimerdinger to comp that burger.”

Caitlyn forgot that Heimerdinger is hiding in the office, like he likes to do.  

Vi plates a piece of salmon and pairs it with a scoop of rice.  “I need more rice from the walk-in!”

“I got it!” says Lux.  She abandons her takeout order and runs to the back.  

Vi puts the plate up.  “This gets-”

“I know what I’m doing!” Caitlyn snaps.  She shakes cilantro onto the plate.  She grabs the fried shrimp that Mylo just finished plating, and then calls, “Runner!”

Seraphine grabs the plates and takes them out.  

Zeri slips something into Caitlyn’s back pocket.  

“Heimerdinger’s manager card,” she says.  “In case someone needs to comp something.”

Caitlyn has a manager card.  

She now knows what true power feels like, and she doesn’t even have time to enjoy it.  

Vi and Mylo throw plates up in the window.  Caitlyn arranges them by table and seat number.  

She counts her plates: the salmon special for seat one, a kids' meal for seat two, a plain filet with fries for seat three, and the baked cod for seat four.  Where the hell is the cod?

“Cod sells my lead,” Caitlyn says, putting a glove on and taking a handful of fries from the bowl for the steak.  

Vi grunts and puts the burger on the line.  “Blue check.”

“Manager to the window!” Caitlyn calls.  

“We don’t have a manager!” Zeri says.  “Heimerdinger is watching a Barbra Streisand documentary in the office!”

“I have an idea!” Poppy says.  “Corner!”  She runs out onto the floor.  

Vi fans herself with her hat.  Her cheeks are red from a combination of heat and fatigue.  

BEEP!

She reads her screen.  “Grilled asparagus.  Are you fucking kidding me?”  She puts her snapback on and returns to her work, throwing another salmon on the grill and then flipping a filet.

Shrimp skewers line the left side of the grill, filets are sorted from most to least done, chicken cutlets line the front, and various types of fish are on the right.  She has so much food in front of her that Caitlyn can barely see the grill.  

Caitlyn swaps out the plate on the kids’ meal so that it isn’t too hot when it hits the table.  “Still need cod to sell.”

Vi grunts, “That’s on sauté.”

“I’m almost… done…”  Claggor opens his oven and takes out the cod.  

“Manager Jinx reporting for duty!”  

Caitlyn gasps.  

Jinx stands in front of her, saluting.  “Where’s this blue check?”

“You have got to be kidding me.”

THUD!

“Claggor!”

No time to remind Jinx to behave like a normal person.  Caitlyn gives her the new burger and yells, “Behind!” as she ducks into the sauté station.  

She joins Vi, who is crouching down next to Claggor.  

“He’s always been sensitive to the heat,” Vi says, taking the wet towel from around her neck and placing it on his forehead.  

“We have to get him out of here.”

“No shit.”  Vi lifts him by the arm, but his weight is too much, even for her, so Caitlyn tries to grab the other side.  

Three months ago, Caitlyn was beating the heat with margaritas and dips in the swimming pool at the country club.  

Now, a giant man’s sweat soaks through her shirt, and she doesn’t even have the luxury of caring.  

“The office,” Vi grunts.  

“Good evening, ladies!” Heimerdinger chirps.  “Did you know that Barbra Streisand-”

“Here ya go,” Vi says, dumping Claggor into the second office chair.  

“Thanks,” he grunts as he regains consciousness.  

“Is he going to be okay?” Cailtyn asks.  

Vi rushes back to the kitchen, Caitlyn in tow.  “Yeah,” she barks, “but he won’t be able to work sauté.”

They take their places again, and Vi puts the cod onto the plate for Caitlyn to sprinkle with parsley.  

“Runner-follow!”

Zeri grabs most of the plates, and Seraphine follows with the last one.  

The pasta for the next order appears in the window, and so does the sautéd spinach, and the extra stock of mushrooms Vi needed, and-

Vi is working sauté and grill.  

She wipes some more sweat from her brow with her sleeve.  “Coats off, guys!” she says to Ekko and Mylo.  “It’s too fucking hot for this.”  She unbuttons her chef coat, leaving her in a white wife-beater tank top.  

Those tattoos are even more captivating up close.  

This might be the thing that makes Caitlyn pass out.  

Vi’s muscles flex as she flips shrimp skewers and sautés pasta

Mylo is quick to follow in shedding his coat, and even though Ekko is on the cold station, he sets his chef coat on the back line, but Caitlyn still can’t take her eyes off Vi.  

Vi throws another plate onto the line.  “C’mon, Frosty, stay with us.”

She jumps.  Right.  The window.  There’s barely space for any more plates.  

“Runners!” Caitlyn yells.  She places steak knives on the plates that need them.  She zests a lime over some tacos.  She pours parsley onto the cod.  

Seraphine takes some of the entrée plates, while Poppy lines her short arms with salad plates.  Even Lest comes back and runs some appetizers to the bar.  

Zeri dumps a bucket of ice into the cooler by the soda fountain.  “Give me your apron,” she says.  

Caitlyn unties her apron and hands it to Zeri.  “Why?”

“You’ll get more circulation if your shirt isn’t like, tied to your body.”

It does feel a little better.  

She goes back to sorting the vegetables, pouring ketchup into silver bullets, and bumping tickets off the screen.  

“Low call, fries!” she shouts to Mylo.  

“Heard!”

The lamps are hot on her wrists, and she’s afraid they’ll turn red.  

Vi plates some lobster tails and puts them in the window, but instead of turning back to the grill right away, she looks Caitlyn over.  “You melting, Ice Queen?”

“I’m… fine,” she says, even though her mouth is dry.  

She twists her ponytail into a knot on the top of her head.  Taking the hair off her neck feels a little better.  

Vi flips a burger patty directly onto the bun, flexing the tendons in her wrist as she-

Caitlyn gasps when something wet splashes her neck.  It’s not cold, but it’s not hot either.  

Vi smirks and puts down the spray bottle of grill oil.  “Better?”

The oil trickles down Caitlyn’s neck and into her shirt before she can do anything to stop it.  “Seriously?”

She shrugs.  “Just trying to help.”

Jinx sticks her head in the kitchen and says, “Fifteen open.  We’ve got another push of reservations at seven, and then things should start slowing down.”

“Heard, thanks,” says Caitlyn.  She unbuttons the top few buttons on her work shirt.  

“Fifteen open!” Vi repeats.  She then asks, “How many resos?” but Jinx is already gone.  

“I hate this!” Mylo whines.  

Vi glares at him, and he stops talking.  

Caitlyn has very recently come to appreciate the power of Vi’s glare.  

The line cooks are moving as fast as they can.  When Seraphine rings in a large party’s order, they have it out, and they don’t miss any sides or extra sauces.  

It’s all going by in a blur, except for the moments when Vi sprays her with the oil.  

She’s panting and barely able to stand.  Is she sweating through her eyes?  She has to wipe them so she can read the labels and not accidentally use cilantro instead of parsley.  

“Ice cube?” Vi asks, reaching into her melting cup of water.  

On any other day, it’s annoying when Vi throws ice cubes down her shirt, but now, she just nods.  With one expert throw, an ice cube lands in the valley of her breasts.  Quickly, it melts into warm water, and the momentary relief is gone.  

Three months ago, Caitlyn had a miniature refrigerator and an icebox in her room.  

Now, she’s practically begging for greasy line cooks to throw ice into her cleavage.  

Lux comes back into the kitchen and puts some dirty cups in a glass rack.  “Jinx says the reservations are done and we’re on a ten-minute wait.”

“Is there space to put the wait list down?” Caitlyn asks.  

“Sure, but can you guys handle that?”

Vi’s lower back is coated in sweat, but she’s still maneuvering seamlessly between the sauté station and the grill.  

Mylo has a few empty baskets on fry.  

Ekko has just finished putting out the desserts for the large party, and his screen is almost clear, save for a few salads.  

“Do it,” Caitlyn says.  

Lux washes her hands and then leaves to tell Jinx to seat everyone all at once, and Caitlyn prays she’s made the right choice.  

She ducks under the window and makes eye contact with Vi.  “Lux is going to seat the rest of the wait, and that’ll be the last of it.”

BEEP!

BEEP!

“Fuck, I’m out of ice cream,” Ekko mutters, leaving the line and heading for the walk-in.  

“Can you heat this up?” Poppy asks, handing Caitlyn a plate of pasta.  “They said it was cold.”

“How the—” she cuts herself off.  “Yes.  Vi!”

Vi takes the pasta and puts it in the microwave, slamming the door and setting a timer for two minutes.  

“Go get Jinx,” Caitlyn says, because who else is crazy enough to pretend to be a manager in this hot mess?

The last push of orders comes in all at once, and this time, it truly is a blur.  

The grill fills up with food once again, and Vi throws her cup on the line.  “Can I get an ice water?”

Caitlyn grabs the cup and walks—stumbles, really—to the soda fountain, where she fills Vi’s cup with ice.  She resists the urge to bury her head in the icebox.  

She tosses a few more ice cubes into her sports bra and gives Vi her drink.  “In the window,” she says weakly.  

“My hero,” Vi quips, taking a sip through the red straw.  “Oh, a lemon.  Fancy.  Is this how they do it in Piltover?”

She rolls her eyes and glances at the plates in front of her.  

Vi holds a shrimp skewer, and Caitlyn doesn’t need to be told to grab the salad from Ekko’s window.  

She holds it in the window as Vi uses her tongs to take the shrimp off the metal skewer.  The shellfish fall in a neat little row on the salad.  

Zeri takes the dishes out of the kitchen and into the dining room.  

Other than a few desserts and straggling appetizers, they’ve cleared the board.  

They did it.  

Caitlyn hunches over the window to support herself since her legs are so wobbly.  

Vi starts clapping her hands.  “Good job, boys!  Everyone okay?”

Ekko gives a thumbs-up.  

Mylo starts to say, “Actually-”

“You’re fine, Mylo,” Vi snaps.  

Her gray eyes meet Caitlyn’s, and for some reason, she’s incredibly self-conscious.  She surely has flyaways from her messy bun, her shirt is disheveled, and she’s probably covered in sweat.  At least she didn’t bother to put on makeup before her shift since she spent so much of her day crying under a blanket.  

Vi’s freckles seem to dance across her face until Caitlyn realizes that she doesn’t really have prominent freckles.  Those are spots.  Caitlyn is seeing spots.  

“Hey, you good?”

You’ve broken your father’s heart.

Caitlyn thinks she’s passed out on the cold, gross kitchen floor.  She wouldn’t be lying on this floor otherwise.  

There’s a shrimp tail in her line of sight.  She definitely will have to do laundry before her next shift, she thinks as she closes her eyes again.  

“Should I call an ambulance?”

“No, just call Jayce.”

Strong hands ease Caitlyn upright and against something cool.  

“Shit, stay with us, Cait!” says a strained voice.  

But her eyes are so heavy, and she doesn’t want to stay with everyone.  She wants to sleep in her soft bed at home—her actual home, not Jayce’s guest room—and cuddle with her dog and watch television without having to compromise with Viktor.  

“Easy, come on, Cait,” the voice says again.  “You can nap when you get home.  Just… eyes on me.”

Gray eyes meet hers, and, oh, it’s been so long since Caitlyn has been underneath another woman, felt soft skin against hers, lips against her own, and then-

You will not experiment under this roof, her mother reprimands her in her sleep.  

When she wakes again, she must be hallucinating.  She swears there’s a giraffe in the kitchen, and the tiles on the floor beneath her are coming up.  

“Should we take her to the walk-in?”

“Why don’t you just worry about your tables?”

“I can’t go back out there without food for 602!”

“Here.”  Vi comes into view, and a water bottle is pressed against Caitlyn’s mouth.  “It’s Liquid IV.  It’ll help.”

“You’re being nice to me.”

Calloused fingers brush wisps of hair from Caitlyn’s face.  “‘Course I am, Cupcake.  Hurry up and drink.”

“Tired,” she croaks.  

Those scarred lips smile, and Vi says, “I know.  Just drink this, and then you can go back to sleep.  You did good.”

***

Caitlyn just cut all of the servers at once so they could do their side work and leave.  She isn’t sure that she was supposed to do that, but Heimerdinger left at the conclusion of his documentary, and the restaurant was pretty empty when Caitlyn woke up from her impromptu nap, so she figured it would be okay for everyone to go home.  

Now, she stands outside, smoking her last cigarette.  She’d been so upset with Jayce for letting Viktor carpool with them last night, she forgot to ask Jayce to stop at the gas station.  

Caitlyn probably didn’t even have money for cigarettes.  Since she was in the window all night, she didn’t make any money from serving.  How could she, if she only served one table?  

Maybe she can borrow some money from Jayce and pay him back when the bank withdrawal goes through…

Who is she kidding?  Her mother has probably locked down her bank account.  Her withdrawal request will be denied, and she’ll have to come crawling back to the Kiramman Manor before she starves or gets so sick of living with Jayce that she kills him.  

More likely, she’ll strangle Viktor with the thong he keeps seeing her in.  It’s not her fault she didn’t pack enough underwear for a long-term stay! 

“Bye, Caitlyn!” Poppy says, giving a wave as she walks to her car.  “Thanks for helping with expo today!  I hope you feel better!”

“Thank you,” she says.  

“Oh!”  Poppy runs back to the curb.  “This is from your first table.”  She hands Caitlyn a few cogs.  

Five cogs.  It’s not enough for a pack of Marlboro Reds.  It’s not even enough for a cheap pack of cigarettes.  

“Are you okay?” Poppy asks.  

As much as she likes her friend, Caitlyn needs her to go away.  

“Yes, I’m fine,” she says.  “Just a little tired.  That’s all.”

“Makes sense,” Poppy says.  “Uh, Sevika’s checking everyone’s side work.  I hope that’s okay.”

“S’fine.”

“Also, Lux went home.  Jinx says she can handle everything.”

“Okay.”

Poppy shuffles, like she wants to say something more, but can’t quite come up with anything to say.  “Well, goodnight…”

“Goodnight.”

She gets into her car and drives away, which begs the question: How does a Yordle drive a car?  Are there special modifications that need to be made?  

Caitlyn makes a mental note to ask next time she sees Poppy.  

If there is even a next time.  She’s not sure how much longer she can hold out if the only thing stopping her from crawling back to her parents is her stubbornness.  

She finishes her cigarette and stands there for a moment, staring at but not really seeing the parking lot in front of her or the freeway just beyond.  The cars zip by, some going straight into the heart of Zaun, and others taking the exit towards Piltover.  

Caitlyn still has the route home memorized.  She could take that exit right now, make a left when she gets through the city gates, and then drive up the hill and to the end of the long driveway.  She could park, knock on the door, and tell her parents she’s still their little girl.  

But she isn’t, is she?  She’s something she can’t even say aloud.  

She needs to think about something else.  She’ll start crying if she can’t keep herself from thinking about how much she misses her parents, the tea her father has imported from Ionia, the way her dog leaves her favorite toys at the foot of the bed when Caitlyn’s sick…

And she’s crying outside of the Surf n’ Turf on a Sunday night, which is almost as pathetic as passing out inside the Surf n’ Turf on a Sunday night.  

The worst part isn’t even that she hallucinated her parents reminding her how disappointed they are in her lifestyle choices—it’s that she subsequently took comfort in hallucinating Vi taking care of her, which is so incredibly far-fetched.  Is Caitlyn so lonely that she would really imagine her bully in a romantic context?  

She sits down on the curb and buries her face between her knees.  At least she can’t pass out again like this.  

Someone clears their throat, and when Caitlyn looks up, a cellphone is thrust into her face.  

She squints; this man must have it set to the highest brightness.  

“DoorDash,” he mumbles.  

Of course, it’s DoorDash.  

“In the door that way,” she says, pointing.  

The man insists, “DoorDash.”

Can people not cry in peace anymore?  

She stands up, wipes her eyes, and tries to fix her disheveled t-shirt, pretending she doesn’t notice this man eyeing her breasts.  

She opens the door to the to-go station and finds the bag with the name on the driver’s phone: DR. REVECK.  Dr. Reveck apparently ordered nothing other than five sides of mashed potatoes.  The mashed potatoes at Surf n’ Turf aren’t even that good.  

The cartoon fish on the takeout bag smiles, taunting her.  It says something along the lines of, Haha!  Your parents don’t love you anymore because you kiss girls!

Caitlyn staples the bag shut because she doesn’t trust this DoorDash driver not to eat Dr. Reveck’s order, and if someone is going to be dealing with an angry customer later, it’ll likely be her.  She’s lost faith in Jayce coming back anytime soon.  

The man takes the brown paper bag and then says in broken English, “You are sad girl.”

The door barely closes behind the DoorDasher when Caitlyn sniffles, and the tears come back a second time.  He’s right.  She is sad girl!  And she can’t even cry outside because any unsuspecting DoorDashers can just come up to her and ask for their orders!

She just needs a few moments to herself, she thinks as she darts through the restaurant, hoping nobody sees her.  

The employee bathroom is locked—Mylo is probably smoking weed in there again, but Caitlyn isn’t the real manager, so that’s not her problem.  

“Hey,” says a gentle voice.  

Ekko.  

“These are extra,” he says, holding a cardboard basket of chicken tenders.  “I hope it’s not weird… Jayce told me you like these when you’re not feeling well.”

And by not feeling well, Jayce meant to tell Ekko having a major meltdown.  Chicken tenders aren’t her favorite food.  They’re what Jayce calls one of her safe foods, along with pretzels and microwavable SpongeBob macaroni and cheese.  

She wants to be frustrated with Jayce for exposing her like this and for letting Viktor use the shower before her, but it’s sweet that he thought of her.  

“Thank you,” she says, taking the chicken tenders from Ekko.  They’re still warm, and he put some ketchup and ranch in the basket with them, in separate plastic bullets so that the condiments don’t touch each other or the chicken.  

It’s perfect.  Now, all she needs is a place where she can pull herself together and eat the first real meal she’s had all day.  

The walk-in.  It’s believable.  She passed out tonight.  She just needs to go to the walk-in and cool off… and eat her chicken tenders.  And maybe cry a bit.  

She yanks the heavy door open.  It’s slow to close behind her as she walks past the produce and leans against a shelf of condiments.  

The chicken tender is the greatest thing she’s ever eaten in her life, she decides as the breading crumbles in her mouth.  

And shoot, she’s crying again at the thought of how nice it was for Jayce to think of her like this, and how kind it was of Ekko to force Mylo to fry extra chicken fingers, and then deliver them himself because he’s the line cook whom Caitlyn would be the most comfortable with in her vulnerable state—second to Claggor, of course, who took an Uber home a few hours ago.  

Somehow, the kindness from these people who barely know her is causing her to cry more than anything that’s happened to her in the past several hours.  She’s a Kiramman, born with a silver spoon in her mouth, which she’d taken for granted until a few months ago.  Now that she has nothing, it’s Jayce and these line cooks—not her parents—who’ve given her a roof over her head, chicken tenders when she’s hungry, an endless supply of ice cream for her wallowing, and a soft Rihanna tour t-shirt to sleep in.  

That nagging voice in her head says she needs to text Jayce immediately and thank him for thinking of her.  

But her parents cut off her phone plan, so she can’t contact him.  

Is this their plan?  Will they simply keep removing basic necessities until she admits she can’t live without them?

“Later, guys!” Jinx yells, her voice muffled through the thick walls of the walk-in.  “Last Drop later?  Or are we hitting up Jericho’s first?”

Caitlyn can’t hear the reply she gets.  

“Aww, c’mon!  Don’t let Monday ruin your Sunday!  We can go out when I’m done here!”

The refrigerator door opens, and Caitlyn jumps.  Jinx doesn’t usually have a reason to go to the walk-in, but now, she’s holding a bottle of cranberry juice.  

How obvious is it that Caitlyn is crying and eating chicken tenders right now?

Jinx sets the juice on a shelf and backs away slowly.  “Awkward…”

When the door closes again, Caitlyn sets her last chicken tender to the side and lets her hair down.  She’s starting to get one of those headaches she gets when she’s spent the better part of a day crying.  

She rakes her hands through her hair; her nails scratch her scalp in a way that almost hurts, yet it’s a grounding feeling.  She hasn’t gone numb yet, despite being in a freezer.  

If she screams in the walk-in, will anyone hear her?

If she screams, all of her problems will still be here afterward.  She’ll still have to listen to Jayce and Viktor having sex through the walls tonight.  She’ll still have to ask Jayce for rides everywhere.  The Enforcer Academy will still be a distant memory.  Vi will still find every excuse to pick on her.  

The door opens again, and Caitlyn tries to stay quiet.  

Vi’s hat is crooked on her head, but it looks like she can’t fix it because she’s holding a large tray of chicken cutlets.  

Please don’t notice me, Caitlyn thinks.  She can’t have her workplace bully see her like this.  That would give Vi enough material to last a lifetime.  

Vi pushes the metal tray onto a cart and adjusts her hat so it’s no longer sideways.  

“Oh, uh, hey,” she says, looking Caitlyn over.  

She gives Vi a tight-lipped smile.  What else can she do?

She can pray that Vi won’t say anything about her crying in a refrigerator, and she certainly does that.  

Vi snorts.  “Did you go to the refrigerator so you wouldn’t melt?”

“I did not!”

“I mean, you did sort of turn into a puddle back there…”

“I am not having a meltdown!” Caitlyn says.  She practically yells it.  

But it’s not true.  She had a meltdown this morning, and never got to properly recover because she had to come to work and make money so she could move out of Jayce’s apartment, but Viktor had an allergic reaction to shellfish, and Caitlyn didn’t make any money.  

Her meltdown never ended.  

Vi raises an eyebrow.  “I never said you were.”

“I’m fine.”

“You’re eating chicken tenders and crying in the walk-in,” Vi says.  

“Those aren’t mine.”

She crosses her arms.  

Caitlyn sighs and admits, “They’re mine.  I was hungry because I was saving your asses all night.”

“We didn’t ask you to.”

“You didn’t have to,” she says.  

“Looks like the walk-in is doing its job,” Vi snaps.  

“What’s that supposed to mean?” 

“You’re being a frosty bitch.” 

Caitlyn closes her eyes.  “Can you please just leave me alone?” she asks, her voice barely above a whisper.  

“Gladly,” Vi says.  “I liked you better when you were in a heap on the floor.  At least you weren’t so stubborn then.”

She pushes against the door with both hands.  

It doesn’t budge.  

“Shit,” says Vi.  

“What?”  

Vi bangs against the small window.  “Jinx!  This isn’t funny!”

Caitlyn wipes her tears away and gets up, squeezing past Vi.  

The door isn’t locked unless she sees for herself that it is.  

It doesn’t budge when she pushes against it, so she uses her shoulder instead of her arms.  

“Don’t hurt yourself, Frosty,” Vi says.  

“My name is Caitlyn.”

She ignores her and instead pulls out her phone.  “Fuck.”  She shows Caitlyn the black screen.  

Vi’s phone died.  

“Can you call Jayce?” she asks.  

“Won’t Jinx come and get us eventually?” Caitlyn asks.  

“Is that a chance you really want to take?”

It isn’t.  Jinx can be unpredictable.  

“Call Jayce,” Vi says again.  

“I… I can’t.”

“You can’t?  You do have a phone, don’t you?”

Caitlyn stammers, unable to find the words to explain her situation without completely trauma dumping.  

Vi rolls her eyes.  “It’s easy.  All you have to do is open your phone, click on the app with a picture of a phone, and then-”

“My parents cut me off, okay?”

Vi trails off.  “Oh.  So like-”

“I lost my phone plan this morning.”  She’s crying again.  “I snuck a girl into my bedroom a few months ago and they found out and-”  She hiccups.  “They kicked me out.”

Vi glances at the door like she wants to leave, and then slowly comes closer to Caitlyn.  

It’s funny; she can see the resemblance between Jinx and Vi in their mannerisms, but while Jinx wanted to get away from Caitlyn as soon as she could, Vi tries to get closer, whether that be with her teasing or right now.  

She pulls out a cardboard box filled with citrus and helps Caitlyn sit down.  “You’re having a panic attack,” Vi says.  She’s crouched down on her knees, looking up at Caitlyn.  “Just uh, take some deep breaths.”

Vi takes Caitlyn’s hand and presses her palm against her chest, which is still sort of sweaty from the heat.  “With me,” she says.  

“Sorry, I-”

“Shh, just focus on breathing,” she says.  

Her chest rises and falls beneath Caitlyn’s hand, and it feels almost normal.  Her heart isn’t a jackhammer trying to drill through her chest.  

You’ve broken your father’s heart.  

When her mother barged in and saw Caitlyn’s state of undress, the woman smoking a cigarette in her bed, she was scandalized.  Disgusted even, Caitlyn realized as her mother lowered her rifle.  

When her father heard the commotion, he was quick to rush in behind her mother.  

Caitlyn doesn’t believe that her lifestyle choices are truly wrong in either of her parents’ eyes.  They just don’t think they’re right for her, or rather, for their family.  

But what her mother said—You’ve broken your father’s heart.  

As she stood in the bedroom, holding a t-shirt that wasn’t hers in front of her breasts, she didn’t just lose her trust fund.  

She lost trips to the bakery after good test scores, father-daughter dances at charity galas…

Even though her father has only seen a glimpse of this side of her adult life, at the ripe age of twenty-three, Caitlyn is no longer his little girl.  

Back in the present, she gasps.  “I think I still have a table to close out in the system!”  And the tears begin to flow again.  

Vi chuckles and sits on the box of lemons next to her.  “We’re locked in a giant refrigerator, surrounded by raw fish, and you’re worried about that?”

She sniffles, and the floodgates open again.  “That table was the only money I’ve made tonight, and I just want to move out because Jayce keeps leaving the toilet seat up and Viktor is always at the apartment, and I want to go back to school and… and I get bullied by you every day when I go to work, but I can’t work anywhere else because I can’t get gas for my car, and… and…”

Vi lurches backward, offended.  “Who said I was bullying you?”

Caitlyn furrows her brows.  “You have been bullying me for the past three months.”

She gapes like the fish on the shelf.  “I… I do that to everyone!  You just give me better reactions than everyone else.”

“You enjoy harassing me in my place of work!”

“We’re just joking around!”

“You hate me!” Caitlyn says.  

“Hey!” Vi shouts.  “I happen to really like you!  You’re, uh, sweet!  And you stick up for people!”

“Are you serious right now?” she asks.  “You’re saying you throw chicken in my apron because you like me?”

“I mean, yeah?”  she sighs.  “Look, I think it was really cool of you to give up a good money night to help us out on expo.”

“‘Cool’ won’t help me move out of Jayce’s.”

Vi takes Caitlyn’s hand.  “I am so sorry you got kicked out.  I’m serious.  Was it because…”  She trails off.  

She nods.  “They found out that I’m… that I’m a…”  She takes a deep breath.  She’ll have to say it eventually.  “I’m a lesbian.”

Vi’s gray eyes are intense, yet sincere.  “I’ve always kind of taken things for granted…  My dad accepted me from the start; I never actually had to come out to him.”

She’s still crying, but she doesn’t feel panicked anymore.  “I miss my father so much.”

“I really hope you can work things out with your folks,” Vi says, “but in the meantime, I think you’ll like Zaun.  It’s a lot more accepting than Piltover.”

Caitlyn wonders if Vi realizes her thumb is rubbing circles into the junction between her thumb and index finger.  She should stop her in case it is just an absent-minded habit, but she doesn’t want to.  She hasn’t experienced physical touch in such a long time.  

And no, Jayce’s bear hugs that help her calm down during meltdowns don’t count.  

For starters, Caitlyn isn’t attracted to Jayce.  

Is she attracted to Vi?

Vi isn’t like the girls she’s snuck into her room after nights out.  Those girls showered her in compliments.  They told her how amazing they thought she was until the words didn’t mean anything anymore.  

You’re amazing.  

You’re so hot.  

Sexy.  

Vi doesn’t shower Caitlyn in gifts or compliments.  Vi throws chicken into her apron and calls her names.  

I’m not attracted to every woman I meet, she’d said to Jayce.  It’s true; she isn’t attracted to every woman she meets just because she prefers them over men.  

Yeah, Caitlyn realizes as Vi sits next to her on the cardboard box of lemons.  She’s close enough that their thighs are touching.  She is attracted to Vi.  

“Hey, if you ever need a break from Pretty Boy, you’re more than welcome to crash at mine,” Vi says. 

Caitlyn Kiramman is attracted to this line cook, and it doesn’t matter what her parents say because she has nothing to lose.  If she had something to lose, would she realize this?  These feelings?

“I didn’t think you liked me very much,” she protests again.  

Vi shrugged.  “Well, who do you think gave you Liquid IV and nursed you back to health when you passed out earlier?”

“That was real?” she asks.  

“Relax, it’s not like I gave you mouth-to-mouth.”

She sort of wishes Vi had given her mouth-to-mouth.  She has nice lips; they’re pink, but she doesn’t wear any makeup.  The asymmetry caused by her scar is fascinating.  Caitlyn has always prided herself on her decisiveness, but now, she’s not so sure what she wants.  Does she want to know how she got that scar, or does she want to know how it feels against her tongue?  

“Thank you,” Caitlyn says, “for taking care of me.”

“It’s no big deal.”  

“But it is,” she says, finally drawing herself to look at Vi.  They’re so close.  Caitlyn can reach her face from here, so she does.  She cradles her cheek in her hand, swiping her thumb across the VI tattoo.  

Vi’s expression softens beneath Caitlyn’s touch.  “I didn’t have any ulterior motives,” she says.  “Just trying to help out.”

Caitlyn leans in.  “I know.”

“You don’t have to do this,” Vi says.

“I want to.”

Vi leans in and presses her forehead against Caitlyn’s.  Her breath is warm against her lips in the cold refrigerator.  

When Caitlyn finally presses her lips against Vi’s, she half expects the kiss to be numb from the cold, but it’s not.  It’s warm.  

Vi pulls her bottom lip into her mouth and sucks, gently exchanging lips for teeth that remind Caitlyn she is not numb.  She has feelings running hot in her veins.  

Strong hands wrap around her waist and lift her onto Vi’s lap as they continue to kiss.  The red snapback Vi wears falls unceremoniously to the floor.  

Caitlyn has been so filled with shame over the past few months that she’d completely forgotten how exhilarating her sexuality could be.  

She straddles one of Vi’s strong legs and whimpers at the jolt of pleasure that fills her core.  Her heart races a million miles an hour as Vi’s cold fingers sneak under the hem of her work shirt, feeling the smooth skin of her back.  Her own fingers lock behind Vi’s neck, giving her leverage as she grinds forward against Vi’s thigh.  

Vi moans into her mouth, and then her hands find her hips, guiding her movements against her thigh.  “There you go,” she says.  “Take it, Caitlyn.”

And take it, she does.  It’s been so long since she’s had some kind of sexual release.  In the past three months, she hasn’t had the necessary privacy.  

“Fuck,” Vi says, holding her steady.  

She grinds harder, faster, chasing the high that’s just within reach.  

Her movements become sporadic as a whimper tears through her.  Despite the awkward angle, she leans down and connects her lips with Vi’s in a rough kiss.  

“Whoa!”

CRASH!

Vi lies flat against the floor beneath Caitlyn, and the cart of chicken cutlets she tried to lean them up against rolls into the wall.  

Caitlyn presses her thumb against her lip, and it comes back bloody from where Vi accidentally bit her someplace between the box of lemons and the floor.  

“I am… so sorry,” Vi says.  She lets her head fall back against the tile floor.  Her stomach rises and falls as she laughs.  Her voice echoes off the silver walls, and all too soon, Caitlyn remembers that this is a walk-in refrigerator, and they are surrounded by produce, meat, and other perishables.  

“This has to be some kind of health code violation,” Caitlyn says bluntly.  

Vi sits up.  “Sorry,” she says, sitting up and wiping some blood from Caitlyn’s chin.  “Got a little carried away there.”

If anyone became carried away, it was certainly Caitlyn.  What was she thinking, riding Vi’s thigh like a juvenile who’d just discovered alternative uses for her pillow?

She realizes she’s still straddling Vi and rushes to stand up.   “Sorry.”

“You’re sorry?” she asks.  “I bit your lip.”

“It’s fine,” she says, wrapping her arms around herself.  “I… enjoyed that.”

Vi raises a pierced eyebrow.  “The biting?”

Even in a giant refrigerator, Caitlyn feels her face heat up.  She wraps her arms around herself and looks at the floor.  

That’s not something she’s ever admitted to anyone before.  

“Are you cold?” Vi asks.  

“A little, I suppose.”

Vi sits down on the box of lemons again.  She must be freezing sitting there in nothing but her wife-beater tank top.  At least Caitlyn has a real shirt.  

“C’mere.”  She pats the space next to her.  

“Excuse me?”  Caitlyn isn’t exactly ready to try that again.  

Vi shrugs.  “We can cuddle.”

“But we’re all sweaty.”

She scoffs.  “Speak for yourself.  I don’t sweat.  I glisten.”

Caitlyn eyes the herbs to her left and then the desserts to her right.  There really isn’t anyplace else to sit down, unless she wants to camp out on the floor.  

So she takes a seat on the box next to Vi, who opens her arms in a wide embrace.  

It’s awkward, at first, contorting her body into a comfortable position in this small space.  Eventually, Vi takes over, yanking Caitlyn so she sits in between her legs, her back flush against Vi’s chest, and her legs hanging off the side of the box.  

“That okay?” she asks.  

She nods, except the motion must trigger something within her, because a shiver creeps down her spine, and her shoulder knocks against Vi.  

“Sorry,” she says quickly.  

“Alright,” Vi says.  “No more apologizing.”

She opens her mouth to speak again, but then shuts it after she realizes she was going to apologize again.  

Then, Caitlyn says, “I guess I’ve just got a little chill.  I’ll be missing it when we get back into the kitchen, though, I suppose.”

Vi frowns.  “I didn’t unplug anything before we got stuck in here.”

“How dead do you think the fries in the bowl are?”

“Oh, geez…  They must be like rubber by now.”  Perhaps unconsciously, Vi pulls her in closer, and she shivers again.  

“You know-”

“You don’t like silence, do you?” Caitlyn asks.  

Vi chuckles.  “I guess not.  I can stop if-”

“No!”  She turns her head so she can see her face.  “I want to hear what you have to say.”

Vi scratches the back of her head.  “Not to sound like a total perv, but we’ll warm up faster if we lose a couple of layers.”

“Is this an excuse to get me naked?” Caitlyn teases.  

“Actually, I think Jinx read about it in a book, so it’s gotta be legit.”

“What book?”

“Uh, Twilight.  The vampire doesn’t have any body heat, so the werewolf cuddles with his girlfriend.”

“How do you know I’m not a vampire?” she asks.  

Vi swipes her thumb across Caitlyn’s bottom lip, swollen from the kissing and the biting.  “I think we’ve already tested that theory.”

She thinks it over.  She is quite cold, and if they can’t contact Jayce for help, he can’t contact them either, although she likes to think he’s tried.  

Even if they did get in touch, who knows what kind of condition Viktor is in?  Jayce can’t leave Viktor alone, especially because he’s so stubborn.  

“Okay,” Caitlyn says.  

“Okay?”

She reaches for the hem of her shirt and tugs it over her head.  

“Oh!” Vi says, obviously surprised.  “Okay!”

Caitlyn barely has time to realize what she’s done, barely has a moment to feel self-conscious over how the cold has caused her nipples to harden and protrude through her bra, when suddenly, Vi’s white tank top is over her head and slung over the shelf behind her.  

Vi’s hard nipples are also visible through her sports bra.  “Are you checking me out?” she asks.  

Caitlyn leans forward into the embrace this time, wrapping one arm around her neck and placing her other palm on Vi’s stomach.  She tells herself it’s because this is where she is most warm, but she secretly enjoys the feeling of Vi’s abs.  

“You smell nice,” Vi says.  

“Really?” Caitlyn asks.  “It’s nothing but drugstore deodorant.”

She gasps.  “Drugstore deodorant?   But aren’t you afraid someone will think you’re one of us commoners?”

“Shut up!”  

“Make me.”

It’s a tacky line.  It’s genuinely among the worst and most cliché flirty lines Caitlyn has ever heard.  She didn’t even realize that people actually say that outside of the lesbian romance novels she used to hide behind her school textbooks.  

But she takes the bait, much less because she wants Vi to stop talking and more so because she simply wants an excuse to kiss her again.  

Their lips work against each other, and this time, they do feel a little numb from the cold.  

“I think the kissing was warming us up,” Vi murmurs.  

“Then don’t stop.”  She buries her face in Vi’s neck and sucks on the skin, still a little salty from sweat.  She presses her tongue against her throat and hates how much she loves the taste.  

She palms the muscles on Vi’s back that expand and contract beneath her fingers.   

Is Caitlyn going to get off in this walk-in refrigerator?

Three months ago, she got off in the comfort of her own bed, surrounded by silk sheets and afraid to make so much as a whimper in case her parents would discover the company she kept.  

Now, she’s palming a line cook from Zaun’s breasts, surrounded by chicken cutlets and pre-portioned broccoli.  

Maybe it’s the freedom she has to do this without repercussions, or maybe it’s the company, but Caitlyn already knows she prefers this over any of her previous encounters.  

She kisses Vi once, twice more, and then pulls back, and she can’t keep from smiling.  

Vi smiles back, although hers is closer to a smirk.  Her nose and cheeks are red from the cold.  She glances up at the ceiling and then behind her.  

“What are you doing?” Caitlyn asks.  

“There’s no cameras in here,” she says.  Her fingers fiddle with the hem of Caitlyn’s sports bra.  “Can I take this off?”

It’s a terrible idea.  

Breathlessly, she says, “Yes,” and Vi pulls the bra over her head, setting it on a neat pile with their shirts.  

Caitlyn hisses at the contact of Vi’s cold hands against her bare skin, but quickly, the discomfort subsides as calloused fingers knead the supple flesh.  

“I like these,” Vi mutters, pinching her nipples.  

She gasps and then melts into the touch.  “Vi…”

One hand keeps a firm grip on her breast while the other grazes her back and slips beneath the waistband of her work pants.  

“Are you wearing a thong to work?” Vi asks.  

“I have four pairs of underwear right now,” Caitlyn manages to say, “not including the harness to my… Oh!”  She gasps when Vi’s hand grips her ass.  

Vi smirks.  “Have you been wearing a strap-on harness as underwear?  You packed that, but not enough underwear to last a week?”

Her cheeks flush.  “Perhaps.”

Vi’s hand loops around the front, right near where Caitlyn needs her the most, and she bucks her hips involuntarily.  “Please…”

Vi kisses her once more and pushes her thong to the side before pressing her thumb onto her clit.  

Caitlyn hisses and grabs her wrist, yanking it out of her pants.  “No.  No.”

“No?”

“Cold.”

“Ah,” Vi says.  “Didn’t think of that.”

“Neither did I.”  And it really is unfortunate because the prospect of having sex in the walk-in quickly went from unappealing and gross to positively sexy.  

“I mean, you can come over tonight,” Vi says, “if we ever get out of here.”

She reaches behind Vi for her bra.  She’s happy to cuddle topless, but she’d like there to be at least one layer between her and whoever finds her and Vi eventually.  

“What time is it?” Caitlyn asks, tugging her sports bra back on.  

Vi shrugs.  “We might be waiting for the prep guys to find us in the morning.”

She cuddles into Vi’s chest again, lacing her arms behind her and pulling her close for warmth.  Her heartbeat is steady against Caitlyn’s face.  

“I might close my eyes for a bit if that’s alright.”

“Not a bad idea,” Vi says.  She presses a kiss to the top of her hair.  “Goodnight.”

***

“Does someone want to tell me what the hell is going on here?”

Caitlyn cracks her eye open.  Jayce stands at the entrance to the walk-in refrigerator, his hands on his hips and his eyebrow raised.  He looks amused, which is somehow worse than if he looked upset.  

She sits up, fully gaining consciousness.  The peach fuzz on her arm stands up now that she’s no longer entangled in Vi’s embrace.  She’s cold.  The dangerously hot climate almost sounds nice, which is odd to think because she passed out in that heat tonight.  

Vi stretches her arms above her head.  “It’s about time you showed up.”

“It is one in the morning,” Viktor says, looking at his watch.

“Oh, hey, how are you feeling, man?” Vi asks.

Caitlyn’s table.  

She needs to close it out.  

“Excuse me.”  She pushes herself off the box of lemons, trying to ignore the aches in her back and her leg from sleeping in such an awkward position, and she runs out into the dining room.  

She punches her number into the touchscreen.  

CAITLYN KIRAMMAN NOT CLOCKED IN.  

“Shoot,” she says.  “I have to close out this table.”

“I did the numbers from home when I was taking care of Viktor,” Jayce says. “I closed it out for you.”

“Thanks,” she says, although she’s a little disappointed there isn’t a record of how long she was trapped in the walk-in.  

Jayce sighs and tosses Caitlyn her shirt.  “Can you maybe try not to flash Viktor?  I’m asking for twenty-four hours.  If you can go twenty-four hours without flashing him, I will literally…  What do you want?”

“Stop leaving the toilet seat up.”  She puts her shirt back on and buttons the top buttons.  

“I will stop leaving the toilet seat up if you stop flashing Viktor,” Jayce says.  He puts his arm around Caitlyn and leads her back to the kitchen.  

“Wait, I still have to do my closing stuff-”

“I’ve got it,” Vi says.  She’s fully dressed, and her red snapback is in its rightful place on her head.  “My phone is charged enough to play music now anyway.”

The old speaker rattles as that stupid Foreigner song plays.  You’re as cold as ice!

Jayce smiles.  “Thanks, Vi!  C’mon, Sprout, it’s hot in here.”

Caitlyn waves goodbye.  

“I’ll text you, Cupcake,” says Vi.  

Her eyebrows furrow.  Cupcake?

And as she gets in the backseat of Jayce’s car and pushes his fast food wrappers onto the floor, she remembers Vi’s words from the other day: If you were sweet, I’d call you Cupcake.

She looks into her lap and smiles.  Could this be her first girlfriend?  Flings, she’s had.  She’s done the one-night stand thing more times than she cares to admit, but a girlfriend?

She glances out the back window, hoping to catch a glimpse of Vi through the Surf n’ Turf window.  She’s never felt giddy over another woman like this before.  

“So,” Jayce says, “you wanna share with the class why you were topless in the walk-in with a line cook you supposedly hate?”

Caitlyn says, “We were trapped.  Jinx locked us in.”

“Oh, that… That’s not cool.”

She sees Viktor raise an eyebrow in the rear-view mirror.  “You do know there is a panic button, no?”

“What?”

“Just in case you are trapped.  When you push the button, it calls the police.  You did know about this, correct?  It is very important to me that you know about this.”

“I…”  She trails off.  Did Vi know about the panic button?  

“Seriously, though,” Jayce says.  “Are you okay, Sprout?  I know it was a pretty rough day.”

Caitlyn nods.  Three months ago, she was numb in all of her relationships, afraid to fall in love because of her parents’ expectations.  

Now, she’s in the backseat, staring at her phone like some lovesick teenager, waiting for a text from a girl she happens to really like.  

“Yes,” she says.  “Yes, I think I’m quite alright.”