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Carmy doesn’t seem any more... cheerful than he always did, but he does seem more at peace. He takes his time coming up with new recipes now and doesn’t expect the staff to know French or learn the techniques it took him a decade to master, in 5 minutes. He takes time out for himself. No one quite knows what he does with that time or why he stays back so long after everyone else has left, but everyone is almost 67% sure that he’s not doing drugs so it’s all fine.
Things have changed, and definitely for the better.
However, something remains unsaid. Everyone feels it- Tina, Ebra, Marcus, and perhaps even Sydney when she’s not busy coming up yet some more new ideas that no one quite knows how to implement. They all feel it in their guts, but no one addresses it.
So, Richie does. As usual, it’s him who has to bite the bullet and risk the tenuous string of understanding, if not friendship, that they formed between them. Lord knows he doesn't want to fuck it all over again, but neither is he going to keep walking on eggshells.
“Are you just relaxed because the new restaurant’s not open yet?” Richie finally asks one evening after most of the staff has already left. Richie cannot be the last one here with Carmy so he keeps an eye out for Manny doing the dishes. Richie could tell him it’s pointless and Carmy’s going to clean every inch of this place all over anyway, but he knows he cannot be here alone with Carmy so he hopes Manny isn’t paying any attention to them and that he takes at least ten more minutes to get finished on the dishes. He assumes this conversation won’t take that long. It’s Carmy after all.
“Are you going to lose your mind all over again when the customer rush starts?” he repeats.
Carmy’s performing some insane stunt of trying to balance some herbs on a piece of extremely lopsided bread. It's at an insane 70° incline from the base. Richie has failed his fair share of classes but he knows what Carmy is attempting is gravitationally impossible.
“For God’s sake, why don’t you just keep the fucking loaf normally?” he ventures to stick out a finger and topple the bread on its side so that it lands square on its tummy. “There. It’s flat. Now you can load it up with whatever the fuck you want.”
To be honest, a part of Richie was honestly expecting Carmy to implode the moment Richie’s fingers touched the dish he had been working on for hours, but he doesn’t seem too bothered. Just mildly puzzled.
Richie can’t help but snort at his reaction. “What? Your genius brain didn’t figure the bread could just be flat?”
Carmy frowned. “No. No, I did not.”
“Why?” Richie asks rather blankly. “What part of this required rocket science?”
“Because that’s not how he…” Carmy stops just as soon as he has begun. “Huh.” Some immense realization seemed to have dawned on him. He prodded the horizontal bit of bread experimentally and repeated a much more joyous "Huh!"
The sound of several steel bowls being set (read: slammed) down at once distracts the both of them into snapping their heads up.
“I’m done for the day, Chef,” Manny informs curtly before heading over to the lockers. He doesn’t ask if he should wait to lock up. He knows Carmy is always the last person to leave. He hasn’t bothered waiting around in months.
Carmy simply nods and goes back to staring at the bread like Richie has performed some strange piece of magic on it. The cut-up herbs lie forgotten on the side.
Richie clears up his throat a bit and begins again. If Carmy doesn’t want to answer him in the next five minutes, he’s bailing.
“So, is this zen mode a permanent thing or-”
Carmy cuts him off immediately, and the strangest part is that he looks up right into Richie’s eyes while doing it. “I could have placed that bread horizontally.”
“Yes?” Richie agrees, feeling as lost as he always has around Carmy. There’s a reason why they never hung out together. Among other more pressing reasons, of course…
Carmy shakes his head at him. “You’re not getting it. The bread could always just have been horizontal.”
“What the fuck are you getting at, cousin?” Richie snaps finally.
Carmen’s already huge eyes widened further (if those sky-blue eyes didn’t also come with a headful of blonde curls, Richie’s sure Carmen’s entire face would just have been… eyes.)
“No, no. Look at this, Richie,” he pointed at the bread with a newfound determination, “He was bullshitting. About everything. Acted like the world would end if I couldn’t create the perfect angle with… That… that asshole, son of a bitch, no-good filthy piece of pretentious-”
“Whoa there,” Richie immediately advances to hold the back of Carmy’s neck in an iron grip. He doesn’t know if this will work but it did last time, so… “This is what I’m talking about, Carmy! You aren’t even breathing right. What’s happening right now?”
Carmy’s breathing doesn’t improve drastically but the fact that he has stopped ranting gives him an opportunity to focus on the normal motions of breathing in and breathing out. Richie waits for a few seconds before he decides he’s held on to Carmy for long enough.
But the moment he starts loosening his grasp, Carmy protests, “Hold it there. Hold me.”
It’s safe to say Richie has never been more out of his own element and he’s regretting every second of not hightailing it out of this place before Manny but he keeps holding on to the back of Carmy’s neck.
“It helps me relax,” Carmy explains after a while.
“What? Being held like a chicken?”
Carmy frowns for a second before giving in to a smile that’s breaking across his face, “No. No one holds a chicken like this.”
“Yeah, they do,” Richie counters, “You know when they cut off its-”
“Shut up for a second, if you don’t want me to kiss you again, Richie.”
Richie's jaw clicks shut.
“I didn’t mean to-”
“Yeah, you did,” Carmy shrugs. “You can stop lying now. Mikey’s not around to beat you up.”
Richie stays silent. But he has to say it eventually, “I shouldn’t have. You were a kid and…”
“And you were a slightly older kid. And you had a crush on me. And you kissed me,” Carmy points out in his usual clinical tone as if nothing about that was extraordinary, “And I kissed you back. And you treated me like shit later. Or better yet, as if I was invisible and you could walk right through me.”
“Mikey would have-”
Carmy moves a step forward. “Mikey would've stopped noticing after a week or so. He noticed you as little as he noticed me. You just wanted to be a better friend to him than you wanted to be anything to me. And that’s fine. You can call it a mistake now but don’t act like you didn’t mean to make that mistake for years.”
Richie can’t do much but lower his head and nod somewhat timidly.
“You meant it,” Carmy raises Richie's face by his chin and repeats in a firmer voice than before. "You meant it."
And Richie suddenly understands what he wants from him.
“I meant it, Chef,” the words sound so extremely strange coming from Richie’s mouth, Carmy breaks finally and lets out an actual chuckle.
“I never thought it was a mistake,” Richie mutters the moment Carmy backs down as inch. He would never believe a man who's a head shorter than him could actually loom over him had Carmy not finished doing so a second ago. Richie clears his throat and begins again. He has to get this out. Now.
“It’s just that… You’re not gonna stand there and pretend like I ever had a chance with you, right, Carmy? I was Richie good-for-nothing Jerimovich and you were… the youngest princess of the Bell Tower.” Richie realises he has put his foot in his mouth the second the last few words are uttered but Carmy fortunately stops him before he can dig his grave further.
“I failed History more times than I can remember," Carmy frowns, "But isn’t the Bell Tower where people got their heads chopped off?”
Richie shrugs helplessly and gets back to the topic at hand, “I shouldn’t have said that, I know. Shit. But you get where I am coming from, right? We never had a chance, Carmy! Did you see how your mother treated me? And Sugar? She looked at me like I was worse than a piece of gum stuck under her shoe! She still does!”
Carmy tilted his head to look at Richie a bit queerly. “What were you trying to do? Get with all the Berzatto women?”
Richie rolls his eyes and huffs. “Yes, what I wouldn’t do for those frost-nosed beauties.”
“Technically, you didn’t do anything for me besides kissing me and running away for your life either,” Carmy pointed out. “It’s not… complicated for you now?”
Carmy doesn't bother explaining or elaborating any further. Richie doesn't ask either. Thankfully, the answer to this has always been quite simple. “Not any more complicated than it always was. You’re still Cooke County culinary royalty and I can barely make fries.”
“You can’t really make fries,” Carmy sighs as he turns back to the dish which has long gone cold (Or maybe it’s meant to be eaten cold? Richie has no idea), “But I like seeing you doing stuff in the kitchen."
"Yeah, you really go out of your way to show your appreciation," Richie snorts.
Carmy makes a half-hearted attempt at rolling his eyes and says, “I’d even go as far as to say your fries are better than what that asshole in New York could whip up.”
“First, you eat stuff off the floor. Also, ex-boyfriend?” Richie has to ask.
“Ex-boss,” Carmy corrects.
“But you fucked, right?” Richie prods further.
“Right.”
“Yeah, you don’t hate anyone quite that viscerally unless there’s… that, involved.”
Carmy turns away and shoves the dish towards Richie. “Here. Eat it.”
“What’s this supposed to be?”
“It’s a kind of dried fish that is-”
“No.”
“Can you just try-”
“No. And if this is your ex-boyfriend’s specialty, fuck no,” Richie states the obvious, “And don’t you dare put it on the new menu.”
Carmy considers it for a minute and shrugged before picking up the dish and heading towards the backdoor. He looks over his shoulder briefly and instructs, “Richie, bring the rest of the fish, will you?”
“You can’t dump it in the trash,” Richie gapes as he picks up the packaging and tries to read the fine print, “It probably expensive as fuck!”
“Not dropping it in the trash,” Richie hears Carmy respond from a distance and follows. He spots Carmy kneeling beside the trashcan in a rather bizarre stance.
“Are you-” puking? Richie wants to ask. But doesn’t because he has no idea what Carmy is doing at the moment, but he doesn’t seem to be heaving either.
“Waiting for the cats to come around,” Carmy answered, still crouching beside the bin. "I usually have to wait around for a bit."
“You allow them near the restaurant?” Richie asks, completely stumped.
"Yes," Carmy replies nonchalantly.
"Near the storeroom?"
"Storeroom's airtight."
“Mikey would never-”
Carmy looks over sharply. “Mikey doesn’t run this place anymore, Richie. I do.”
A faint purr is heard around the corner. Richie waits for a minute before following the sound into the darkness.