Romantic Novel 8: A Romance with My Crush by Noor Azur
- Noor Azur
- 5 days ago
- 5 min read
WARNING: If you can't handle professional stress and a boss who throws $300 plates... this story is not for you.
My name is Vera Ellison, and my life has been a little complicated since I met him.
From the moment I met him, I felt the need to document our daily encounters, and that's how my obsession with diaries, planners, lists, and checklists was born.
Over time, they became my therapy, my hobby. It's my way of venting and documenting my life.
I have hundreds of notebooks, journals, and planners filled with memories: Polaroid photos, coffee receipts, dried leaves, phrases I hear, my daily life, song lyrics, and him. Well, not anymore; not so much anymore.
Now I vent to a device with a life of its own, to which I tell my daily dilemmas with this man, because yes, now we are coworkers.
He's the insufferable, painfully attractive chef: Yan Thatcher. And I'm the assistant operations manager.
He's a genius, a tyrant... and my unrequited teenage crush.
And the problem isn't that I like it.
The problem is that I already liked it and I didn't get anything out of it.
Are you ready to find out what happens when the man who ignored you for years asks you for help?
This isn't a story about a naive girl waiting to be chosen. It's the story of a woman with a bit of ambition and a clear goal: to become the new Customer Experience Manager at the most prestigious restaurant in the city.
Do you want to find out if I succeed?
Hint: It involves whiskey, a broken glass, and a moment on the office carpet... which wasn't in the plan.
Prologue
VERA
I walk into this restaurant knowing exactly what I want.
Customer Experience Manager.
It's not a whim. It's a goal. I've been working in a friend of my mother's café since I was fourteen, and later in bars and restaurants, always in contact with customers. I deal with very difficult customers.
I know how to read tables. I know how to anticipate problems. I know how to turn a bad experience into a story the customer tells as if it were magic.
But TAME is in a different league.
Here, a single dish costs what I earned in a month when I started. At least eight hundred dollars for a ten-course dinner where everything has to be perfect. It's the kind of place where the experience isn't a bonus; the product is.
TAME has been on my list for three years.
I remember the day my friend Lidia came to my house and showed me the job opening for an operations assistant at TAME; she knows how much I want to work there. I jumped out of my chair and said, "This has to be mine."
I hear her voice behind me: "That position is suicide, you're going to fall behind. You have a better position where you work now." I turn around as if I can't believe what I'm hearing: "This is my dream job, Lidia. It's my gateway and I'm not going to let it slip away."
I rush to my room to prepare my resume, and five days later, I get a call from Human Resources. I jump around like crazy on the bed, the sofa, and all over Lidia; she shakes her head, saying, "I don't understand your strategy. Why do you want to work there?" All I know is that I want it, and I'm one step away from getting it.
On the day of the interview, things don't go as I rehearsed.
They review my resume with that expression I know all too well: "You're overqualified." They tell me the available position isn't Customer Experience Manager, but Operations Assistant. One step down. Quite a step down. It's internal, administrative, logistical work, almost invisible, zero glamour, no direct contact with customers.
My voice doesn't tremble when I answer. I rehearse this speech twenty times:
"I understand this position doesn't reflect my experience, but it does reflect something I value most right now: the kind of company you are. I study your trajectory, your expansion, the profiles of your chefs, and how you build teams. It's not common to see restaurants of this caliber that invest in internal growth. I want to be a part of it. I know what I can contribute today, and I also know how far I can go. I just need you to give me the opportunity to join."
I think my rehearsed speech worked, because a week later I was walking into the TAME offices.
I arrive at my apartment and the door is kicked shut.
I throw my heels down; one hits the sofa and the other ends up I don't know where. I don't give a damn.
I unbutton my blouse as I walk, throw my jacket on the floor, and am left in my underwear before I reach the kitchen. I'm exhausted. Yan drives me crazy.
I open the fridge, grab the water, and gulp it down, feeling the cold go down my throat. I smash the empty bottle and release the air I've been holding all day.
"Alexa!" I roar, my voice thick with rage. "Another fucking shitty day with that chef! What the hell is wrong with him?"
I kill myself planning the kitchen logistics. I argue with suppliers to make sure the product arrives perfectly, I organize the chefs' schedules so the kitchen doesn't explode, I keep the supply orders under control... and nothing works. Nothing helps! Mr. Yan arrives with his damn bad temper and ruins everything in a second.
She decides she wants a different haircut now. That she's changed her mind. That she doesn't like that supplier anymore. That the schedule needs to be reworked because working with that team isn't working for her.
I tense up.
—Do you know what that means? To go back. To call. To reorganize. To force schedules. All because he woke up in a bad mood today.
I exhale sharply.
—The worst part is that when something is delayed, when something doesn't add up, the focus falls on me.
I clench my jaw.
—It doesn't bother me that he's demanding. It bothers me that he's inconsistent.
He's driving his team to the brink of a nervous breakdown. Nobody knows what's wrong with him, but the atmosphere at TAME has been a minefield for months now. That man isn't going to interfere with my goal. No matter how many dishes he breaks. No matter how grumpy he is. I'm going to get where I want to go. I'm going to become TAME's next Customer Experience Manager. It's on my list of resolutions for 2023, 2024, and 2025. And the things I put on that list, I accomplish.
—I won't fail. I won't leave. I won't give in.
Alexa, take a break. I'm going to jump in the shower and boil myself in hot water to forget these last few weeks. As I walk down the hall, I raise my arms to the sky, thanking technology; I'm a romantic who still loves diaries and paper, but right now only a synthetic voice can handle my bad mood.
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Story written by Noor Azur 💖
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